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“Yes, mom.” I rolled my eyes, yet at the same time a deep relief speared through me. I was exhausted, and I needed time to process everything before facing Ryan again. I also doubted that Zack truly needed to talk to Ryan. More likely he wanted to make sure that Szerain was fully locked down. My mind shuddered away from that thought as I tucked my arm around Ryan’s waist.
“C’mon, bitch, gimme my donuts,” I told him.
He laughed, draped an arm over my shoulder in an unsettling echo of Mzatal’s gesture. “My god, you’re cranky. I knew I should’ve had them waiting down here.”
“Yeah, thought you were smarter than that,” I said, then made a tsking noise. “Forgot. You’re a fed.”
He laughed again and gave me a squeeze as we climbed the stairs together.
Chapter 43
>I did so, simply willed it to go elsewhere, felt its acquiescence, and jerked in shock when it actually did. “Holy shit.”
Szerain gave a strangled cry between dismay, frustration, and fury. “Dahn!” He closed his extended hand into a fist, shaking more as the quiet potency of the blade departed. Zack wrapped an arm around him from behind. Szerain struggled vainly as the Elder syraza clamped his other hand over Szerain’s forehead and pulled his head back.
Dismayed, I stepped forward. Stricken horror replaced the determined, haunted intensity in Szerain’s eyes, as if he knew he could do nothing to stop what was about to happen. “Dahn. No. I will subside. Jhivral, Zakaar…please,” Szerain gasped, voice near breaking. “I will subside.”
“Please, Zack,” I said, agonized, reaching a hand out toward him. I knew the torment that awaited Szerain. “Please don’t.”
Zack looked from him to me and back again, clearly assessing us both carefully, weighing options and determining if the risk was worth it. He slowly eased his grip. “You have a moment,” he said, and only the tension in his voice betrayed how much he despised all of this.
Szerain closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. I knew without doubt that he was calling a pygah, and in a few heartbeats he visibly calmed in both features and energy. How long has it been since he’s been able to do that? I wondered with a deep ache.
Szerain opened liquid, ancient eyes and met mine. “Dak lahn. Thank you.”
I gave a slight nod in response, watching him.
His brows drew together as though he heard or smelled something he couldn’t identify. His eyes shifted around, then came to rest on the exposed sigil on my chest. A muscle in his jaw leaped as his eyes traced the contours, expression shifting as if the patterns spoke to him. “Fuck,” he murmured, then lifted his gaze back to my face. “Rhyzkahl?”
A chill went through me. My lip curled. “Kri.”
Szerain went demonic-lord still, a deep seething anger, long submerged, perceptible behind his eyes. Without warning he ripped fully from Zack’s grasp and moved toward me, eyes on what he could see of the sigils. I sucked in a breath and took a step back, but before he could reach me Zack grabbed him by the collar and seized his arm once again.
Szerain pulled against the restraint. “Release me. I must touch it. You know I must touch it.”
Zack maintained his hold, looked from him to me. “Kara?”
“Let him,” I said, feeling Eilahn’s solid presence behind me.
Szerain moved in closer with Zack still holding his upper arm, intensity in his face intermittently shot with anguish and instability. He lifted a hand, laid his full palm against my upper chest, sucked in a breath.
“Rakkuhr. One sigil for each qaztahl, and one more to…” He tipped his head back, took a shuddering breath and then released it in what could only be relief. “Not completed.”
“No,” I said, throat dry. “Mzatal saved me.”
Realization flashed across his face. “He was the one who summoned you. He is ever the wisest of the three.” He shook his head. “There were times he should have listened to me. But far more when I should have listened to him.” He let his hand drop from the scars. “Fuck Rhyzkahl. Fuck him.”
I snorted. “Been there, done that. Rather not.”
His mouth twitched into a smile. “And I told you it was a very poor idea.”
I smiled back, seeing a shimmer of Ryan in him for the first time.
“Szerain,” Zack said, a subtle strength in his voice. “It is time. You know it must be done, and it will only get harder if we delay.”
An eyes-wide panic came to Szerain’s face. “No. No,” he said, shaking his head. “I cannot.”
“No,” I said to Zack. “Please. You can’t do that to him.” Numb horror rose at the memory of my own brief submersion. “It’s too cruel. You can’t!”
