Eilahn railed at him in demon, screamed kiraknikahl, oathbreaker, over and over along with a few other words. In my peripheral vision, Bryce cursed and struggled against the bonds, jaw clenched and eyes riveted on me.
Vsuhl coalesced against my palm, whispered. Rakkuhrheat crawled up my chest and down to my side, igniting Kadir’s sigil. Szerain had no reason to save me once he had what he wanted, I realized, hating the feel of him against my back. With grim resolution, I connected to Vsuhl, feltit and wondered what an essence blade would do buried in the heart of a lord.
Teeth bared, I shifted my grip on the hilt, slammed my foot onto Szerain’s instep, and twisted in his unwelcome embrace. “Take it, chekkunden!”
Vsuhl sang as it bit into him, low on his side, but Szerain caught my wrist and wrenched it hard. I lost my grip on the hilt, and the world tipped crazily as Vsuhl tumbled to the ground.
With a harsh cry, Szerain wrapped his hand in my hair and threw me face down on the grass. Air whooshed from my lungs as he planted his knee over my shoulder blades. As he reached and claimed Vsuhl his aura smothered me, subtly powerful, covert, and tinged with chaos.
Breathing heavily, Szerain spoke in demon, the cadence like an invocation. I struggled for air, scrabbled for purchase in the grass to throw him off. A line of thin fire lashed through the twelfth sigil. Vsuhl, drawing my blood, tasting me. Three more swift cuts, and then Szerain shifted to straddle my thighs and pressed both hands against the small of my back.
I sucked in a desperate breath, felt the flare of the restructured sigil.
“ Vdat koh akiri qaztehl,” he pronounced with precise clarity while I struggled vainly beneath him.
The rakkuhranswered him like a dog called by a beloved master. Where it had crawled through the first three sigils, it now raced across my body, igniting one after another. It paused at my upper back, in Szerain’s sigil, coalesced in a fiery mass of red heat, then dove down my spine to the twelfth beneath his hands.
Silence like the void engulfed us.
Szerain stroked my back, trailed his fingers over the sigil and wove the rakkuhrwith disturbingly familiar ease. Into the silence he spoke a word that made all else pale.
“Rowan.”
“No!” I screamed. “Szerain! What have you done?” My foundation tilted, and I again found myself on a glassy plain with nothing between me and oblivion. “I can’t hold on!” I cried out in horror as I began an inexorable slide into the void. “I’m Kara!” I’m . . . Kara?
Eilahn let out an inhuman shriek and dove at the barrier, crashed against it. Bryce fought the arcane bonds, shouted my name.
Szerain moved off of me, gripped me by the arm, and dragged me to my feet. He shifted his grasp to the hair at the back of my head, leaned close, his face a hard mask.
“No,” he snarled. “You are Rowan.”
The name ripped through me like a mass of spinning razor blades, severing me from my Self. I mentally clawed for stability, but this time there was nothing— nothing—to cling to. My Selffell away until it was little more than a tiny, distant pinprick of light in the void.
As if through a fog, I saw Bryce jerk against the bindings. “You fixthis!” he shouted at Szerain. “I swear to god, if you don’t, I’ll fucking kill you!”
Doubtful, little man, I thought as the fog cleared. The identity of whom the prisoner spoke slipped away like sand through my fingers, unimportant.
Szerain released my head and stepped back, his always-keen eyes on me. A slice in his dark t-shirt revealed a hint of skin and faintly luminous blood.
I rolled my head on my shoulders, looked down at my body, at the glorious scars given to me by my lord Rhyzkahl. I ran my hands over my face, my throat, my breasts, mybody, then raised my eyes to Szerain in triumph. I watched his features shift into fuller lips and higher cheekbones as he embraced the reconnection with Vsuhl. Yes. This was the Szerain I knew so well.
He drew a deeper breath, lowered his head slightly to regard me. Behind me, the bound captive cursed. That one would be a choice prize for Lord Kadir or Lord Amkir.
“Szerain,” I said, smiling calmly as I inclined my head. A greeting of sorts, I supposed.
“Rowan,” he replied.
My smile widened. “You know me.”
“I called you,” he said mildly as he took a half-step closer, blade down at his side. “And yes, I do know you. Very well. You should not be here.”
“But youcalled me here.” Amused, I swept my gaze around before returning it to him. “And this place will serve as well as any other.” I let out a low laugh. “Better than any other. I have this.” I gestured to the mini-nexus below us. Ah, yes, my lord Rhyzkahl would be most pleased to have control of a converged confluence on Earth.
Szerain’s grip shifted on the blade. Nervous? Satisfaction coiled through me. He should be.I’d have Vsuhl back from his diminished grasp soon enough, ready to hand over to Lord Jesral in triumph. Another few minutes of integration and my metamorphosis would be complete, my power beyond the imagination of any mere summoner.
“ Youdo not have anything, Rowan,” Szerain stated. “You are owned.” A sneer touched his mouth, though his eyes remained hard upon me, assessing. “Nothing but a tool.”
I lifted my hands, looked at them, then looked beyond them to Szerain. I frowned. Why did that bother me? I was the tool of gods.In the void, a pinprick of light flickered distractingly.
“Aren’t we all?” I asked him, lips curving into a smile.
“Some more than others,” the lord replied, low and resonant.
I fixed my gaze on the repulsive ring, on the cracked stone. Unworthy of one such as I. My lord Rhyzkahl would offer me true treasures, not the dross given by a lesser qaztahl. I slipped the ring from my finger, held it up before me. Delicious potency answered my call, flowed easily to me from the nexus. I focused it on the gem, delighted in the discordant vibration that rose within it. A heartbeat later it shattered in a magnificent shower of crimson sparks. “And I revel in the knowledge that I am owned by my lord Rhyzkahl.”
“No,” Szerain said through clenched teeth, stepped closer. “You, Rowan, are owned by me.”
I let the ring with its empty, twisted prongs drop to the grass, swung my gaze to him. “In that, Lord Szerain, you are mistaken—”
—The syraza shrieked and dashed herself against the barrier. The prisoner shouted a word, a name, hername—
—as Szerain buried the blade in my chest.
I managed one brief gurgled gasp before white hot agony seared through me. I vaguely heard the captive yelling, cursing as he fought against the bonds of potency that restrained him. The syraza too screamed in rage, clawing at the arcane shield as I clutched at Szerain’s hand and arm.
Blood filled my mouth, and I pulled my eyes up to Szerain’s. His mouth twisted in a merciless snarl, one hand locked in the hair at the back of my head as he twisted the blade, shoved it sideways. My knees buckled, but Szerain’s hold on the blade and my hair kept me upright. I coughed, and blood spilled over my chest and his hand.
His eyes remained hot and intense upon mine, and once again he twisted the blade. Agony ripped through my entire body, as if Vsuhl excised life from every cell.
Impossible. I am Rowan. I am . . . invincible.
I tried to scream but had no breath, could only stare at Szerain in horror as my vision dimmed and the blood pounded in my ears. Kara . . . Kara . . . Kara . . .