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Bryce sat on the far side of the bed, looking stricken and pissed and grieving all at the same time as he held Paul’s limp hand. The covers had been stripped back, and the young man’s chest laid bare. I’d seen a lot of corpses, and if Mzatal hadn’t told me Paul still lived, I’d have sworn I was looking at one. A discordant chartreuse sigil like tangled neon yarn drifted a handspan above Paul’s heart and pulsed a deathly slow cadence.
Already deep into his process, Kadir leaned close to Paul’s face and inhaled deeply. Scenting. He’d done the same creepy thing to me before, but now I realized it formed an integral—though odd—part of his assessment.
I moved to sit beside a wary and watchful Bryce, put an arm around his shoulders. “Kadir is going to help,” I murmured, weirdly convinced it was true.
Bryce’s managed a tight nod, his eyes locked on Paul.
Kadir added erratic extensions to the tangled sigil over Paul’s chest. Its pulse took on a chaotic and disturbing rhythm—disintegration struggling to fuse with normality. Bryce and I both recoiled, but then a profound familiarity sang through me. I leaned forward in horrified fascination, eyes and arcane sense keenly focused. I laid my hand over my side, over Kadir’s convoluted sign etched in my flesh. Like the other scars, it had burned or itched many times, but now it felt cool and . . . alive. A by-product of Szerain’s activation?
The bizarre sigil continued to flutter and pulse but no longer seemed so irrational. I called to the grove, felt its warm response like the caress of a summer breeze. Kadir traced and enlarged the sigil to create a peculiar mat of neon strands the size of a sheet of paper above Paul, then pushed it down onto him like a bandage. The scar beneath my hand began to pul
se, matching the slow death beat of the sigil. I drew more grove energy, then more still as I pressed my hand to Kadir’s sigil scar and connected with the . . . chaos.
Kadir froze, snapped his gaze to me as if truly seeing me for the first time. His eyes slid down to where my hand covered his mark, deep curiosity in his expression again, along with a trace of shock.
“Don’t stop now,” I snapped. “He’s dying. I can help you. I understand it.” And I did. No way could I explain it, but between the grove and the activated sigil under my palm, I felt the creative genius of the healing sigil, the potential order in the chaos, and I knew how to assist. “Keep tracing.”
Yet Kadir didn’t move. “Show me, Kara Gillian,” he said, the words intense though barely audible. He settled his hands in an I’m-not-doing-shit position on his thighs, his violet eyes hungry and burning with curiosity. “Then we bring this one back from the fringe of the void.”
Annoyance at his power-play flared, but I understood now what he wanted, what he’d always wanted from me. The beat of the sigil slowed as Paul’s life ebbed away, a grim reminder that we didn’t have time to waste. I considered arguing that Kadir had an agreement with Mzatal, but figured he’d easily outmaneuver me on that one. Instead, I bared my teeth, reached across with my free hand and gripped a handful of golden hair hard and close to his scalp and gave him what he wanted.
“Here,” I growled and opened a flood of grove energy. He’d challenged me at Rhyzkahl’s, goaded me in Mzatal’s grove. The bastard wanted to experience the enigmatic grove flows through me, but wouldn’t simply ask. Well, now he had his chance.
The energy of the scar blasted through my body and to his with holy-crap-what-have-I-done intensity. I dragged in a breath, sought balance. Kadir’s lips parted, eyes closing as his face took on a disturbingly orgasmic look. In the next breath, chaos poured from him and through me to unite with the scar.
I’d gone too far. Drowning in a sea of madness, I called to the grove, clung to its strong presence as I dragged myself above the chaos. In a flash, I felt a tsunami wave swamp Kadir’s tiny island of order and relative sanity.
He jerked against my hand, and his eyes flew open, wild and unfocused, while his aura radiated chaos like a solar storm. Breathing hard, I forced my fingers to unclench from his hair. Kadir fell to his knees, hands white-knuckled on the edge of the bed.
Distantly, I heard Bryce call my name, but couldn’t spare him a glance. The healing sigil sputtered with weak flickers. “Kadir!” I shouted. “We have to finish healing Paul or . . .” Or what? “Or you’ll violate your agreement with Mzatal.” It was a long shot but it worked. He clawed through the chaos to refocus on Paul. But slowly. Too slowly.
I gripped his wrist and placed his hand atop the contorted sigil on Paul’s chest. Kadir straightened and spread his fingers, but his attempt to call the needed strands together failed with a shower of arcane sparks. I reached through Kadir—just as Szerain had reached through me on the mini-nexus to try to call Vsuhl—used the understanding and bizarre connection to adjust and ignite the sigil. It flashed bright green then shifted into precise and ordered curves. Grove energy still coursing through me, I stared at the pattern of the new sigil, at the order from the chaos. A torrent of information like a million minds connecting at once bombarded me, even as the sigil subsided to a faint glow on Paul’s skin.
I jerked my hand from Kadir’s wrist, then sat frozen in shock, struggling to suppress the impressions I’d received without losing them. I didn’t want to think yet. Not here. Not now. I didn’t dare delve into what I’d experienced in that last heartbeat of connection.
Paul drew in a noisy breath, then another.
“Paul!” Bryce leaned in close, called his name over and over. Paul still felt damaged to me, but far less than before.
Radiating chaos, Kadir pushed himself to his feet, looking deeply shaken. With a hissing breath, he drew his nails down his cheek, deeply enough to draw blood. Helori appeared beyond him. Kadir’s estranged ptarl. I had no trouble seeing why the two didn’t mesh well.
Helori moved in close to Kadir. “Allow me to take you, qaztahl,” he said quietly.
Kadir turned on him. “No,” he snarled. “No!” He swept from the room without another glance in our direction, taking the suffocating blanket of chaos with him.
A look of profound sadness came over Helori’s face, then he moved to the bedside, his eyes on Paul.
Somehow I managed to stand, mundane senses unbalanced while I held the chaos impressions in check. I sensed Mzatal deeply engaged in the plexus and didn’t dare extend to even touch him for fear of shattering my balance, losing the hold on the Kadir experience.
“B-Bryce?” Paul opened his eyes blearily.
Joy and relief suffused Bryce’s face. “Right here, kid,” he said, gathering Paul’s hand in his again. “You’re going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Helori moved to my side. “Do you want to go to a grove?”
I gave the barest of nods, certain that if I moved too much the seal holding in the impressions and sensations would break.
He took my hand, fingers warm and strong against mine, and in the next breath we were in a grove.
