I heard what he was saying. I would put everyone in danger if I returned home. Not just myself. Heartsick, I let the hope of going home anytime soon crumble to ash.
Helori shifted his hand from my arm to the base of my throat, touching the sigil carved there.
I drew back. “Don’t. Don’t touch them.”
He kept his hand extended toward the sigil. “You must look,” he urged. “You must know.”
I stiffened. “I’ve seen them.”
“You will not even glance at them now.” His eyes darkened with concern. “They are a part of you. You need to know them.”
“I know them, I promise,” I said, voice cracking. “I remember every agonizing instant that went into the making of them. Every day, for the rest of my life, I get to have the reminder of how stupid and gullible I was.”
He shifted to crouch beside me, looking every inch the syraza even though he was in human form. “You can use them to remind you of that, or you can use them to remind you, every moment of every day, of how strong you are to have thrived despite the motherfucker’s best efforts to destroy you.” He cocked his head, dropped his eyes to the scars that showed above the neckline of my shirt. “I look at them and see tenacity and strength. You need to know what Rhyzkahl put on you, not just that he put them on.”
I scrubbed at my face. “I look back at my time with him and see all the hints and clues that I should’ve picked up on.”
“When you first realized his intentions, what did you feel?” Helori asked quietly.
My lower lip quivered despite all efforts to maintain control. “I was…I don’t know. I was disappointed.” I scowled. “That was my main feeling. So fucking disappointed that he turned out to be such a…” Shaking, I took a deep breath and screamed it: “FUCKING DICK!”
Searing anger rose, near startling me with how foreign the sensation seemed after being so long immersed in panic and fear. I’d been ready to direct the anger at myself, yet now I knew that wouldn’t do me any good. I was the goddamn victim.
“Were he standing here right now,” Helori said, “what would you do?”
I swiped at my eyes, not surprised to find that I was crying. “I sure as hell wouldn’t scream anything. Not even a choice name.” I took a deep breath. “I won’t scream for him anymore. I’ve screamed too much for him already.” My gaze drifted to a flock of iridescent green sea birds swooping and diving into the water. Last time I’d seen a flock wheeling, I’d been in the gazebo at Rhyzkahl’s. “I hate him. He’s less than scum.” Then I smiled very slightly as I returned my attention to Helori. “But if he was standing right here, I might very well kick him really hard in the goddamn balls.”
A whisper of a smile touched his face.
I drew a deep breath and then blew it out. “Mzatal healed my body,” I continued. “Nothing hurts anymore.” I toyed with a patch of sand that had made its way onto the blanket, drew random patterns in it while I spoke. “The problem with healing my body of the injuries is that my mind feels like it should be healed as well.” I paused. “It’s not. It’s just as stretched and twisted and shattered as my shoulders were. I can be a real tenacious bitch.” I shook my head, gulped. “But this…. It’s like I’m barely holding onto myself.”
“Yes. I know,” Helori said. “It is why I proposed this time away for you. It is why we are here—to help you regain that hold.”
“You proposed it?” I gave him a puzzled look.
“Mzatal was exhausted and truly confounded about how to expediently work with the loss of yourself.” He gave me a gentle smile. “I offered this as a possible means.”
“Thanks,” I said softly. “I didn’t even know you before this.”
“As I said, once you summoned Rhyzkahl single-handedly, you became known among the syraza,” he said, then chuckled low. “And now you are getting to know something of me, though that can be a blessing and a curse.”
I laughed weakly. “I’m infamous. Great.”
My gaze returned to the gull-things. I could do this now. I had to do this now. Hands shaking and heart pounding, I shifted to kneel. I grabbed my shirt before I could panic and change my mind, then practically ripped it and my bra off and threw them aside. Breathing shallowly, I knelt half-nude before him.
Helori traced a sigil in the air above us. I flinched before realizing it was just the damn pygah, then scowled at my reaction.
“Be gentle on yourself,” he murmured. “As he was not.” He traced three more sigils around the pygah and set it spinning slowly above us.
“I made it this far, didn’t I?” I replied, though my voice quavered. The resonance of the pygah combined with the other sigils to form an almost palpable cocoon of calm. Slowly, I unclenched my hands, though I still wasn’t ready to look at the pygah or myself yet.
He took gentle hold of my left wrist, straightened my arm, and held it nearly straight out from my shoulder, so that I didn’t have to look down to see the scar where the mark used to be. “Look first here,” he said. “The first evidence of your betrayal.”
Ghostly echoes of the essence agony shimmered through me as I forced my eyes to the long, rippled scar. Sweat stung my armpits. “The fucker,” I whispered.
“He knew when he placed the mark that he meant to use you,” he told me. “Though the way you were used shifted from the original intent.”
My gaze rose to him. “Shifted? What do you mean?”
Helori lowered my arm. “You were initially slated to be used to retrieve Vsuhl, and then to die in a ritual to create a permanent gate to Earth,” he said. “Your value changed once Rhyzkahl became aware of your grove affinity.” He stroked a thumb lightly over the scar on my forearm, then looked back up to my face. “That affinity made you far more valuable and useful, and thus they chose to make you a thrall, so you could be a long-term tool for their use. You would have been powerful, utterly compliant, and obliviously content.”
I’d heard some of this from Rhyzkahl during the ritual, but here, away from the torment, it abruptly clicked into place. “That son of a bitch,” I breathed. I’d never been able to understand why Amkir had treated me with such open hostility from the moment I met him, nor why Rhyzkahl had left me and not intervened in the altercation sooner. It was a test, I realized. Those assholes had set me up. I’d told Rhyzkahl about using the grove power on Mzatal, and they wanted to see if I could do it again.
My anger rose, and I let it keep going, let it burn away at the panic and fear. I scowled up at the pygah, tempted to bat it away. I didn’t want to be calm right now. I dropped my gaze back to Helori. “Tell me about these sigils.”
“United, they are a key to the potency of this world,” he said while dissipating the pygah. “The ritual was not completed, and so this purpose was thwarted.”
I listened carefully, jaw tight. “Why twelve?”
“The twelfth is the unifier, but the ritual failed before it was ignited.”
“So, a sigil for each lord?” I asked.
“Yes, one for each, plus the unifier,” he said, watching me closely.
“Tell me,” I said, holding my anger close to me like armor. “Tell me about each one.”
Helori shifted forward, touched the sigil over my sternum and part of my breasts—the first that Rhyzkahl had carved. “This one represents Mzatal, laid as an anchoring presence for the rest.”
That surprised me. “Why? Is Mzatal stronger than the others?”
“He is the oldest,” Helori stated. “And has proven to be a stabilizer for all of them.”
I pointed to the sigil that spread across my upper chest, above Mzatal’s. “He made this one next.”
“Rhyzkahl,” he said and placed a hand over it while I exhaled a shaking breath.
His hands traveled over my body while he traced the sigils and murmured the names. There was nothing sexual about his touch. It held only ease and recognition.
“Jesral,” he said, touching the one on my lower abdomen that wound up and over
the lowest part of my breasts. My lip curled at the name.
“He knew,” I said, hatred flaring. “He walked me to the ritual.”
“He would have shared mastery over you upon completion,” Helori stated.
“Mastery.” I tasted the word. “Fuck him. Fuck them all.”
He nodded agreement, shifted his hand to lay it fully over a convoluted and uneven sigil on my right side. “Kadir.”
A shiver raced over me. “Bad Monkey.”
“Bad Monkey. Yes,” Helori agreed. “Very Bad Monkey.”
I gave a small smile. He understood perfectly.
He shifted around me, naming more, then touched the one on the lowest part of my back, a sigil that dove to my tailbone. “Amkir.”
I snorted. “He’s an asshole,” I said. “Appropriate that he should be close to mine.”
Helori chuckled softly. “Yes, he is. Definitively.”
I exhaled as Helori placed his hand on the only one he had yet to name—the sigil that began at the nape of my neck, flowed over much of my upper back, and coalesced in a focal spiral between my shoulder blades. I’d never seen it, but I remembered fully every slice of Rhyzkahl’s blade across my skin. “Szerain,” I murmured. One of the few I don’t despise, I thought, but then frowned. I only knew Ryan. I didn’t know Szerain. There was every chance I could despise him as well.
“The last, here,” he said, touching my lower back. “The sigil was completed, but not ignited. Idris and Mzatal disrupted the ritual to assure it was not.”
I turned to look at him. “Could it still be?” I asked, speaking my fear.
He shook his head. “The unifying sigil carries its own potency, as does each of the others. But they are not united and cannot be simply through ignition of this last one, now.”
“What does it mean for me, that I bear these?” I asked.
“You are unique,” he said. “I do not know the full implications.”
I fell silent while I struggled to put everything into some sort of order that made sense. My anger slipped away, and I let it go. I couldn’t hold it indefinitely. It felt as if some of the panic went with it, though I knew I still had a lot more to deal with. I reached for my bra and shirt and pulled them back on, then sighed and lay back on the blanket.
Well, I definitely learned one new thing while I was with Rhyzkahl, I thought, as I watched puffy clouds drift across the too-blue sky. I was totally wrong in thinking that demonic lords don’t lie. What else was I completely wrong about? What other misconceptions would come back to bite me in the ass?
Helori set the pygah to slowly spin above me, then left me alone to brood and ponder.
Chapter 22
Apparently I brooded and pondered so hard I fell asleep. Or perhaps Helori added something to the pygah. Either way, when I woke it was morning, with the sun in glorious display over the water. I could get used to starting my days like this, I decided, though preferably without the whole recovering-from-torture bit.
Helori had put a blanket over me and tucked a pillow under my head. When I sat up I saw that he’d also left a mug of juice and an assortment of fruits and nuts on the blanket for me.
He was out in the water, gamboling in the surf with the unabashed enthusiasm of a five-year-old. I ate and drank a bit, then pulled my clothing off, ran down to the water naked, and dove into the waves.
I swam for a while, reveling in the simple feel of the pull of my muscles against the resistance of the water and the rhythm of the waves. After what was probably half an hour, I came out of the water and took refuge in the shade to prevent the appearance of Red Kara. A few minutes later Helori plopped down onto the blanket beside me.
“I met Turek,” I said as I tugged my shirt and pants back on. “The savik at Szerain’s palace.”
He smiled. “Yes, you did.”
“He was clearly incredibly intelligent, with a strong ability in the arcane.” I frowned. “So, why the hell are savik considered only second-level? And, for that matter, why are syraza only eleventh? Y’all totally kick ass and take names as far as the arcane goes.”
Helori grinned. “Because, the summoner Isabel Blackburn made a note to herself as a numbered list in the margin of a text in 1212 Earth time. In 1352, it was discovered and became set in stone. I don’t even know what she was referencing with the list.”
I blinked, then laughed. “Holy shitballs, that’s hysterical,” I said. “I’d always been taught that the order of demons meant something as far as ability and power.” I laughed again. It felt really good.
Helori joined me in the laughter. “I know! That would mean a savik is less powerful than a kehza!”
“I never met a savik as large as Turek,” I said, still astonished. “The only ones I’d ever summoned, or heard of, were about a third the size.”
Helori reached elsewhere and then set a handful of small cakes before me. “The ones summoned are immature,” he explained as I nibbled one of the cakes experimentally. In texture, it reminded me of cornbread stuffed with savory shredded meat, but the crust part tasted more like buttery bacon than corn. Mmmm, bacon.
“Once mature,” he continued, “they tend to strike their names and claim a new one, which they do not divulge for summoners. They are reclusive and solitary during that stage, and mostly discounted because they do not interact. They are, however, highly skilled with the arcane.”
“I am shockingly ignorant of the creatures I summon,” I said, grimacing. “Why are you lot called demons anyway?”
“The English designation evolved from various forms of the name for the Elders, demahnk,” he explained. “In Latin it was daemonium, in Greek daimónion, referencing a thing of divine nature.” He gave a light shrug. “For some, that twisted into evil nature or evil spirit.”
That made sense. I took a deep breath. “So, what’s on the agenda for today, Doctor Hel?”
He appeared to consider. “There are many places to visit, each with its own unique gifts.” But then he smiled. “However, I know the first place I want to take you.” He extended his hand to me, and I took it without hesitation.
A heartbeat later we were in a crystal cave—crystalline walls, huge crystal points, and prismatic light that seemed to originate from inside the crystal rather than reflecting light from outside. At first it was hard to be there. As soon as we arrived, every cell of my body vibrated—or at least, that’s what it felt like. I wanted to take time to look around, do the whole “gaze in wonder” thing, but Helori tugged me forward, leading me through tunnels and broad passages and over narrow crystalline bridges, before finally stopping before a pool that shimmered with subtle hints of all colors.
“She is in stasis yet,” Helori said with a gesture toward the depths of the pool. “But she is aware you are here.”
Perplexed, I looked down into the pool. It wasn’t filled with water, but instead seemed to be brimming with, well, liquid light was the only description I could come up with, as though all the reflections and colors from the crystals coalesced into a beautiful fluid. And there, a few feet down, was Eilahn, curled into a cute little ball with her knees tucked to her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs and her wings folded like a case around her. In all the time I’d been in the demon realm, I’d never wanted a camera more than at that moment. Because this was some awesome blackmail material.
Smiling, I gave Helori’s hand a squeeze. “Thanks.”
He returned the squeeze. “And now we visit some of my favorite places.”
Helori had strange taste in favorite places, I decided. Our first stop was mud. That was it: mud as far as the eye could see. We immediately sank neck-deep in it, achieving some sort of neutral buoyancy, and then remained there for what seemed like hours while I received the best massage of my life from some I-really-really-didn’t-want-to-know sort of creatures within the mud.
After that, a waterfall straight out of a shampoo commercial, then to watch a pair of breeding luhnk—which was strange and bizarre only because th
e female resembled a six-legged mammoth in size and shape, and the male was closer to the size of a German Shepherd. After that, we visited the lower branches of a massive tree with a trunk at least thirty feet in diameter.
Helori draped himself over a branch as thick as his waist, and I did likewise a couple of feet away. He pointed toward the ground, and I looked to see a teeming mass of carnivorous ants as big as terriers tearing into a cow-like thing twice the size of an elephant.
As I watched the industry of the giant ants, I found myself grinning; somehow I didn’t think Mzatal would approve of me being in such a potentially perilous position after he’d spent so much energy and effort to retrieve me. My gaze slid to Helori. He wouldn’t let me be in any true danger. I knew that, deep in my essence.
“What’s going to happen to me after we return to Mzatal’s palace?” I asked.
“Mzatal will train you,” he replied, “though I do not know what terms of agreement he would set.”
I mentally recoiled. “I don’t want to be marked,” I said firmly. “I can’t—won’t—do that again.”
“He would not propose marking you now,” Helori reassured me. “It is a lengthy process, and in any case, Katashi currently bears his mark, and having a second is inadvisable. He will, without doubt, require an agreement.”
My brow furrowed. “Idris said something about that. What’s the difference?”
“An agreement is a short term arrangement—perhaps a few months to a few years—with specific terms negotiated,” Helori said. “Marking is long-term, usually lifelong.”
I gave a slow nod. “Okay. I’ll think about that.” I had yet to fully wrap my head around the notion that Mzatal wasn’t my enemy—at least, not at the moment. The idea of willingly working with him still seemed incredibly foreign. I peered at Helori. “Do you trust Mzatal?”
“Do I trust him to always make choices I agree with? No.” Helori said. “Do I trust him to speak the truth to me and follow through on what he says to the best of his ability? Yes.”
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