Legacy of the Demon (Kara Gillian 8)

On the far side of the nexus, Rhyzkahl paced a short arc, eyes trained on Mzatal, and jaw set in anger.

With the deadly grace of a lion, Mzatal stood and drew his essence blade, Khatur, from a sheath at his side.

Worry punched through me. I’d never known him to carry Khatur in a sheath. He’d always sent it away to whatever dimensional pocket of space-time the essence blades went when not in use. Had he become so dependent upon the knife that he wouldn’t let it out of his sight?

He turned toward me. Eyes locked on mine, he drew the blade across his left palm. An unwholesome hiss of satisfaction whispered through my mind like the breath of an alien wind: the nightmarish sentiments of Khatur. My uneasiness spiraled higher.

Mzatal flicked his hand, spattering blood onto the nexus. It sizzled when it struck the black surface, and a white hot glow raced through the delicate silver tracings.

My sigil.

Heat blossomed in my head like reverse brain freeze. I grabbed the porch railing to keep from losing my balance.

The glow on the nexus crept outward as Mzatal continued to bleed. Warmth spread from the top of my head through my neck and into my chest. Beyond Mzatal’s aura of power, I felt him, felt his intensity. Pulse thrumming, I crossed the grass to the outer edge of Rhyzkahl’s prison.

Rhyzkahl strode toward me. “What is he doing?” he asked, voice edged with frustration.

“He’ll tell you if he wants you to know,” I said archly. I wasn’t about to admit I had the same question. Rhyzkahl growled and turned his back on me.

Blood disappeared from the surface of the knife as if sucked into the metal. Mzatal sheathed Khatur and held up his left hand. A different essence blade coalesced against his palm, and cold slid through me. Xhan.

Rhyzkahl staggered as if struck, naked shock flashing over his face before he regained composure. Xhan was Rhyzkahl’s blade. The one he’d used to carve the sigils into my flesh. He’d lost the knife at the plantation battle after Zakaar severed their bond. I’d last seen it when Jesral picked it up—or tried to, and had been forced to wrap it in a cloth. I wasn’t at all surprised that Mzatal took it from Jesral, yet I’d never in a million years expected him to actually wield it. And, clearly, neither had Rhyzkahl. He stepped to the inner boundary of his prison, eyes on his blade and hands fisted white at his sides.

Thorns burst from Xhan’s hilt, writhing as they sought to entrap Mzatal’s fingers. Sweat broke on his brow, and I felt the depth of his battle of wills with the knife. Mouth tight as if steeling himself, Mzatal set the knife against his bleeding palm and closed his fingers around it. Blood hissed and sizzled on the blade as he slowly drew it from his fist. He held it at arm’s length, his body taut and teeth bared while his free hand dripped blood onto the nexus.

Xhan’s voice whispered in my head. You are mine. You are mine.

“No,” I breathed. “What the ever living fuck is he doing?!”

Rhyzkahl’s attention remained riveted on Mzatal and Xhan. “He is not strong enough,” he murmured. “The fool will doom us all.”

I shot Rhyzkahl a scathing look then crossed to the nexus. Warding shimmered around the perimeter, but my experience and instinct told me none of it targeted me. I stepped onto the stone then staggered, throwing my arms wide for balance as potency unlike anything I’d ever felt seared through my bones and threatened to rip me apart cell by cell.

Drawing demigod-like power and focus from the nexus, I centered and stabilized. I was still in one piece, but I needed to adapt to the frequency if I wanted to stay that way. As soon as I felt balanced, I moved behind Mzatal and wrapped my arms around him. He tensed as I made contact but didn’t hesitate to tap into the support. We’d worked as one more times than I could count, and even though we no longer had an open connection, I knew him and he knew me.

He drew a deep breath, and I felt him intensify his efforts to subdue the blade. I joined the battle, using all of my nexus-derived ability to concentrate on beating Xhan into submission. My scars flared with burning pain, real and remembered. I clung to the sensation, used it as focal point to overpower the very knife that had carved the sigils.

Treacherous. Traitor. The words slammed through me like a scream. Vile oppressor.

Teeth clenched, I willed the blade to shut the fuck up and settle.

As each drop of Mzatal’s blood struck the nexus, potency pounded from my feet to my head. Mzatal entwined his aura with mine, and our power increased tenfold. Unintelligible words screamed through me as Mzatal wrested control from the blade and sent it away. Arcane silence filled the void it had left. Mzatal shook from the effort, his breath labored. Sweat soaked his shirt, and mine as well where I embraced him, but I didn’t care.

Rhyzkahl looked on with an expression of grudging awe tinged with envy.

I held my beloved for a few heartbeats longer, then reluctantly released him and stepped back. I’d intruded upon his self-imposed isolation for long enough, though I didn’t regret a single second of it.

Mzatal lifted his bloodied hand high and tightened it into a fist. When he opened it again, the wicked slice was healed. In a fluid motion, he turned to me, stripped off his sweaty shirt and cast it aside.

I stared at his chest, where a new, intricately beautiful pattern of raised scars formed a sigil, much like the ones that covered my torso. Yet while my sigil scars represented each of the eleven demonic lords, the sigil over his heart was mine. My sigil. Tears spilled over as I lifted my eyes and found his gaze upon me, if only for a heartbeat.

When he began to dance the shikvihr ritual, tracing and igniting the sigils of the first ring with fluid grace, I danced my own right along with him. We moved in harmony, each creating our own shikvihr. Trace, ignite. Trace, ignite.

Ring after ring of sigils flowed from us until we reached my skill limit at the culmination of the seventh. Without missing a beat, Mzatal ignited my shikvihr before continuing on with his. Joy and power and exhilaration surged through me as he danced the eighth ring around me. I stood motionless, adapting to the energies.

Mzatal completed the eleventh sigil of the eleventh ring and ignited his shikvihr. We stood at the center of a vortex of potency like nothing I’d ever felt before. The full power of Mzatal. The full power of me.

But he wasn’t finished.