But both his arms were armored in black chitin that reflected the constant blasts of fire and electricity. Cruel black blades jutted from the elbows of the cauldrons, the fingers of his hands extending into vicious claws. Shadow wrapped around him like a slinking, malevolent wreathe, and jagged horns ford a strange, oversized crown around his head. He floated in the air, several feet above the ground.
Ephira and Ralakos saw him simultaneously and stopped short.
Ralakos looked terrified.
The arch-fiend looked in my direction and I ducked down behind a boulder on the outskirts of the battlefield, invisibility be damned. I felt his eyes, searching, scalding, like the heat of a lun searchlight.
The heat dissipated. And I peeked up over the rock just in ti to see the creature move. His hand barely left his side.
Ephira fell, clutching her neck, throat slit with a crimson gash.
Ralakos tried to cover her, but the archfiend pushed him back. Every ti Ralakos tried to form a spell, the fiend moved his left hand with a dark glow, and Ralakoss spell fizzled out.
Ralakos pulled his sword and imbued it with a glowing white light. The fiend didnt try to cancel it, just watched with muted interest, like a predator observing trapped prey.
My hand squeezed on the hilt of my sword. Id coated it in rose oil beforehand, but I knew from my experience with Kastramoth that demon-fire would do next to nothing for in this situation. I had my alchemical flash powder and molten smoke, but Ralakos was surrounded by a legion of demons. They werent waiting politely, either. Every ti he would drift too close to the edge of the circle, they would swipe at him.
There was nothing I could do.
Ralakos dove at the arch-fiend, sword swinging in impossibly fast patterns only to be slapped out of the air. He landed on his side, and the arch-fiends hand glowed blue, forcing Ralakos into a kneeling position.
Take him. The arch-fiends voice was loud enough that I felt it resonate in my lower back, a vibrating fire that shuddered down my spine and through my sciatic nerves.
Through the terrifying fog, I had enough conscious thought left to realize the discrepancy.
They were taking Ralakos captive. Why?
Logically, it had to be him. All other possibilities had been slaughtered. Ephira was close to Ralakos in skill, if not stronger. So, why take him?
The arch-fiends head snapped over towards . I dove to the ground and swore when I realized I could see my hands.
The invisibility had worn off. In a shaking, sweating panic, I pulled the teleportation scroll from my side and unrolled it, pouring mana into the rune. It must have taken only seconds to fill, but each one ticked by agonizingly slowly.
I felt that spotlight heat on the back of my neck again.
Slowly, I looked up. The arch-fiend was watching wordlessly, floating above the rock.
Dont make chase you.
My entire body vibrated with the sound. For a mont, I almost considered it. It was over. But then I rembered what Nethtari had said about demons and royal blood. Sohow, I didnt think they would just let die. The random Greater Demon that killed the first ti in the enclave likely did so on instinct.
This one was different.
There would be other things in store for .
I finished channeling. There was a snapping whoosh and I felt my body being flattened and pulled all at the sa ti. For a mont, the arch-fiends face disappeared, and I was pulled into a shimring blue light.
Then, from below, I felt pain. A monstrous black hand had reached through the distortion and grabbed my ankle. It yanked backward, and it felt like the skin over my entire body might tear itself loose from my muscles and deglove.
I hit the ground, a whimpering, shivering ss. I was back behind the sa boulder as before. The scroll had failed.
Two demons hauled up by my arms. They cackled and giggled like sadistic children. The arch-fiend looked on, impassive, as they dragged away.
I told you not to run. The arch-fiends eyes bored into .
----
I hung upside down from a chain, slowly swaying from side to side. The chamber was sowhere under-ground. For now, the agony had receded into the cold, cool, annals of shock. Droplets of blood trickled down the back of my neck through my hair, dripping steadily onto the floor.
I had thought that I no longer feared death. That painwhile horrible and never sothing I could ignorecould eventually be shrugged off. After I died, the pain would go away. It was rational. What had happened with Kastramoth happened because everything was still so new. I wasnt used to it yet.
I was wrong.
I think, its probably better to leave so of the details sparse. Id rather not relive them, any more than you want to hear them. But I cant just omit what happened to completely. So much of that night has stayed with , even after everything else.
The sound a ligant makes when it is severed.
How the open air feels on the uncovered nail-bed of a finger.
The tal scrape of pliers on teeth.
How it feels to breathe when you no longer have a nose.
The unbearable pressure of a thumb on an eye, and the squelching sound it makes as it ruptures.
The sound of my voice, begging for it to stop, only I dont rember speaking the words, only hearing them.
I was reminded that no matter how many tis, tens, or hundreds of tis I told soone that I had lived more than one lifethat was why my soul was strange, why sothing about was offthat they would never rember, and take the lapse in mory as silence.
And eventually, I learned to identify that strange peeling sensation as the mind disconnects from the body and watches, as soone you dont know is brutalized by soone who doesnt matter, watched by another soone whose na you cannot recall.
You have to rember, Cairn.
I blinked. Sunlight stread down between the trees.
Startled, I tried to sit up. Soft hands pushed down. Lillians chocolate brown eyes stared down at through a canopy of mussed hair.
It was one of the fields we frequented for picnics, far from the castle, about a mile from the Everwood proper. It was Auburnswell, likely the first few weeks, as the leaves had faded to burnt orange but had not yet begun to fall.
Im dreaming. I said.
Maybe you are, maybe you arent. Does it really matter? Her voice was music. I looked down at myself. The skin on my left arm was intact. My fingers were whole and uncrushed. Over a distant hill, the distinct trill of a pine warbler echoed across the clearing.
What matters is, you have to rember. Lillian insisted. Her fingers danced across my forehead.
Rember what?
The na of the arch-demon.
As soon as the words arch-demon were spoken my head began to ache. I looped an arm over my forehead, grimacing. Im trying.
I know you are. Lillian said. My dear, sweet, forgetful Cairn.
Im not the forgetful one here, I groused at her. Miss apothecary-who-never-rembers-what-her-ingredients-are-called.
True. Ive forgotten the na of a plant or two
Or two. I chuckled at the understatent.
But you, my darling, are much worse. You have forgotten more than most people have lived.
I tried to sit up and look at her. What does that an?
Lillian stayed silent. Her dress had slipped down her left shoulder, revealing a mass of freckles that speckled her collarbone. It was a familiar sight, one that had once filled with longing and invited my lips.
But now that feeling had dulled to mild throb.
I looked away, into the forest, sadness building in my chest.
Do not feel guilty my love. Lillian hugged my arm to her chest, planting tender kisses down my shoulder.
How can I not? I whispered.
Look at . She took my chin in her hand and tilted my head towards her. You will always be my Tristan. And I will be here for you, if you need . That will never change. But I am no longer your Eloise.
I wanted to deny it. But it was true. My mind had been so full of magic, and languages, and demons, that I had not thought of Lillian in months.
If I rember, I asked, my voice catching, Do I have to go back?
Yes.
Can I just stay with you here, instead?
You can.
But youre saying I shouldnt.
Yes.
I laid back on the blanket, staring up at the cloudless sky. Slowly, I breathed in the mana, letting it fill , the chaos of my mind fading into serenity.
His na is Ozra.
I snapped back into the underground chamber the second the na left my lips. Everything hurt. I tried to scream, but a bloody, bubbly hack ca out instead. I continued drawing the mana, trying to clear my mind and only partially succeeding. With my remaining eye, I panned the room.
There was a table with bloody implents to my right.
Theyd tied my wrists together with ropes, as they were two swollen for manacles.
Imdiately, I tried to summon the spark, but it fizzled out.
After what felt like hours, I managed to free a hand
The door creaked open and I began to whimper. A small body was tossed through, legs and feet bound.
A demon stepped through the doorwayit was one of shadowy greater demons, the sa sort that had killed the first ti. She pulled the hood off the infernals head.
Guess who ca looking for you. The demon whispered.
Only then did I see his face.
Jorra was hyperventilating. His eyes were dyed an excruciating pink, and trails of snot dripped down from his nose onto his chin.
Jorra. I said. It ca out more like Jooaaa.
Jorra started weeping, his eyes glistening in the dim light. Cairn? Cairn! Please. Please. Tell you have a plan. Cairn theyre going to kill if you dont tell them what they want to know.
I froze. He was bound, I was bound. My gaze went to the tools on the plate.
Ki. Thh Staa.
Kick the stand.
What? Jorra asked, his eyes wide, Oh my god. Oh, gods. What did they do to you? Cairn, your face
I repeated it again, and this ti he got it.
With a bit of rolling a maneuvering, he could kick it an inch or two towards . Though my whole body scread, I began to shift my weight from side to side, swinging the chain, arm outstretched desperately. The thumb and index finger on my hand were both still good, so itd be less of a grab, more of a pinch.
I heard the demons voice outside. She was talking to soone, their voices carrying a low, mirthful tone.
tal clinked beneath my fingertips. I was aiming for a saw, anything to cut through my binds but ca up with the short, sharp blade of a scalpel instead.
I swore, and started trying awkwardly to cut through the rope that held my other hand, the blade biting into repeatedly as I sawed. Slowly, the hope drained out of Jorras face.
He saw it before I did. We werent getting out of this.
I heard the clink of keys outside the door.
There was only one way I could help Jorra now.
Clo yoh eyes.
Close your eyes.
It comforted that he listened.
No one saw cut my own throat.
It took two tries.
The first ti I pulled back right before the vein. The second ti the blade struck true and warm red gushed down my throat, past where my nose used to be, into my eyes and splattered in a torrent onto the floor.
I heard Jorra cry out before the world went black.
Again.
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