Good pay makes good servants, thought Jazana as she left the balcony. It was almost midnight and tomorrow would be an important day. Wanting to be fresh for her talk with Thorin, she went into her bedchamber, disrobed, and slid into the fabulously soft sheets.
Jazana slept.
As the hours ticked towards dawn, the fire in her hearth died to a warm glow. Comfortable in Ravel’s enormous bed, Jazana dreamed of Norvor and her younger days. She did not sleep soundly, but rather danced on the edges of sleep, her mind actively mulling mental pictures. She had lost all sense of time but was dimly aware of the fire’s crackle. Sounds reached her ears as if from a great distance, familiar and of no concern.
Until she heard a sound she did not recognise.
Her eyelids fluttered heavily. Her mind worked on the noise. A scraping sound, like boots on stone. Footfalls. .
Jazana awakened and sat up in her bed. Shadows painted the enormous room. Moonbeams through her window made yawning images on the walls. Jazana looked around, her eyes darting toward the doorway. She saw a shadow there and stared at it, her heart racing. Vaguely like a man, she could not quite tell in the darkness if it moved or stayed still. Then, the sound of nervous breathing reached her.
Amazingly, she grew less alarmed. The man in the doorway stared. A fabulous darkness sparkled off his left arm, encased in a metal that swallowed all light. In her half-awake state Jazana thought she might yet be dreaming.
‘Thorin. .’
Like a wraith he floated closer, stepping into the moonlight. He had doffed his armour but for the arm that flashed in brilliant black. She caught his expression in the light, an anguished mix of pain and lust. His eyes flared with hunger, revealing a soul that wasn’t his. Jazana gasped. She should scream, she knew, but did not. Too enthralled with the impossible sight, she let Thorin drift ever closer.
‘Jazana.’
The voice was his, and yet was not. Like his face, it seemed possessed. He came to her bedside and hovered there, dropping a knee onto the sheets and leaning toward her.
‘I’ve come for you,’ he whispered. ‘I cannot be without you tonight.’
Jazana barely breathed. ‘Thorin, you should not have come.’ It made no sense to her suddenly. How could he have made it to her bedroom? ‘Have you come just for this? Just for me?’
‘I came to. .’ His face twisted in a grimace of pain. ‘No,’ he struggled. He reached out for her. ‘I need to touch you.’
It was his armoured arm that reached for her. His missing arm. Jazana gasped.
‘Your arm! Thorin, what has happened to you?’
‘Shh,’ he urged gently. ‘Don’t speak.’ The black gauntlet reached out to brush her cheek. ‘Let me touch you.’
Never had Jazana felt anything so cold. Or was it burning hot? Her skin trembled at the touch of the odd metal. It melted her.
‘Thorin,’ she whispered, ‘what has happened to you?’
Thorin stalked onto her bed. ‘I need to be a man again. I have not been a man in so long.’
The metal arm pulled her closer. Jazana succumbed to it, bending her head for him as his hungry mouth found her neck. His lips suckled her, tasting her skin and moaning with its sweetness. Jazana’s head swam with a strange intoxication. This was not the spell of sleep, she knew, but a wondrous thing that sang in her mind and bent her to his will. As his desperate hands found her breasts Jazana could no longer speak. Her mouth moved wordlessly as he tore her nightgown open and fell upon her.
Somehow, throughout the thrusting and glorious release, Jazana knew it was more than lovemaking. In the black fog that wrapped her, she saw visions.
It was not until dawn that the fever lifted.
Thorin’s groggy mind came awake to the sense of sunlight through the window. His skull throbbed. Sheets tangled his naked body. Sprawled across his right arm was Jazana, just as nude, her ruined nightgown clinging to her in shreds. He felt her breathing and knew she was dully awake, struggling through the same magic mist that clogged his own brain. Her face glanced up at the ceiling, barely visible in the dim light of morning. She did not speak, but seemed to sense his wakefulness. Her head rested in exhaustion on a pillow, its silk casing torn by the spikes of his armoured arm. Duck feathers spilled across the bed.
They lay there, naked with each other, and were silent.
The possession that had taken Thorin had faded. The sated Kahldris now rested easily in his mind. Thorin could sense the demon’s satisfaction. For a night, he had been a man again, and in his lust had shown Thorin a truer meaning of life and power. It was as if Thorin had drunk from the cleanest water or had breathed the freshest air. He was changed now and he knew it, and was not at all sorry that Kahldris had swallowed him.
Why, he wondered, did it all seem so clear now?
Unbridled, his lust for Jazana had been a magnificent thing. He had seen what he wanted and had taken it. There could be no stopping him, he realised. That was the lesson Kahldris had shown him.
Yes, came the Akari’s voice. There is no reason to stop, Baron Glass.
Thorin could not answer. The unearthly lovemaking had weakened him, but he was blissful and did not care. Kahldris was too much a part of him now. He welcomed the being’s touch. Slowly he turned his head toward Jazana. Her tousled hair looked beautiful. Her perfect skin, not stretched by childbirth, shone milky white in the sunlight. With his armoured hand he touched her, caressing her smooth belly. A whimper drifted from her lips.
‘Why, Thorin?’
Thorin smiled, but how could he answer such a thing?
‘What happened to you?’ Jazana whispered. ‘To us?’
‘Magic, my love.’
She nodded. ‘Magic. .’
‘Akari magic.’ Thorin propped himself up to look at her. ‘This armour makes me more than a man, Jazana.’ He opened the palm of his gauntlet and placed it down on her belly. ‘Do you feel it?’
‘It’s alive,’ Jazana said. ‘I felt it inside me. It was. . amazing.’
Thorin smiled. ‘Do not fear it, Jazana. I feared it once, but no longer. It has made me whole again, and brought me back to you.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Jazana desperately. ‘Just yesterday-’
‘Yesterday I was different. A fool. The armour has shown the truth to me.’
Jazana’s expression betrayed her fear. ‘Thorin, this armour has done something to you. You are different, even this morning.’
‘I am different,’ Thorin declared. ‘I am better.’
‘Because of me? Because of what we did?’
Was that it, Thorin wondered? What had their lovemaking loosed? He was one with Kahldris now. Was this how all Inhumans felt? He could not say for certain, and Kahldris would not help him with the puzzle. Thorin leaned back against the headboard and let out a lionlike sigh. His eyelids grew heavy again as he tasted the delicious power. For the first time in weeks he saw Kahldris standing in front of him.
She loves you, Baron Glass.
Thorin nodded. Jazana looked at him curiously.
‘He is here with us,’ he told her.
‘Who is?’
‘Kahldris. The maker of the armour. The one.’
‘Thorin, you’re scaring me. .’
‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Thorin with a grin. ‘Nothing can harm you now, Jazana. We are invincible.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Jazana. She sat up and looked about the room but of course saw nothing. ‘Are you staying with me, Thorin? Tell me this is not all some cruel lie. Tell me you are mine again.’
‘With you, with Kahldris, yes,’ said Thorin.
The Akari, in his own ethereal Devil’s Armour, hovered over the bed. Liiria, Baron Glass. That, too, is yours.
‘Liiria,’ Thorin whispered.
Jazana smiled and touched his face. ‘No, Thorin, hush,’ she purred. ‘Do not worry over Liiria. It is over now. You are back; that’s all I wanted.’