Fury of the Demon (Kara Gillian 6)

y sternum, much the same as when Jesral attacked me earlier. An instant later, it diffused and Mzatal’s sigil crawled with fire. I sucked in a gasping breath. “They’re waking up.” I swallowed hard. “Not good. Last phase.” In through the nose, out through the mouth. Kara.

Szerain squeezed his eyes shut. “Zakaar,” he breathed. He needed Zakaar, needed his support. I now saw that the breaking of the ptarl bond had shaken Szerain as deeply as the other lords, and was made even worse by Zack’s absence.

“No!” I put every bit of power I could into the word. “Zakaar can’t be here,” I snapped out. “It’s only us four, and it won’t even be me much longer if you don’t pull yourself together.” I leaned closer. “Szerain! Right here. Right now. I need you.”

His eyes flew open, the uncertainty of a moment before replaced by fixed intensity. In a slow, deliberate move, he laid his fingers on my sternum where the invisible arcane fire crept upward. “Mzatal,” he pronounced. The first to be carved by Rhyzkahl, the sigil sucked away the heat then writhed like ice beneath my skin. A wave of vertigo hit me, and I swayed, yet Bryce’s firm grip on my arm kept me upright. A soft buzzing drone set my teeth on edge, as though a dozen voices hummed out of tune.

Szerain slid his hand up to rest beneath my collar bone. “Rhyzkahl.” Then to my side. “Kadir.”

With each name, ice twisted beneath his fingers, and the hum grew clearer as though a voice found a harmonious note. Mzatal. Rhyzkahl. Kadir. The exact order Rhyzkahl had carved their symbols into my flesh.

Heart pounding, I seized Szerain’s wrist. “You’re activating the series. Why?”

Bryce shifted his grip on my arm. A quick glance at him revealed a shimmer of doubt in his eyes, though his face revealed nothing. Eilahn stopped tracing sigils and stood, watching us intently.

Szerain twisted from my grasp. “Rhyzkahl began the process when he struck you with the virus,” he told me, almost growling the words. “Jesral completed it when he drew the rakkuhr to your chest earlier. Now the series activates, as was Rhyzkahl’s intent, and I can’t stop it. But I can complete the circuit before the virus does.” He leaned closer, face intense. “Kara, I don’t have a backup plan.”

I took that in. “You complete it, and then what?”

“I keep you from losing yourself.” He said it with calm assurance, but the droplet of sweat that slid down his cheek betrayed his tension.

A feather touch of heat brushed my chest through the ice, and the hum wavered—Rhyzkahl’s activation breaking through while we stood debating.

“Do it,” I said quickly, pulse slamming. If I thought about it any longer I’d lose my nerve. And myself.

Szerain touched his hand to my belly. “Jesral.” Ice answered him, and the hum steadied. He moved around me. “Seretis.” One by one he activated the sigils.

“Vahl.”

“Vrizaar.”

“Rayst.”

“Elofir.”

With each, the harmony steadied and the cold fire increased, like ice encapsulating the heat of rakkuhr. His hand rested on my tailbone. “Amkir,” he said with particular vehemence.

Only one sigil remained. A single note of the hum whined out of harmony like an insane mosquito. The horrible icy ache penetrated to my bones. Szerain laid his hand flat against the sigil on my upper back, and I closed my eyes, braced myself for the next level.

I felt a tremble go through him, yet he said nothing.

“Szerain.” I named the sigil for him, my voice tight and hoarse. “Szerain.”

A sob choked from him. “Szerain,” he echoed. The searing ice receded, leaving only phantom echoes. The hum shifted to soft harmonious tones, eerily familiar.

He slid his hand to the small of my back, rested it on the twelfth sigil—the one meant to unite the other eleven, but never ignited. The scar blossomed with heat under Szerain’s hand, and I jerked in shock. I’d never felt anything in that sigil. The tones cut off and the world abruptly dipped and swayed. Only Bryce’s hold on my arm kept me from falling.

“What’s going on? Szerain?” Blood pounded in my ears. “What did you do? That’s never been anything but a scar!”

He drew his fingers over the sigil in swirling patterns laced with fire. “Kara, it has never been a mere scar. A scar can be resolved to unblemished skin.”

Mouth dry, I fought to balance the rising apprehension with my trust of him, of Ryan. “What are you doing to it?”

“I am using it to stop what Rhyzkahl started,” he told me. “Now I need Vsuhl.”

Numb shock seeped through me. “No, Szerain,” I said, voice shaky. “I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can. And you will.” He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me back against him. “I have activated the unifier. I need Vsuhl. Without it, I can’t finish what I’ve begun, and the sigil is nothing more than a detonator.” He spoke close to my ear, confident, uncompromising. “When the virus reaches it, you don’t lose yourself—you die. I need Vsuhl. Now.”