“My point is,” Umber said, “maybe the girl won’t blame you, when she faces the next century in slavery. But I certainly will.”
Hansa sighed heavily. “What girl?”
“Oh, now you’re listening?” Umber asked, quirking one eyebrow.
“Not for long, unless you get around to telling me before I decide I would rather be inside, with my fiancée and a nice breakfast, than outside, freezing, with a half-demon pervert.”
Umber looked skyward for a moment, before saying, “I’ll ignore the end of that sentence, and the many responses it deserves, because I don’t want to see Pearl hurt.”
Hansa’s attention suddenly focused, all awareness of the cold fading away. “What’s wrong with Pearl?”
“She ran off,” Umber explained. “She has been perfectly safe inside the Cobalt Hall, but now she has ended up among very unsavory people. I need you to take her back. And to be clear, this is in no way related to our boon,” Umber added. “I am asking you because you possess the traits necessary, no other reason. If you do what I say, you should be perfectly safe, but in the case that there are any repercussions, I will deal with them, as part of this simple arrangement.”
“The fact that you feel the need to say that makes me nervous,” Hansa said. But it was Pearl. “What do you need me to do?”
CHAPTER 14
Xaz had spent the night curled up in the back of an unheated shed. She couldn’t freeze to death, but her body alternated between shivering and actually sweating, the result of the Abyssal power still in her body. The Abyssi—Alizarin, he called himself—came and went, a less-than-soothing warmth when he was present.
She had decided that the Abyssumancer had targeted her intentionally. She had seen the expression on his face. He hadn’t been trying to get rid of evidence, and he certainly hadn’t thrown that blade randomly. He had been ordered to attack her and then give himself up.
Why?
Why would an Abyssumancer—or more likely, an Abyssi—intentionally infect a Numenmancer with Abyssal power? The Others gained power through their mancers. They wouldn’t casually sacrifice one.
On the other hand, if he hadn’t infected her, then she wouldn’t have had a bond to the Abyss. She wouldn’t have been able to pull Alizarin into the human plane. Had that been the goal all along? If so, then he might have arranged for the attempted arrest, as well. Without it, she never would have been desperate enough to summon anything. She hadn’t thought Abyssi were able to plan that well, but all she knew of the Abyssal realm came from the Numini, who disdained the Abyssi as mindless animals and therefore might underestimate them.
She had to go back to the temple. That was the only place she could get the information or assistance she needed.
The temple wasn’t part of the Numen or Abyss, but it didn’t exist fully on the mortal plane either. Well-rested, with proper tools and a prepared ritual space, she would have opened a rift to it on her own, but that wasn’t an option at the moment. Thankfully, there were other ways. She wasn’t sure if the doorways were intentionally created by the Others, or sprang up with no more deliberation than flowers after rain, but they were the only way sick or otherwise weakened mancers could get to the temple. The doorways themselves were regularly found and destroyed by Quin guards, but the temple remained safely out of reach. Even sighted guards would be destroyed by a passage through rift.
“Do you know where the nearest temple rift is?” she asked Alizarin. If she needed to scry to find it, she would need to gather tools. She didn’t need anything elaborate, but given her current circumstance, she preferred to avoid any extra risks.
“Of course,” he answered. “But why would you want to go there?”
“I still—” His tail wrapped around her, and she batted it away. “I still need supplies, and since you—” This time his tail chucked under her chin. “Stop that. Since you aren’t Numini, I can’t get them through you.”
“Why do you need them?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow to look up at her, so he was effectively spooning around her back.
“For one, so I don’t get in trouble with any more of your kind,” she pointed out.
Alizarin hmphed, his tail twitching again. He hooked it around her waist, and she decided maybe it was best to just leave it there. “I can protect you from other Abyssi.”
“Until you see something shiny, and run off,” she said. “Your kind isn’t known for long attention spans or impulse control. I also need to be able to hide us from any of the Quin guards who have the sight. That requires tools.”
“Not for an Abyssumancer.”
“Which would be helpful, if I were—stop it!” This last as he started tickling her nose. “You’re the one who asked me why! Stop distracting me so I can tell you.”
“You weren’t saying anything interesting,” Alizarin complained. “You should pet me.”
“I—what? No. Alizarin, can you focus for just a moment? We need—”
“You want to,” he interrupted, utterly unmoved by her pleas.
“No, I don’t. I want to find the temple, get supplies, and then—”
“Pet the Abyssi.”
“You’re not a cat,” she bit out. “I do not. Want. To pet. The Abyssi. I want to find the temple.”
“You don’t know what you want,” Alizarin said. “Too much time among the Numini. You want to pet me.”
She patted him twice on the head. “There. Okay?” His hair was incredibly soft, and seemed to reach toward her hand.
He sighed, and for a moment thought he had grown bored of the game and was ready to give up, but instead he moved in front of her. She yelped as he put a hand on her shoulder and leaned forward, overbalancing her so she toppled onto her back, and put a hand up to push him away.
He leaned down, and nuzzled at her chin, then rubbed his cheek against hers, just like an overgrown cat. Only, he wasn’t a cat. He was a demon. A demon who, aside from the fur and the tail, was shaped like a man. The combination was unnerving in this position, no matter how pretty his fur was.
“Get off me,” she said.
“Pet the Abyssi,” he insisted.
“Get off me, and then I’ll pet the Abyssi,” she offered, as a compromise.
He paused to consider for a moment, and then rolled off her, propping his head on his hands as he stretched out on his back. If he had been a cat, the image would have been amusing, innocent, even adorable. Though his words had been every bit as childlike and naïve as a kitten, given his form, the posture was sensual, beautiful, and threatening.
She sat up, now regretting the deal she had just proposed, and he wrapped his tail around her waist and tugged her forward so she fell onto his chest.
“This is absurd,” she mumbled. She lay against Alizarin’s side—she didn’t have much choice about that, what with his tail locked tightly around her waist—and tentatively put a hand on his shoulder, then ran her palm down his upper arm. The fur there was less than an inch long, and heartbreakingly soft. Looking closely, she could see that each individual hair was variegated, ranging from black to cobalt to emerald to aquamarine, iridescent.
Maybe a minute had passed before she realized she had snuggled against the Abyssi, and with her cheek resting on his shoulder, she was petting his chest in slow, loverlike motions. There was something hypnotic about the shine and the impossible softness of that blue-green pelt, and so even after she noticed what she was doing, at first she didn’t really care.
Alizarin’s tail twitched, tickling her spine at her lower back, and making her shudder. Of course he noticed the reaction, and did it again, with the same result.
“You have a ticklish spot,” he said.
“Thanks for pointing it out,” she grumbled. “For a moment I was in danger of feeling peaceful.”
“You’re happier now,”
he said.
She almost argued with him, and then she realized that she was feeling better . . . and she hadn’t realized she was feeling badly beforehand. Her head felt clearer, and the dull ache behind her eyes was gone. It was more than just being more relaxed; touching him had settled her magic.
Power lies, she thought, remembering the warning she had been taught when she was first learning a mancer’s trade. It will woo you, and it will try to comfort you, but it lies.
She wanted to snuggle up against the Abyssi and rub her whole body on that incredible fur, but she could resist that impulse, at least for the moment.
“You’re right,” she admitted. “I did want to pet the Abyssi. And I still do. But we need to find the temple first. We can’t stay here forever.”
“Why not?” he asked, with a stretch.
“Because . . .” She struggled to find reasoning that would make sense to him. Finally, she decided on, “It would be boring.”
“Hm.” He nodded and rolled to his feet, in a liquid motion she envied. There was strength and grace in that catlike frame—more than she could imagine, or for that matter wanted to imagine. His current form looked disarmingly beautiful, but she remembered what it had done to human flesh when she was almost arrested.
“How far away is the nearest temple doorway?” she asked.
“The nearest one, no one uses. They don’t remember it’s there,” he said.
Xaz frowned. “Where is it?”
“In the palace,” Alizarin answered.
It took her a moment to realize what he had just said. “The Quinacridone? There is a temple doorway inside the Quin central compound?”
Alizarin nodded. “Power ran in the royal line for many generations.”
“Oh.” She had heard rumors of sorcery in the overthrown royal house, but had assumed they were just attempts to discredit the family during the revolution.
“The next nearest doorway rift is maybe two days walking from here,” Alizarin said, “but you don’t need one. I can carry you there.”
“Will you?” The Abyssi’s reactions were so unpredictable to her that it hadn’t occurred to her to ask him.
In response, he did just that, sweeping them out of the mortal realm and into the sphere of Other power that was the temple.
For her, entering the temple was usually like stepping into a swiftly-flowing river. The power tried to pull her away, and she needed to struggle to keep her feet. This time, it was like she had dived headfirst into the pounding surf that pounded Kavet during a storm. Normally, Abyssi and Abyssal power existed as shadows at the edge of her awareness, but the taint in her magic made her overwhelmingly aware of everything.
The temple, which she normally perceived as an icy cave filled with the scents of honey and lilac, now reeked of blood and smoke. The translucent, crystalline walls were stained and streaked with velvety-dark patches.
Worse were the Abyssi themselves. She could see them, not as solid forms but like glowing afterimages left from staring too long at the sun. They pulsed and writhed and they could see her, too.
“What’s this?” one hissed, slithering closer to her. Its voice rang in her mind, making her head ache.
“Cold meat,” another answered disdainfully. “Reeks of Numini.”
“I’ve heard Numini are good to eat,” the first said, “if you can catch one.”
Xaz looked around desperately, but if Alizarin was here she couldn’t find him, and the others were hanging back.
These Abyssi might just be grandstanding. The temple should be a safe place; the Others made it impossible for mancers to hurt each other there, which was the only way Numenmancers and Abyssumancers could be in the same place at the same time. But normally Abyssi couldn’t see Numenmancers, or the reverse.
The few Numini she saw ducked away, ignoring her plight.
Instead, she caught the gaze of another Numenmancer, who was wrestling with a small figure who lacked the glimmer of a mancer’s power.
“I thought you must be dead,” the mancer said. Compared to the Others, her voice was like a whisper, barely audible. “The stir you made.” The softness didn’t hide the disdain and irritation in her tone. Xaz understood the emotion; every time one of them was caught, life became harder for the rest of them. “And I was left to finish your task.”
Pearl. With no magic or training, the girl had to be utterly overwhelmed by the temple’s power.
Bitterly, Xaz thought, The Numini didn’t waste time, did they? As soon as I was injured they cast me aside and found another for their task.
She spun, world swimming, as one of the Abyssi touched her. She shouldn’t have turned her back on it. She gathered her power to cast it aside, but the creature just laughed. The little Abyssal magic that flowed through her was just enough to get her in trouble, not enough to help her fight.
“Not yours.”
The words were spoken in a deep, rumbling purr that made Xaz’s bones vibrate. The power that accompanied them made the Abyssi who had harassed her seem like kittens in comparison—and, thank Numen, it was familiar.
“Alizarin,” she breathed, turning with wary relief as the other Abyssi scattered.
In this place, the Abyssi’s veneer of near-humanity was gone, leaving only a hair-raising sense of fangs and claws in the dark. Could she sense his power better than the others because she was bonded to him, or was he actually this much more fearsome?
“I told you, I can protect you from other Abyssi,” Alizarin said. “My sire was the last lord of the Abyss. Nothing this close to the human plane is a threat to us.”
That was both comforting and terrifying.
She shook off her unease. She had things to do.
“You won’t find your Numini here,” the other Numenmancer informed her. “I’ve heard them whispering. Your Numini is in disgrace because his mancer caused such bloodshed and violence. He—”
She broke off as one of the Numini stepped forward. Given the way it loomed protectively over the other mancer, Xaz suspected it was bound to her.
“We cannot help you,” it said flatly. “You breached the boundary. You violated agreements made to us, and made agreements with the creatures of blood. You have tangled your power in the Abyssal realm, and until it is cleansed, we can make no further associations.”
“I just want to send the Abyssi back!” Xaz argued. “How do I do that?”
“I doubt you have that ability,” the Numini said. “Even if you did, you would probably still be unable to remove the infernal taint from your power. You must find a stronger conduit.”
How was Xaz supposed to fix anything if the Numini wouldn’t help her? Break into the Quin dungeons to retrieve the supplies they confiscated from her home? Kill the Abyssi bound to her with her bare hands—oh, and in a way that didn’t spill any blood? Neither seemed likely.
“You could ask the guard to help you,” one of the weaker Abyssi who had shied away from Alizarin suggested with a syrupy tone of mock sympathy. When Alizarin turned to him, he took a step back and murmured, “I’m just trying to help your . . . what is she to you?”
Alizarin growled. It was an elemental sound, and even the other Numenmancer seemed to hear it. She took a minute to create a bubble of protective power and tuck the unconscious Pearl inside to hold her and keep her safe, and then disappeared as she willed herself out of the temple.
“The one who calls himself Hansa. If you stay, you will see him,” the other Abyssi said. “He is working up the nerve to step through the rift at the well.”
Xaz’s first response was relief—if the rift didn’t destroy Hansa, the Others in the temple would. These Abyssi were held from harming mancers in this place, but would delight in the flesh of a poor Quin guard who stumbled into their sanctuary.
Unless . . .
She remembered the way
Abyssal power had flowed around Hansa after he had arrested Baryte. He had been bloodied again when Xaz had summoned Alizarin, further tainted with infernal power. Could that have been enough for Baryte’s Abyssi to make a connection to him once its previous mancer was dead?
Xaz didn’t know for sure, but it seemed likely enough that Mars’s newest hero had just become its newest mancer as well.
Either way, she didn’t want to see him. She focused her thoughts and fled the temple.
She emerged from between two large boulders on the southern coast, a spot she knew well, though she hadn’t used this rift in many years. Her parents’ house was less than an hour’s walk to the north, if one was desperate enough to cut through brackish marshland.
It was high tide, and salt spray stung her as it slapped against the rocky shore, soaking her skin and clothes. Further out to sea, she could see the islands occupied by the Osei; their wheeling winged shapes were visible in silhouette against the cobalt sky as they gyred in search of prey in the water. Their favorite prey this time of year was the blue sharks that schooled in the area, much to the ire of local fishermen.
Move! she ordered herself. She had been hypnotized by the play of light and shadow off the water, and the giant predators that hunted it. Some said the Osei were part Abyssi, a legacy of the royal house’s meddling with infernal magic before the revolution and rise of the current democracy. Their tendency to eat people was one reason this isolated rift was rarely used, which meant she should get under cover.
There was a fire pit nearby, but it clearly hadn’t been used in a long time. She cleared it out with rapidly-numbing fingers, then lethargically gathered driftwood and dried seaweed to burn. She wished she had an Abyssumancer’s power to start a fire with her power, but had to settle for the flint and steel her younger self had hidden in a jelly jar under the rocks.
As she sat by the fire, she tested her power. Could she draw strength from the flame, like an Abyssumancer could? Could she cool it, the way she used to? She needed to know what she could still do so she could come up with a plan for what to do next.