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I had no idea. I was working on pure instinct now, totally incapable of any actual thought processes.
My fingers twitched; felt metal. Somehow, I found the strength to grasp her.
I expected fury. Expected to be hit once again by the illusionary flames that had burned her from my grip the first time. But nothing happened. The dark energy continued to flow through me, this time rebuilding rather than tearing apart. My body continued to shudder, scream, but Amaya burned brighter in my mind, her energy flowing through me, giving me strength.
The dark energy began to ease, trickling away like water down a drain, leaving me a quivering, broken wreck.
Now, an alien voice whispered through my brain.
I didn’t think. I just obeyed.
I forced my eyes open. Amaya was dark and ghostly, giving no hint of the fierceness that burned within her—and within me. Beyond her, I saw the shimmer that was the energy of the Raziq who’d attacked me.
I drew Amaya back and threw her. It wasn’t a strong throw—it couldn’t be, not after everything I’d just been through.
It didn’t matter. Amaya flew straight and true, flaring to glorious life just as her black blade buried itself in the heart of that dark shimmer. Purple fire exploded as Amaya’s flames wrapped around the Raziq’s energy, capturing it, drawing it back into herself. Feeding on him.
He screamed. Screamed. As I’d screamed—long and hard—until his voice was raw and he could scream no more. If I’d had the energy I would have danced with joy.
There was another explosion, and the force of it shifted me sideways several inches. The flames and the Raziq were gone, leaving only blessed silence.
Amaya slid across the floor toward me, and almost of their own accord, my fingers wrapped around her again. She felt heavy in my hand. Sated.
Somehow I managed to sheathe her. We might have killed one Raziq, but there were plenty more where he’d come from. I didn’t want them forcing me to drop her again, and the fact that they hadn’t seen her either in my hand or in flight made me suspect that if she was sheathed or cloaked, they couldn’t.
I lay there waiting for the hammer to fall, my body on fire, every part of me aching and my clothes wet with blood and god knows what else. I stank of fear and sweat and blood and urine, and I knew it wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
That oily, rainbow shimmer still crawled across the roof of my tomb, so the Raziq were still here even if I was no longer capable of sensing them. Not that I would have been able to call to the Aedh even if they hadn’t been present—I just didn’t have the strength or will.
“That,” a new voice said, “was unexpected.”
Which had to be the understatement of the century.
“But at least,” he continued, “the transfer was completed.”
“What—” I licked dry lips. It didn’t help much, because I had little in the way of saliva. “Transfer?”
“As you would not agree to use the device, we placed it within you.”
Well, it won’t be there for fucking long, I thought resolutely. I didn’t say anything, but then, I didn’t need to.
“If you remove it,” the Raziq said, voice still amazingly calm considering I’d just killed one of them. But he was Aedh—practical, unemotional, cold. As long as their objective had been achieved, I doubted they’d care how many of their number I killed. “You will die.”
Fear crawled inside me. “Why?”
“Because it cannot be removed. It will cease functioning if you die, but I suspect you would not wish that.”
He suspected right. But that didn’t actually mean I had to believe him. Aedh might be cold and unemotional, but I had no doubt they weren’t above lying if it suited their needs.
“Indeed,” the voice agreed. “But in this case, there is no need. The device was interwoven into the fabric of your heart when we re-formed you. To take it out, you must take out your heart.”
Oh, fuck. Two words that really didn’t seem adequate enough for the shit I was now in.
“Why would you do something like that?”
“You would not aid us. This way, we know your location at any moment, and we will know when your father nears you.”
Meaning they’d have me and my father. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
