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“The sleep of our god ends,” she whispered, this time in front of me. “Soon he will awaken fully, and then we will bleed you out.”
“Not if I can help it.” To Amaya, I said, Let’s do it.
Invite, she whispered, excitement in her tone.
Trepidation shivered through me, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of options left. I took a deep breath, then silently said, Amaya, become one with me.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then power exploded, thick and heavy, surging through steel and flesh with equal ferocity. It was a storm that tore my core apart, fiber by fiber, then pieced me back together, all within a matter of heartbeats.
Only it was no longer me, but we.
Because I wasn’t alone. Someone else was in here with me, sharing my body and my thoughts, even as she shared her powers and abilities. It was a strange, unsettling sensation.
We opened my eyes. The darkness fell away, and the Rakshasa appeared. Or rather, the blue shimmer of her energy appeared. She was standing five feet away, and there was a pool of seething, sinewy flesh at her feet. She flicked a finger to the left, and several snakes instantly slithered away. Looping around to get behind me.
Amaya hissed. It sounded weird coming out of my mouth. We didn’t move, just held the sword as we studied our surroundings.
The cavern itself was vast and roughly triangular in shape. Blue bolts of energy shot across the walls, the rhythm matching the beat of the heart. It seemed to be originating from a shadowed enclave at the very tip of the triangle, and I suddenly remembered what Azriel had said: Smash the god’s power, and the Rakshasa will be fixed in flesh and more easily killed.
That was our way out of here.
Fight, Amaya growled and raised the sword, sweeping it from left to right so fast that the steel sang as it cut through the air.
No, I bit back. We stop the dark god rising first.
The snakes swept in. We moved, the sword little more than a blur as we struck, killing the snakes in one deadly sweep. The Rakshasa sent more snakes at us, but I had no intention of hanging around, waiting for them to get close.
My one chance of getting out of here alive might lie in reaching that enclave and destroying whatever lay within it, and I wasn’t about to waste it.
I forced my limbs into a run, battling Amaya’s desire to stand and fight as much as the weakness in my limbs. The Rakshasa’s reaction was swift and deadly. She lunged after me, her sharp nails flashing. I twisted away, but she raked my back and a scream tore out of my throat. Not just from the pain, but also from frustration. Her nails were poisonous and I had no idea how quickly it would take effect and render me immobile once again.
Then I thrust that thought aside. All that mattered was reaching the enclave, and right now I could still run. My feet slapped quickly against the cold stone, but there was little sound to be heard other than the harsh rasp of my breathing.
Something hit the back of my legs and I stumbled. I flung out my arms to steady myself, and somehow retained balance. Again something struck at me, this time tearing into flesh. Snake. Fuck. The sword swung and there was no more snake, just clear ground between us and the enclave.
The exotic Rakshasa came at us. I heard the wind of her approach, felt the burn of her energy against my skin. We twisted away and swung the sword, the dark point slicing across perfect features, splitting flesh and cutting down to the bone. Her skin from cheek to chin peeled away, the flap hanging loose and giving her a half-skeletal look. She screamed, but it was a sound of fury rather than pain. We twisted again, and lashed out with a heel. It hit her high in the neck, hard enough to crush her larynx. Whether it did or not I had no idea, but the force behind the blow was enough to send her flailing backward.
I ran on. In the shadows that lurked around the cavern’s point a simple urn sat on a pedestal of stone.
Power within, Amaya said. Crush.
We slid to a stop, raised the sword two-handed, and brought her down on the urn as hard as we could. The dark steel sliced through the urn as easily as it would have through butter, and the contents spewed out, a gluey mess of blood and other matter. In the center of the now shattered urn lay a small heart, its rhythm matching the beat in the stone around us. We raised the sword fractionally and slashed down. The blade shuddered as steel met flesh, then slowly, surely, it sliced through. The beat of life in the stone around us became unsteady, erratic.
Not dead, not yet.
I raised the sword to finish the job, but the Rakshasa’s scream swung me around. This time it was more than fury. This time it was devastation.
And this time it wasn’t just the exotic Rakshasa who came at me, but every damn one of them.
Fight, Amaya said. Now.
We did. With a ferocity and skill that wasn’t mine, we charged into the middle of them and tore them apart, piece by piece. It was a bitter, bloody battle that had blood pouring from almost every scrap of my body, but soon five of them were dead and only the exotic Rakshasa was left.
I expected her to attack, but instead she stepped back. I raised the sword, fighting Amaya’s urge to attack, my limbs trembling with exhaustion as I watched her warily. The Rakshasa’s gaze swept the destruction around us, then moved to the shattered remains of the urn. Something close to grief moved across her ruined features, then her gaze returned to mine.
“It is done,” she said softly. “The dark god is dead. I have failed in my duty to her.”
She bowed low, then dropped to her knees before me and didn’t move.
