There was a tether, tension that seemed a physical thing, pulled taut between them. She was not hiding from him any longer. He saw the rise and fall of her chest, the water from her still-wet hair cutting a trail down her neck, between her breasts . . . the abyss of her eyes that reflected a vicious intelligence and an iron will. Her demon, stirring at his extradimensional touch, but—like its host—far from afraid.
There he was, a lauded exorcist once more in full command of his faculties, and yet . . . Was he predator or prey?
“We’re stronger than the so-called gods ever let us believe, but we’re divided,” Ysira said. “We need something to unite behind. I would make us more than just safe; I would make usuntouchable.” She took a step closer, until mere inches remained between them and Jacen couldn’t breathe. “The old ways were not enough to save us. I want to break it all—and I want to remake it.”
Finally, he sensed the desire that lay at the heart of her. He could only stare. “How?”
Neither of them could look away, and she would not be able to lie to him. The tether between them grew stronger, a fist clasped around his core. A deeper, molten heat burned through them both, so intense it was painful, but she did not break away. As difficult—as audacious—as it was for her to say this, she needed him to know. She neededhim.“You don’t just need an exorcist,” he murmured. “You need a priest.”
“No,” she said. “I need a prophet.”
He asked, once more, “What do you want, Ysira?”
A shiver ran through her. He almost gasped. She drew a sharp breath, then exhaled, barely a whisper. A single word. “Worship.”
Ysira left Jacen at the baths, alone and feeling all manner of frustrated things. He lingered there, working them out, until he finally made up his mind. She was manipulating him, but she knewhewas perfectly aware of that, which meant she believed—to some extent—that she was worthy of what she sought. And Jacen needed to know. Once and for all, he needed the truth, and he could delay no longer.
He found himself back at the library, demanding an audience with Var Naxal. An alarmed disciple directed him to the Gate chamber. Jacen practically sprinted there, through the fields and the warren of tunnels, until he reached the black door and shoved it open.
Neri sat cross-legged below the Gate, opposite Eneva. Both had their eyes closed, several Disciples sitting in a semicircle around them as Ysira and Seth watched from a more comfortable distance. Jacen sensed the extradimensional energy coalescing by the Gate. He sensedNaxal,overwhelming every other presence in the temple.
As Jacen approached, Neri looked up in alarm. The Gatekeeper did not so much as open her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to perform an assessment,” Jacen said. “I want to see this demon for myself.”
At first glance, Neri appeared the same as he always had, dressed in a simple black tunic with a dagger at his belt. His skin was dark from sun exposure, his short hair neatly trimmed and combed. He was palpably weary, with a new hollowness to his cheeks that made him look a bit older, but he bore no outward signs of demonic possession.
Except for his eyes. It wasn’t just the color that had changed—those eyes might as well have aged a hundred years.
“Extradimensional communion is not so simple with Naxal,” Eneva warned. “Even for a Sixth Tier telepath.”
Jacen ignored her. “Show me,” he said to Neri. “Please. I can help.”
Neri looked to Eneva as though asking permission. “He offered to help me back in Zivora before any of this. I trust him.”
Neri’s voice was as unchanged as his body, young and uncertain, at odds with the sheer gravity of his mind. Yetsuddenly, Jacen understood the Gatekeeper and her Disciples’ impulse to bow.
Eneva grudgingly stood and stepped aside. She gestured at the pool full of telkaan roots. “You will require assistance.”
“I’ll manage.” Jacen knelt opposite Neri. The boy squared his shoulders. “Go ahead.”
Jacen took a breath, closed his eyes, and reached out. Neri lowered his mental barriers, revealing the thing that lived inside him.
The Source’s energy thrummed through both their minds, amplified by the Gate. How could Jacen have ever believed this was some sort of taint or evidence of evil? It seemed so obvious now. This was life itself, a bright spark inside them all. And in Neri . . .
It was like putting a finger on the pulse of the universe. At the core of Neri’s consciousness, the center around which a galaxy orbited, Jacen beheld a dark star of inescapable gravity. A tangled, pulsing knot of impossible complexity, built from the memories ofhundreds.
Jacen had encountered demons who’d possessed multiple hosts—never more than a handful. The creatures retained only traces of their memories and personalities. Even Elyas’s demon had been easy to assess: a tenant of three different hosts scattered across centuries, preserved in fragments and kept firmly at bay by the skill of a trained telepath. The only remotely comparable entity Jacen had encountered was the demon—thegod—inside that corpse.
Naxal was even more ancient and far more alien. Where the archdemon had been an entity of singular will, any subsequent presences subsumed by the first, Naxal’s thousand voices ebbed and flowed—some demanding to be heard, some barely there, in and out like an ocean tide.
An ocean?
The comparison leapt unbidden into Jacen’s mind. He had never seen an ocean. Yet he could picture it: fathomless depths of blue water, waves crashing against a rocky shore. Jacen may not have seen it, but someone inside Neri’s head had.
Without meaning to, Jacen recoiled. He struggled to tell his own thoughts from the demon’s—where he ended andtheybegan. They were many, but they were alsoone,woven together by the web that was Naxal.
Neri was breathing fast, staring wide-eyed at Jacen with something strangely like pleading.
