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his back, features completely his. Kadir watched with cautious intensity as he prepared another strike. Idris lay curled on his side, eyes wide and staring, jaw slack.
Mzatal felt it all through me—the destruction, the pain, the fear, the death—and his control of the fury wavered.
“Mzatal. Send Khatur away,” I ordered, using every means of communication I had with him. “Send the blade away. NOW!”
His eyes locked on mine, as hard as silver-grey flint—unyielding, uncompromising, but still holding the catastrophic potency at bay.
Boss. Zharkat. Beloved, I called to him. Feel me. Remember yourself. Be right here. Right now. With me.
Breath hissing through his teeth, Mzatal shifted his grip on the blade. For a horrific second I thought he intended to drive it through me, but then he let out a harsh growling cry and slashed the blade down across his forearm to open a deep gash. Luminescent blood sizzled and vaporized on the blade, and I staggered, nausea rising, as I felt Khatur take the offering. In the next heartbeat, the blade disappeared from Mzatal’s hand, banished.
Mzatal shook with the intensity of the gathered potency, the cumulation of black anger I couldn’t fathom. He still maintained enough control to keep it leashed, but not for much longer. Even now it ripped at him. I felt the pressure build—a sealed volcano, poised to explode, and when it did Mzatal would stand alone in the middle of a blasted crater.
“Down. Down!” I urged him. “Ground it into the earth and to the lake.”
He let out a tortured cry, dropped to his knees, and flattened his palms on the ground. I went with him, kept my arms around him, called to him.
The lake, I told him. Send it to the lake. The world trembled. A narrow fissure split the ground between us and the water, a crack of earthen lightning. An instant later the lake erupted into a boiling cauldron.
Holding Mzatal, I helped him channel the power as it poured out of him. Steam rose in a massive, seething cloud. The shaking in the earth eased. The worst of the steam dissipated, leaving behind a fetid stench.
Breathing hard, Mzatal knelt with hands still flat on the ground, regret and frustration echoing through him in discordant rhythm along with a headache that sliced at him, much like the one he’d had at my house.
I slowly released him, stood unsteadily, and looked around. Kadir, intently watchful, gave a slight nod then limped to the burned and moaning forms of Amkir and Jesral, seized each by the collar and dragged them toward the node. Flames licked from the roof of the plantation house, tempered, but not quenched by the heavy rain. Half of the Ops building lay in ruins, and potency residue still writhed over it like fine arcs of electricity. People moved, shouted, and screamed in the flickering light, but all seemed too caught up in their own nightmare to bother with the intruders who’d just nuked the place. No doubt someone had called nine-one-one by now but, as isolated as the plantation was, it would be a good fifteen minutes before significant response arrived.
“Mzatal,” I said, sickened. “Paul . . . Paul needs you.”
He pushed up to kneel without meeting my eyes. As he stood, I felt him consciously withdraw from me and close me off as he went to crouch by Paul. For a moment I could only stare as our connection thinned until it felt like the vacuum of space, cold and silent. What was he doing? I mentally extended, found a wall and no entry. “Mzatal?”
I dimly heard Bryce shouting. “You fix him, goddammit! You did this to him! You goddamn bring him back!”
Mzatal ignored him, ignored me, as he straightened and moved to Idris. Bryce cursed and resumed CPR on Paul. In othersight I saw Mzatal unwind the arcane hooks that would have killed Idris in a few more minutes. That was good. A wave of vertigo came and went. I liked Idris. Clever and talented, that one.
I frowned. Did I know Idris that well? The rain eased from a torrent to a gentle fall, and I turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. Kadir shoved Amkir and Jesral through the node portal, then turned and surveyed the area with narrowed eyes as he approached Rhyzkahl’s motionless form. Mzatal carried the unconscious Idris back to set him down near Paul, then knelt and placed his hands on the horribly burned young man and went still. Bryce shifted back, jaw set and eyes on Mzatal, but he didn’t say anything as the lord worked on Paul.
I lifted my hand to the silent receiver in my ear, unable to escape the feeling that someone was supposed to be telling me something. Reminding me of something. Vertigo flickered over me once more. My hand dropped, and I fought to hold onto a slick plain of never-ending glass, tilting me toward oblivion—
“Kara.”
I spun toward the voice, toward Ryan as he climbed to his feet. Dream fragments merged with reality, dispersed to reveal firm ground beneath me. Kara. “Here,” I gasped. “I’m here. Kara.” The grove. I still felt the grove through the open node. That’s what I needed to focus on right now. I was Kara, and Kara could do cool shit with the grove.
“Kara,” Ryan repeated as he moved to me. “Kara.”
I took a deep breath, tasted the boiled lake in the air. “Ryan, I killed Pyrenth,” I said, voice cracking. “And Jesral almost had me, and Mzatal, he . . .” I trailed off, unable to voice it.
“Kara,” he murmured as he gathered me close. “Be right here, right now. You have to focus. Too much is going on.”
I clung to him, fought my way back up and dug in. “Right. Right. I’m here.”
“Kara.” That was Mzatal, voice tight and mega-controlled. “Kara,” he said again, yet the connection remained silent and empty. I released Ryan and moved toward Mzatal. The ground seemed to pitch and roll beneath my feet, but I couldn’t tell if it was the aftermath of all the tremors, like trying to walk on land after a long boat trip, or if it was simply my own tenuous grasp on my reality because of the rakkuhr virus.
Idris let out a low groan from where he lay beside Paul. Paul didn’t groan. I wasn’t even sure Paul was breathing beneath Mzatal’s hands. At the edge of my vision I saw Kadir carry Rhyzkahl onto the gazebo platform, push him through the node then stride away in the direction of the burning mansion. My hatred of Rhyzkahl remained unchanged, but for now I banked the fires of my rage. He suffered terribly with the loss of his ptarl, and it was enough for me in this moment.
“Kara,” Mzatal said, and I returned my focus to him. “Call Vsuhl.” His words came sharply, bitten out to slice the air, and I didn’t know if it was because he had everything focused on Paul or if he’d closed off even basic warmth from me.
Yet I did as he asked. Perhaps he needed my help to save Paul? The blade coalesced in my hand, edge catching the glare of the remaining floodlights and the fires. None of Pyrenth’s blood on it. A self-cleaning blade, I thought with an edge of hysteria. How fucking handy was that?
Mzatal jerked his hand out toward me. “Give it to me.”
