“Because we talked, and every time it came around to one particular subject it was like it hit reset on a game, and she backtracked a minute.” Frustration and helpless anger rose again. “Also, her memory of another event seems programmed. It’s fucked up.”
“That does sound like manipulation,” he said, face serious but revealing nothing of his thoughts. “What was the topic?”
“Weirdly enough, the reset was when I asked her if she’d ever been to the demon realm.” I folded my arms, watched him carefully for any reaction. “Which begs the question, why the hell would my aunt be manipulated about that if she hadn’t been there?”
Zack cleared his throat. “Do you have any working theories?”
“One is that she was in the demon realm at the end of her time with Katashi and, for whatever reason, was then manipulated to forget all about it,” I said. “But I’d really like another theory.” My outrage at the violation of Tessa flared again. “I’ll take anything that isn’t ‘someone fucked with my aunt’s head.’”
“Your current theory is very sound.” He said it with a disturbing contemplative calm.
Fucking shit. My blood pounded in my ears. “Has Tessa ever been in the demon realm?”
Zack shifted from one foot to the other and didn’t answer. Anger seethed like a ball of fire in my chest, and I took a step toward him. “You know. Fucking tell me, Zack. Now. Has Tessa been in the demon realm?”
He gave a barely perceptible nod.
“With which lord?” I demanded. “Whose realm?” A horrible dread suddenly coiled through me. What if he says Mzatal? Katashi had been his sworn summoner, which meant it was more than possible. No, Mzatal wouldn’t hide that from me, I thought, casting the worry aside. I knew that much.
Zack stood in infuriating silence, his eyes on mine as I moved to the next worst possibility. “Rhyzkahl?”
Another micro nod.
Rage clogged my throat for several seconds. “You’ve known this all along and you didn’t tell me?” I shouted when I could finally speak. “What the fuck? You’re supposed to be my friend.” It hit me then, and I stared at him in sick horror. “You’re his goddamn ptarl. Does ptarl trump friend? Or were you ever my friend at all?” I’d had a dozen lifetime’s worth of betrayal from Rhyzkahl, but the very thought of the same from Zack was a knife in my gut. Like lord, like ptarl? “I guess that means you didn’t tell me before so you could protect his sorry ass and won’t fucking tell me now either!”
He drew a breath. “It’s true. I can’t tell you what happened.”
“This is my aunt,” I snarled. “You know what happened to her, but you won’t tell me because you’re still loyal to him.”
“Kara.” His eyes sought mine, but I was too distraught to read the emotion that burned within them. “I am here,” he said. “Not there.”
“It doesn’t help that you’re here, in my goddamn house, if you’re still loyal to that chekkunden.” I bared my teeth. “Can I trust you? Or do you report everything you see and hear back to him? Will I wake one morning with a knife at my throat and enemies in the house? Is that why you refuse to free Szerain? Do you remain a good little jailer for your fucked up master?”
An aggrieved expression touched Zack’s face. “I loosen Szerain’s confinement as I can, offer him relief.” He shook his head. “And I do not contact Rhyzkahl,” he added.
“Whew! I feel better now,” I said, with heavy sarcasm. “But you’re not answering my goddamn question!” Yelling felt pretty damn good at the moment. “Where are your loyalties? To him? Or to us?”
His jaw tightened. “It is not as simple as that, not so black and white.”
“Then explain,” I said and threw my arms out wide. “I’m all ears! You know what he did to me. How can you have any loyalty to him and still pretend to be on my side?”
“Kara, there are ancient ties, ancient agreements, ancient oaths.” His hand trembled, and he tightened it into a fist. “It does not mean that I act against you.”
“Ancient ties!” I spat the words back at him. “Rhyzkahl tortured me! Carved me up! You know what he’d have done to me if it hadn’t been for Mzatal and Idris.” A sense of utter betrayal swept over me, and I clung to the anger like a lifeline. “If you still have any loyalty to him, if you can’t tell me what I need to know, then you are acting against me.”
Zack shifted his weight again. “No,” he said, voice weirdly hollow. “I’m not acting against you. I am . . . not.”
“Then tell me about my aunt and Rhyzkahl.”
He remained silent for several heartbeats, tension holding his body rigid. “I cannot.”
“You are completely full of shit,” I sneered. “You stand back and convince yourself you’re not doing any harm, that you’re not a threat to us. You have all these ‘ancient ties’ to excuse your behavior.” I firmed my mouth. “How about I clear some shit up for you right now. As long as you keep vital information back, you’re not on our side, and I can’t fucking trust you.” A dim part of me knew I was overreacting, pulled at me to stop and breathe, but I couldn’t stem the raging emotions. Instead I turned and fled down the trail and back to the house. I stormed through the kitchen, retreated to my room and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the windows.
Hands clenched in my lap, I sat on the edge of the bed and willed myself not to cry despite the near overwhelming need to do exactly that.
A moment later, Zack spoke softly from the other side of the door. “Kara.”
“What.”
“I’m sorry.”
No way could I say “It’s all right” or “I forgive you” or anything like that, because it wasn’t and I didn’t. But I didn’t want to twist the knife further either. Zack had been oathbound long before he met me. Desperate worry about Tessa wound through my gut, along with the beginnings of a horrible suspicion about who Idris’s daddy might be, yet the idea that I might lose the Zack I thought I knew added a nauseating veneer. “Look, I can’t talk about this anymore,” I said in a shaking voice. “I need to be alone.”
Silence, then, “Would it be easier for you if I stay away from here?”
I didn’t know what I wanted except for the sick ache to disappear. “No, you don’t have to leave.” Why did this shit have to hurt so much?
After a moment I heard a soft noise as though he’d lifted his hand from the door. “All right,” he finally said. “I’m heading back to the office.” When he spoke after another moment of silence, his voice held no luster. “Kara, I’m really sorry you’re hurting.”
I didn’t answer, couldn’t answer as I fought to hold back tears. When I heard the front door close I finally buried my face in my pillow and gave in.
Chapter 19
Eventually the hurt, betrayal, and worry coalesced into a more comfortable and familiar anger and general upset. I sat up and scrubbed my hand over my face. Enough unproductive bawling. I needed to get my ass up and move, lose myself in sweat and exhaustion. A perfect time to try out the obstacle course.
The fed-boys had done a good job with it, I decided with grudging respect. Without removing any living trees, they’d managed to create a clever and circuitous route through the woods, and had installed a dozen obstacles in existing natural clearings along it—walls of various heights, rope climbs, low crawls, wobbly log bridges, and more—all challenging without being ridiculous.
Forty-five minutes later and two rounds through the course, I stood bent over at the waist, hands on my knees, sick from the heat. Once hadn’t been enough. Twice hadn’t quite done the trick either, but I knew a third time would likely kill me. Besides, there were other tried and true ways to deal with emotional upheaval.
Once I could walk again without puking, I headed into the house to down a big glass of water. After that—and as soon as I knew my stomach wouldn’t rebel—I grabbed a spoon and a gallon of chocolate fudge ice cream, then flopped, stinky and dirty, into a chair at the kitchen table. A shower could wait. I had more import
ant things to do.
About four spoonfuls in, I heard the front door open. Shit, don’t let it be Zack, not yet, I thought, then released my breath, relieved, when Ryan came into the kitchen. He pulled off his sunglasses and dropped them to the table with a clatter. I glanced at him, defiantly ate another spoonful.
“Sweat, stench, and ice cream,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“Your partner,” I said and barely remembered in time that I couldn’t tell him the whole story since Ryan didn’t know Zack was a demon. “He’s a jerk.”
He stiffened. “Surfer Boy Zack got you worked up enough to stink and shovel ice cream? That’s my job. What did he do?”
“It’s hard to explain. Anyway, I’d like to let it go now.”
Ryan got an odd look on his face, as though he was trying to work through a complex problem while on good drugs. He looked at me, but I wasn’t sure he saw me.
“Ryan? You okay?”
Without any indication he’d heard me, he stripped off his suit jacket and hung it on the back of a chair, then headed for the back door.
Something with Szerain? With the faintest of pouts, I stood and shoved the ice cream back in the freezer. Can’t even have a decent pity party around here. I followed Ryan out and stopped on the porch, watching. He paced this way and that in the grass before settling cross-legged with his back to me. My skin prickled. That was the same place Mzatal had identified as a potency confluence, where he’d gone to recharge.
I slowly moved to sit facing him. Ryan stared down, his hands wound in the grass in clenched claws. I waited in tense silence, certain that Szerain sought to express, and I didn’t want to disturb the process. A quick mental pygah helped me shed the distraction of the issues with Zack, and I hoped would also help Szerain.
A beetle trundled between the clenched blades of grass. An ant crawled over one knuckle and then down to the dirt again.
“Kara.”
I watched in fascination as the ant found a seed and hoisted it. What a strong fellow it was!
“Kara.”
I heard Szerain speaking, voice strained. “Kara,” he repeated, as though testing his ability.
Speaking to me, I abruptly realized. I yanked my gaze up to him. “Here,” I said quickly. “I’m here, Szerain.”
A tremor started in his hands and quickly swept over the rest of his body. “As . . . am I.”
“How? How can you be surfaced without Zack releasing you?” Or Vsuhl drawing you out.
“Practice. Focus. Confluence. Grate looser.” He drew a deep shuddering breath and gave a moan that sounded like pleasure. I guess he’d learned not to take the simple things for granted. “What trouble with Zakaar?”
“I had a falling out with him. A humongous one.” I exhaled as the memory and emotions returned. “I found out that my aunt has been manipulated to not know anything about being in the demon realm. I asked him if it was Rhyzkahl, which, after a lot of prodding, he confirmed. Then I asked him where his loyalties lay.” I sighed. “I had to sweat and scarf down ice cream after that.”
“Did not like the answer.”
“No. No, I didn’t. Rhyzkahl inflicted heinous torment on me.” The sigils carved into my torso itched and tingled like thin lines of sunburn at the reminder. “I don’t understand how Zakaar can maintain any connection to him.”
“Ptarl,” Szerain said as though it explained everything.
“Yeah, he’s still that asshole’s ptarl. Why?” I asked. The anger and frustration flared again. “How can he be my friend?” My jaw tightened. “Never mind, he can’t be that. How can he be an ally and still be with Rhyzkahl?”
He lifted his head in a motion that took supreme effort judging by the increase in his tremors. He struggled to open his eyes. “Still ptarl. Always.” Finally his gaze met mine, and enveloped me in ancient depths. “The bond.” He paused, as though recovering from the ordeal of opening his eyes. “The bond is made.”
“Yes, fine, he has a bond,” I said, “but some things are deal breakers—or at least they should be.”
Szerain recoiled from the words as though I’d spoken blackest heresy, though for the life of me I couldn’t fathom why. His face contorted in a disturbing dance of pain and horror and fury, all overlaid with madness. His hands curled into fists, ripped up tufts of grass. “No! Cannot be. There cannot be deal breakers. Not with ptarl.”
I seized one of his hands. “Szerain, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to upset you. Here, I’m pygahing. Feel it.” I emphasized the command in my tone, hoping to penetrate the grip of what had set him off. Deal breaking related to a ptarl.
Shit. I’d forgotten Szerain was one of two lords separated from their ptarl. Kadir’s simply didn’t associate with him, but Szerain’s ptarl was either in hiding or dead, though most thought it was the latter. From what I gathered now, separated didn’t mean the bond was broken. Did being away from his ptarl add another degree of misery to the already tormented Szerain? At any rate, it was clearly a sore point I needed to avoid with him in such an unstable state.
Szerain drew a shaky breath and squeezed his eyes shut, but to my relief some of the tension left his body. His face eased back to normal. I unwound his fingers from the grass and held his hand securely. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“You did not know.” He opened his eyes again, focused on mine as though drawing support from me. And maybe he was. Moment by moment his speech improved. “Zakaar. You doubt him.”
“I do,” I admitted. “The thing with Tessa is pretty big to hide from me. And he hesitated back at the warehouse when I needed him to bring Mzatal.” I scowled. “And shit, he didn’t point blank warn me about Rhyzkahl before I ended up with a torso full of body art. As long as he’s bound to Rhyzkahl, I don’t see how I can trust him.” I searched his face. “Am I being unreasonable?”
“Rhyzkahl’s ptarl. Reasonable doubt.”
A sliver of dismay went through me. I’d hoped for some brilliant rationalization of why it was okay to trust Zack despite all the shit. “That’s the conclusion I came to,” I said with a sigh. “I asked Ilana about him, and she said he opposed Rhyzkahl’s actions and chose to guard you. And I was actually cool with that until I found out he knew about Tessa’s manipulation.” I leaned closer, looking into eyes that were Ryan’s but not Ryan’s. “Szerain, do you trust him?”
His face tightened as though a wave of pain swept through him. “Zakaar. Yes. With my essence.”
I processed that. With his essence. Then again, Szerain didn’t have much choice in the matter. Zakaar controlled his existence—very literally held his essence. If he didn’t trust Zakaar, what did he have? I felt my mouth tighten as I mulled over the implications. So what if Zakaar rewarded him every once in a while by loosening the grate? It sure as hell didn’t make up for keeping him submerged in the first place.
Yet to Szerain, those times would be precious gifts, conditioning him to dependence and attachment. The torturer lets up on the pain a little, offers mercy and brief kindness, and becomes the hero. A technique as old as pain itself.
A shudder crawled over me. Rhyzkahl had used that method when he carved the sigils in my flesh, and if not for Mzatal’s intervention it would have worked. Throw in the fact that Szerain had been enduring this for years, and it was a full blown case of Stockholm syndrome.
Szerain’s fingers spasmed on mine before his grip firmed. “Kara. No,” he murmured, and I realized with a startled shock he’d read my thoughts. “So much more than that.”
His quiet voice held such intensity and presence that I went still, focused on him. “Okay. Tell me.”
“I am not insane.”
“No, you’re not,” I acknowledged as I tried to figure out where he was going with this. He wasn’t stable by any means, but he wasn’t nuts either. “And that’s pretty amazing. I wouldn’t have lasted a week.”
“Some times of madness. Despair. But I am still . . . here.” He lifted his free hand, rubbed the fingers together
as though to reassure himself he really was. “Because of Zakaar. Only because of Zakaar.”
I considered that. “Because he occasionally eases the pressure?” I couldn’t fathom how that would be enough to counter the effects of the submersion, especially long term.
“No. Yes, though that is only a small part.” He trembled then extricated his hand from mine and placed both hands palm down on the ground. “Every night—every night for over fifteen years—he speaks to me while Ryan sleeps. For hours. Tells me stories. Reads to me. Keeps me focused. Passes glimmers of potency to me, palm to palm. Halts my certain descent into madness.”
I stared at him as I tried to assimilate this new information into my perspective. “That’s some pretty serious dedication.”
“He does not have to do this. It is his choice.” Another spasm of pain twisted his face. “He expends much potency in my care. He grows tired. He does not say it, but I know it is truth. This does not change what you experience with him, but it is unfair to include his treatment of me in your considerations unless it is weighted in his favor.”
“Point taken,” I said, subdued. I remained quiet for a moment as I rearranged my perception of Zakaar in my mind. “I heard this from Ilana,” I finally said, “but I’d like to hear it from you. It’ll help me—” I sought the right word to capture what I meant. “It’ll help me reconcile everything. Did he really oppose Rhyzkahl and distance himself because of it?”
“This is truth,” Szerain replied. “And distanced himself yet more by coming here with me since Helori was prepared to be my guardian.” He closed his eyes as though gathering the strength to speak again.
I willed calm and focus for both of us as I considered his words. I had no trouble seeing the demahnk Helori as a guardian. It was Helori who nurtured me in the days immediately following Rhyzkahl’s torture. Mzatal healed the physical damage, but without Helori’s firm, gentle presence and imperturbable patience, I never would have recovered from the mental and emotional trauma.