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Jill took a step back from the unnerving display as I moved up beside her. In the next instant the grass flattened toward the center, and I felt a tugging tickle as potency flowed toward Szerain. On my torso the eleven sigil scars left by Rhyzkahl prickled and itched while the twelfth—the sigil Szerain had altered and ignited—began to pulse at the small of my back.
Holding back a shudder, I sought a clue of Szerain’s purpose as I concentrated on the feel of the potency flow and the reaction of my scars. “He say what he’s doing?”
“Not a word,” Jill said. “I might as well be a recording of ‘Where have you been?’ and ‘What are you doing?’”
I had no answer to the “where” part, but I knew the “what”—at least vaguely, which was more than I would have had a year ago. Mzatal’s training, along with all the intense practical experience of the past year, allowed me to discern that Szerain drew a delicate web of potency toward him, like a fisherman hauling in a net. But what was he trying to catch?
A pins-and-needles sensation prickled over me as I stepped to within a few inches of the
outer edge of the nexus. “Ryan—Szerain—what are you looking for?”
“Not now,” he growled.
Annoyed, I bit back a tart response. “I don’t exactly know what he’s doing,” I said to Jill, “but disrupting it might not be the best plan since possible worst case scenarios could include the end of the world as we know it.”
“Oh, is that all?” She folded her arms over her belly and narrowed her eyes at me. “How do you know he’s not trying to end the world as we know it?”
Her remark hit too close to the truth for my comfort. Centuries ago, Szerain had triggered a cataclysm in the demon realm—changing that world drastically if not actually ending it. Moreover, for the past fifteen years he’d been imprisoned and exiled to Earth for an offense I had no information about. He’d only been free a short time and surely wasn’t embroiled in anything that intense. Yet. I was almost positive. Gah.
I kept my expression confident. “I’m forming a judgment based on what I can sense,” I gestured toward Szerain, “along with the fact that he hasn’t screwed us over yet,” that we know of, I silently added, “and my hope that I’m not being an idiot.”
That final one was the kicker. My history with Szerain left me with more questions than answers. The last time I’d seen him on the nexus was shortly after the plantation conflict, when the Mraztur’s “virus” threatened to strip my identity and transform me into Rhyzkahl’s thrall, Rowan. Through drastic actions, Szerain removed the viral imprint in time to save me. However, the process not only allowed him to activate the twelfth sigil on my torso, but also let him reclaim his essence blade, Vsuhl. With the arcane support of the blade, he freed himself from his submersion and imprisonment as Ryan, rendering him fully able to speak and act as Szerain. Since then, to my enormous frustration, he’d given me no answers about the significance of the activated twelfth sigil or what he intended to do now that he was free.
The three essence blades were the wild cards in all of this. Millennia ago, Mzatal created Khatur for himself, Xhan for Rhyzkahl, and Vsuhl for Szerain. I knew they were far more than mere knives. I’d possessed Vsuhl for a short time and felt its sentience, and only later realized the subtle influence it had exerted over my thoughts and feelings. Perhaps the lords weren’t as susceptible to the effect as a mere human was, but they most certainly weren’t immune.
Uneasy, I watched as Szerain wound in the last strands of the net. Potency like blood-red lightning and shadow arced from his fingertips to the slab then spread over the circle like crimson fire.
Rakkuhr.
Nausea slammed through me. I clamped my forearm across my belly and fought to keep my knees from buckling. My mind swam with hideous memories of the same vile potency flickering on the blade in Rhyzkahl’s grasp. Steeev screeched and made an inhuman leap from the roof to the ground, with Eilahn hot on his heels. The sigil at the small of my back writhed like a living thing, and I pressed my free hand over it in a useless attempt to still it. “Szerain! Stop!”
Eilahn bristled beside me, teeth bared. “Kiraknikahl,” she said. The word cut through the air like a weapon. Oathbreaker. Growling, Steeev pulled Jill back from the nexus. She’d gone pale and had both hands clasped on her belly. The twelfth sigil flared like branding heat, and I sucked in a hissing breath. Jill let out a sharp cry of pain, and Steeev swept her into his arms and carried her away.
“Szerain! Stop it!” I screamed, fury rising as he continued to ignore me. How dare he use rakkuhr on Earth, on my nexus, and right next to a pregnant woman? Screw this. Maybe his intentions were all rainbows and butterflies, but how was I to know since he refused to tell me? All I had were my instincts, which told me this was wrong and I needed to stop it.
With Eilahn following me like a lithe shadow, I stalked the perimeter of crimson flame in search of a weak point I could use to disrupt Szerain’s process. I stopped to assess each ripple in the pattern, frustration rising as I reviewed and discarded ideas.
Without thinking, I stepped over a small dip in the grass, then paused. I’d known the shallow depression was there because it was in my backyard. I’d lived here most of my life and remembered the tree that fell to make the dip—even knew which hurricane brought it down. And the nexus was mine as well. I’d played a major role in creating this hot spot. My confidence flowed back in, drowning the frustration. Maybe, just maybe, the nexus would listen to its mama.
Going still, I mentally extended—not to the rakkuhr or Szerain, but far below, to the lightning-forged heart of the convergence. I called to it, elated as I felt a sluggish response. “That’s it,” I murmured, weirdly reminded of connecting with the groves in the demon realm. “C’mon, sweetheart. I don’t need much.”
It didn’t give me much, but it was enough. The ground shuddered, and the arcane light of Szerain’s pattern flickered and dimmed.
Szerain spun to face me, desperation radiating from him as he fought to maintain the integrity of his patterns. Locking my eyes on his, I once again called to the nexus. The air crackled with our combined intensity, but a moment later Szerain let out a strangled cry of frustration and jerked his arms down to his sides. With the abrupt motion, his arcane structures shredded, dissipating both rakkuhr and normal potency with a shrieking hiss. The air around it went as well, and I staggered as the brief vacuum sucked my breath away.
An instant later the sigil at the small of my back went cold and quiet. Szerain strode away from the nexus without a glance my way. Off-balance both physically and mentally, I dragged in fresh air then scrambled to follow as he headed around the house.
“Hey!” I hurried to catch up to him, Eilahn in my wake. “Damn it, Szerain. Stop and talk to me!”
“I can’t stop.” He turned brusquely toward me, though he continued to walk backward. For the first time since arriving home I got a good look at his face. Ryan’s ruggedly handsome features, but far more intense and with dark circles under keen, haunted eyes. “Especially not here,” he went on, jaw tight. “Trashing my nexus grid was like sending up a flare.”
I bristled at his arrogance. “You come here without so much as a phone call, flaunt dangerous-as-shit potency like it’s nothing, and expect me to stand by and twiddle my thumbs?”
“Rakkuhr saved your life not so long ago.” He pivoted sharply and continued toward the driveway.
“Trust me, I remember! And you haven’t answered any of my questions about that.” I broke into a jog to keep up with his long strides. “What’s the purpose of the twelfth sigil? Why is it active?”
“Not here. Not now,” he said without slowing.
