Page 153 of Demon Touched

“He’s playing you, you know,” I say to the other lords, appealing to them instead. “He’s meddling with the collateral and⁠—”

“Lies,” Strickland quickly assures the other lords. “I told you that Lord Syrus would spin all kinds of tales when you confronted him. Just as he deceived you about his whereabouts when he was in Aradis. You must do as you see fit, my lords, but I suggest you don’t waste your time listening to this.”

“The cornered dog will always bite,” Liege Damein agrees, their yellow eyes gleaming from above their veil.

Lord Midane clears his throat. “Our priority is seeing you brought to justice, Lord Syrus. You will not distract us from that mission.”

“I’m sorry, friends,” I say to the lords, drawing my shadows to myself, coiling them like whips ready to lash out. “But I cannot let you take me. I have something here I need to protect.” I cannot leave Leah here in Strickland’s grasp. I have to fight, for her. She doesn’t know what she’ll be walking into and won’t be able to defend herself.

“And what about your domain, Lord Syrus?” Lady Jing demands. “Didn’t that need protecting when you undermined our realm by fraternizing with the ephilium?”

“Perhaps,” I say, with sudden clarity. “But at that time, I was focused on something—someone—else who needed my protection more. I believe I made the right choice.”

“He who launches the battle cry cannot fret when the war comes to him, Lord Syrus,” Liege Damein says warningly, revealing their hands from beneath their voluminous robes: a sign they’re preparing to conjure. Lady Jing pulls her axes from her back, and Lord Midane, with an unhappy expression, draws his sword.

“Then consider this my battle cry, friend,” I say, and release my shadows upon the lords.

The humans at least have the good sense to get out of the way. I’m vaguely aware of the wardens crowding Strickland toward one end of the hall as our magics collide. Midane slashes through my shadows with his own darkness-imbued sword while I block a volley of tiny daggers with my own blade, swiping them from the air.

I grimace. Not the best day to be reminded of Lady Jing’s knack for telekinesis. In response, I distract her by lighting a ring of flame around her feet.

But as she screeches, trying to put it out, a chasm opens up right in front of me, as if something has ripped straight through the floor to reveal a deep, gaping nothingness.

Damein’s hallucinations: it has to be. I’ve heard this is their power—as tricksy and confusing as their riddles. And yet I still hesitate, my feet stumbling back as my body tries to push itself away from the imaginary edge.

I hear the whiz of metal through the air in time to throw up my sword and block one of Lady Jing’s axes, but I’m not fast enough for the second. It embeds itself in my shoulder, slicing deep at the tendons and muscle. My hand drops, limp, as my sword clatters to the floor, and I growl in pain. With my working arm, I yank the axe from my shoulder so the flesh can begin to knit back together. But by now, Midane’s shadows are back, wrapping around my ribs, trying to crush me. I peel them away with my own shadows, but it’s a slow process—his magic is strong, if not quite as powerful as my own.

As I wrestle my way free, I watch Lady Jing retrieve the first axe she threw and spin toward me. My wings flare, and I kick out, catching her in the stomach and killing her momentum. Only then the wall nearest me appears to crumble at the base, toppling down toward me—another hallucination to make me falter.

I can’t see reality for Damein’s illusion—bricks and dust clogging up my eyeline—but I feel it all too well, the moment when Lady Jing’s axe drives deep into my back.

My legs buckle, sending me crashing to the floor, cracking my cheek against the hard wood. With the blade still lodged in my spine, my body cannot heal, and I can barely move my lower half, pulling myself toward my sword.

I can’t reach it before they grab my arms. I’m hauled up, my feet hanging uselessly beneath me as Jing and Midane drag me across the hall. I can still move my neck, and I twist it now to catch a glimpse of Liege Damein opening a rift behind me.

No. No. I can’t leave her unprotected. I can’t⁠—

I sense her then, like I do in every room she enters, and look up to see Leah standing in the doorway of the hall. Her face is ashen, her eyes fixed on mine.

“Leah, I love you,” I murmur. It’s all I have breath for right now. I pray that she can read the words on my lips as I’m dragged through the rift, the aether swallowing me up.

Leah

I’m drawn to the hall by the noise of battle and the thrum of powerful magic, but at first, I don’t understand what I’m seeing.

It’s not until I step through the doors that I grasp the awful tableau laid out for me. Syrus, slumped between Lady Jing and Lord Midane, a limp, broken body soaked in blood, being carried toward a rift. He just has time to lift his head, his crimson eyes boring into mine, and to murmur a few words.

I don’t need to hear them to know what they are.

“Syrus!” I run toward the rift, power flooding down my arms and pooling in my palms. I have to reach them before the rift closes. I’ll follow them to Infernum, I’ll fight every lord on demon soil—just so long as they don’t take from me the man I’ve finally let myself love.

I don’t get more than a few steps when my feet freeze in place and my hands are yanked together. A familiar voice mutters Cyrax words about leashing and hindering and binding, the words invading my ears like buzzing flies.

Blearily, I look around, blinking through tears to see a beautiful woman with raven-black hair gliding toward me.

Lady Roseingrave.

Dark bruises line her throat where Syrus’s shadows choked her, but her eyes are brighter than ever. In her hand, she has a metal cylinder, soldered back together in the middle, still stained with my blood. She holds it ahead of her triumphantly as my magic writhes and twists between my hands, blocked by the magic of her binding spell.