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Kara. I knew. Then a black wind swept in, and I knew nothing more.
Chapter 43
I woke on the sofa in my living room beneath a faded quilt. Sunlight beamed through a window, throwing a pattern of squares onto the rug. Not squares, I thought. No right angles. I struggled for a few seconds to come up with the right word. Quadrilaterals. Yeah, that was it. Still had my third grade math skills. That was cool.
Someone stepped in the quadrilaterals, turned and stepped through them again. I lifted my focus a few feet. Bryce, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, stark worry twisting his features. Bryce. He’d called to me, shouted my name.
Kara.
I sucked in a gasp and jerked upright as memory crashed over me. Both hands flew to my chest, clawed at a blade that wasn’t there.
Bryce whirled to face me. “Kara?”
My pulse thundered as I fumbled at my chest. “Bryce?” I croaked. “I—” Pulse. Heart beating. I stilled my shaking hands and pressed them hard over my sternum. Felt the reassuring thud beneath it.
A shift of movement near the door pulled my attention. Eilahn, eyes on me and a smile whispering across her face as she sat with one knee up and the other leg tucked beneath her. Bryce crouched before me and took hold of my shoulders, his features battered by uncertainty and fatigue as he searched my face. “Kara?” he asked. Asked. He wasn’t sure, couldn’t be sure who I was.
But I knew exactly who I was, and that knowledge steadied with each beat of my heart. “Yeah, I’m Kara,” I said, rewarded by relief that shone in his eyes. “I’m Kara,” I repeated, and would have said it a third time except something sharp jabbed at the palm of my left hand, distracting me.
I pulled my hands from my chest to see what poked me, went cold and still at the sight of the twisted gold and silver prongs that thrust up from the empty setting of my ring like imploring hands. Sick grief wound through me. She had destroyed the stone. The cracked and perfect stone of the ring Mzatal had given me.
Bryce released my shoulders, let out a low sigh. “He put it back on your finger,” he said in a low voice and touched a finger gently to the prongs. “After he brought you back, that is.” A whisper of pain and horror threaded through the words, and I looked up sharply. Shadows huddled beneath bloodshot eyes, and stubble marked an uneven path along his jawline.
“You look like hell,” I blurted.
He let out a wheezing laugh. “You’re one to fucking talk!”
I struggled to laugh along with him, but it was a pitiful effort. Bryce sensed it and let his own die away, then shifted from the crouch to sit on the coffee table before me.
“He told me he had to . . . summon her, summon Rowan in order to get her out of you.” Bryce shook his head. “I’m not explaining it very well. Sorry. I was kind of yelling at him a lot and probably missed some of what he said.”
“It’s all right,” I murmured, then took a deeper breath. “I’m me again, and the virus is gone.” Of that I was certain. Szerain knew the rakkuhr with terrifying intimacy, knew Vsuhl’s hunger, and had used one nightmare to defeat another.
And I didn’t know how to feel about any of it.
“What happened after he,” I gestured vaguely at my sternum, “did that?” I had on a t-shirt, I suddenly realized. And running shorts. Eilahn’s work, no doubt. I gave her a nod of gratitude, for far more than the clothing. She inclined her head in response, relief stark on her features. She’d had no way to divine Szerain’s true intent and, like Bryce, had surely thought the worst.
Bryce’s mouth twisted into a smile. “You mean after you joined the ‘Devastating Chest Wound’ club?” He thumped his own chest in mock-solidarity, and this time my laugh was more genuine. “Jesus, Kara,” he breathed. “When he stabbed you and twisted the blade, I thought that was it.” Remembered shock and horror flickered over his face. “But then the knife vanished. He dropped to his knees beside you and slapped his hand over the wound, started wo
rking the healing.” He blew out a breath. “I don’t think he was sure he’d be able to save you. He was sweating it, hard.”
I touched my chest again. “Yeah,” I said, voice quavering only a little. “I doubt that kind of damage to the heart by an essence blade is a walk in the park to fix.”
He shoved a hand through his hair. “Well, I don’t ever want to do that again.”
“I’m with you there,” I said fervently. “I am one hundred percent cool with never getting stabbed in the chest again.”
“So.” Bryce cleared his throat. “Agent Kristoff is a demonic lord. Did not see that coming.”
I smiled weakly. “Surprise?”
He let out a short, sharp laugh. “Understatement of the year.”
My fingers moved over my sternum, and I felt the sigil scar beneath the shirt, a gap in its lines where Vsuhl had cut and Szerain had healed. And Szerain had done something to the twelfth sigil, changed it. But to what?
“So, uh, where’s Ryan?” And wasn’t that ever a loaded question, I realized after I asked it. My last memory of him was as a completely unsubmerged Szerain in full possession of his essence blade. I had no idea what sort of state he’d be in now.
“I don’t know,” Bryce said with a slow shake of his head. “He left this morning and said he’d be back tonight.”
