Scorio inhaled deeply, ignited, then pushed forth his wings. It still hurt on a deeply spiritual level, like putting strain on a newly mended bone, but he ignored the pain and broke into a run, leaping up a second later to wing his way with powerful beats up into the darkening sky.
Xandera quickly became a small speck of luminous gold, and then fell behind as he flew into the gloom. Half a mile to the left, which meant mostly straight ahead with a little veering. Unless the Great Souls were hiding, or had powers that made it impossible for him to detect them.
Not Plassus. The man could gather others and increase their speed, but had never been prone to racing forward alone. Charoth, possibly, but no, Xandera had said they were equal to his own strength.
He dared not hope.
Scorio flew low to the ground, perhaps only ten or so yards up, and scanned the environs as he went. He knew he was making himself a target, a dark silhouette against the richly colored sky, but hope made him reckless.
On he flew, curving back and forth, scanning the shadows, but he saw nothing until a cry of joy sounded from beneath a shadowed overhang, and his chest tightened as his heart thrilled at the familiar sound.
The Nightmare Lady bounded into view, racing across the rocks as Scorio wheeled and dove toward her. At the last moment she ran up a tilted monolith, right to its peak, and leaped.
Scorio opened his arms and then they both spun around as she collided with him, their arms holding each other fast, the world spinning, spinning, until with a ragged laugh Scorio fought for balance, beating his wings powerfully, and glided down to land roughly on the broken rocks.
The Nightmare Lady shifted down and became Naomi, and he dismissed his wings so that the pair of them remained thus, tightly embraced, human and breathing hard as they held to each other.
Finally Naomi pulled back, eyes glimmering with tears, and smiled tremulously at him. “I thought you’d died.”
“And you actually did.” Scorio ached and wanted to laugh simultaneously. “Never, ever do that again.”
Naomi laughed huskily. “I’ll work on it. And you never leave me like that, you hear?” She grabbed fistfuls of his robe and shook him lightly. “I nearly died a second time over when I saw you were missing.”
Her forearms rested on his shoulders. His hands had dropped to her waist. Her body was close to his, and he couldn’t have torn his gaze away from her if the Blood Ox had appeared.
“I won’t do that again,” he whispered, hardly aware of what he was saying.
She raised her face to his own. “Promise?”
“Promise,” he whispered, then bent down and kissed her, tentatively at first, but when she returned the kiss he wrapped his arms all the way around her and pulled her close. She tilted her head, mouth opening, and for a moment everything fell away, the True Fiend and the Iron Tyrant, Xandera and the Fury Spires, hell and every Great Soul in it.
Everything was reduced to the immediacy of the moment, this one kiss, Naomi’s body pressed against his own. His hands moved into her thick hair, her fingers dug into his back, and everything felt as if it were sliding deliriously and deliciously out of control till a voice spoke up, curious and amused and almost innocent: “I take it you both have met before?”
Naomi broke free from Scorio and spun to face Xandera, who sat cross-legged atop a nearby boulder, her chin on the base of her palm, hair melting down the length of the faceted copper rock.
“Who the -?”
“Oh. Naomi.” Scorio felt his face flush, his heart still pounding from the kiss. Reaching out, he interlaced his fingers with Naomi’s, and then gestured to the blazeborn with the other hand. “Let me introduce you to Queen Xandera.”
“Queen…?” Understanding dawned on Naomi’s face. “Oh!”
“Nice to meet you,” smiled Xandera. “Hello.”
“How…?” Naomi glanced at Scorio. “When?”
He squeezed her hand. “I’ll tell you everything. But you might want to sit down. Soon as you hear what I’ve got to say, you’re going to want vengeance as badly as we do.”
Chapter 49
Naomi glared at Scorio after he was done recounting what he’d discovered. “Of course. Of course he told the Blood Ox! Because why not? Every one of them is out to screw the rest over.”
Xandera was listening from up high. “You don’t like Great Souls?”
“No.” Naomi all but spat. “I wasn’t born one. I became one. And as a result I’ve seen the reality of who they are.” She began to pace, hands knotted into fists, eyes flashing. “Taught from birth that they’re gods, here to inherit all of hell, that everything and everyone is disposable trash, and that the only goal worth fighting for is power. Power!’ She rounded on Scorio accusingly. “Anything for power. And if they grasp it? All is forgiven, as long as they say they’re willing to fight the good fight against the Pit.”
“The Pit?” asked Xandera.
“The source of all evil and despair, apparently.” Naomi’s upper lip rose in scorn. “Where the Blood Ox comes from. What our ‘kind’ has sought to destroy and seal up for almost a millennia. And failed. Perhaps it’s because of all our betrayals and backstabbing. You’d think someone would have figured out a different way to go about it.”
“I don’t know why you’re glaring at me,” said Scorio.
Naomi all but snarled and turned away. “Damn him. Playing his games. If you’re right… if you’re right, then he’s responsible for hundreds of deaths.” She paused and glared out at nothing. “Why? What does he want? What could drive him to negotiate with a True Fiend?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” said Scorio softly.
“You can do this?” Naomi rounded on Xandera. “Transport us through magma quickly enough to get there first?”
“Oh, yes,” said the blazeborn softly. “And far more than that. I think. I’ve not yet had time to experiment.”
“Then let’s go.” Naomi suddenly became hesitant.
“What?” asked Scorio.
“I… well.” She straightened. “While the Blood Ox was draining us, I fought back against him.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“He was tearing our mana right out of our reservoirs, and I hated him, I hated his power over me. So I did the only thing I could. I used Nox’s Delightful Secret Marinating technique.”
Xandera blinked placidly. “What’s that? Who’s Nox?”
“And?” prompted Scorio, drawing closer.
Naomi smiled, nervous, then bit her lower lip.
“You did?” Scorio felt his breath catch. “You’re…?”
“A Dread Blaze.” She nodded, eyes brimming with tears. “I don’t have trials like you do, so it just… happened.”
“Oh, damn!” Scorio laughed and lunged forward to lift her off the ground and wheel her around. “You did it? Wait!” He set her down. “What can you do?”
“It’s… intense.” Naomi drew her thick hair back, twisted it into a rough knot, then tossed it behind her shoulder. “Want to see?”
“Yeah, of course.” Scorio stepped back. “Anything I need to do?”
“Well.” She eyed him. “Don’t scream.”
“What’s happening?” asked Xandera, glancing from one to the other.
“Here we go. I’ve only done it once, so…” Naomi opened then clenched her hands, inhaled deeply, and ignited her Heart. The whoomph of power was noticeable, like a muffled detonation.
Scorio lowered his chin and watched. Naomi radiated a new sense of power. An aura that seemed to cause the air around her to darken.
Xandera stood up.
“This has always felt easy,” whispered Naomi as she rose into her Nightmare Lady form. She was tall but stood hunched over, as if ready to leap, her body emaciated and black, her skeletal tail rising up with its great triangular blade of bone. Her face truly was nightmarish, the planes of her cheeks upswept bone that melded with her brow to rush back into a mass of ridged horns, her hair falling in a greasy black waterfall down her back. Two cracks in the bone carapace of the upper half of her face revealed her eyes, both burning their fulminous green, bright and noxious and penetrating.