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“Ha! Ten.”
“Ten . . .” His eyes dropped to my upper chest, “in contact with my sigil.”
Pulse pounding, I recoiled and pressed my hand over the scar—his mark—at the top of my sternum. “No!”
He lounged back in the pillows, pose non-threatening. “Seven, in contact with my sigil.”
Fuck. It was clear he knew how very much I wanted the captives released. But what benefit would touching the scar offer him? It wasn’t activated—only the twelfth held that dubious honor—yet at the same time I knew that none of the scars were fully quiescent. Or at least they hadn’t been before I lost the arca
ne.
“Two,” I said, though my stomach lurched.
“Five,” he said, whisper-soft.
Throat dry, I nodded. “Five. Captives to be released to Mzatal within one day of . . . completion of my side of the bargain.”
“Agree—”
“No!” I said, heart thundering. “I wasn’t finished.” A lie, but I’d caught a glint of triumph in his eyes that left me cold. What had I missed? Maybe I should withdraw from the dream to regroup and—
That was it! The dream.
“Far too hasty,” I said. “You will release captives to Mzatal within one day of completion of my side of the bargain. This agreement includes all human captives in the demon realm. One captive for each five minutes you have in contact with the sigil scar. In dreamspace. Not physically.”
His jaw tightened, which was all I needed to confirm I’d caught my error. Sick relief surged through me at the insanely close call. No way would I ever comply with a physical encounter, and with that gaping loophole the captives would never have been released—not without renegotiation from a weaker position. I’d almost betrayed myself with words as Seretis had warned.
“I do not have access to all captives,” he said.
I didn’t doubt it. In his condition, he’d be hard pressed to recover captives from the likes of Amkir or Jesral. But I’d take what I could get. “Not my problem. It means you have less time with this.” I pulled my collar down to show the sigil scar, willed it to glow blue in his dream.
He dropped his head back onto the cushions, looking truly weary and beat down. “Do we have an agreement?”
“Terms as stated before.”
“Agreed,” he said.
I still wasn’t certain I’d covered all possible loopholes, but as long as it stayed in dreamspace nothing bad could happen. To me, at least. “Agreed,” I said. “Do you have a captive here ready to release within a day?”
“Yes. Two.” He sat up straighter, eyes hungry. “Come close.”
I stepped back, came up against the balustrade. “You want it, you come to me.” No reason to make this easy for him and, dreamspace or not, I didn’t like the idea of sitting on the chaise lounge with him one little bit.
Rhyzkahl hauled himself to his feet, lurched toward me. I turned away and gripped the balustrade. I control this, I told myself. I can end it whenever I choose. He moved in close behind me, one hand finding support on the stone beside mine while the other snaked over my shoulder to flatten against his scar on my chest.
My arm twitched with the reflexive urge to drive my elbow into his gut, yet that desire faltered as a wave of arcane flowed through me. I sucked in a breath, aware that Rhyzkahl did the same. Othersight leaped to life, and my perception of flows and sigils and warding sprang into vivid clarity. “How? I don’t—”
A deafening riiiiip drowned out my words and thoughts. High between the terrace and the grove, blazing light as if from a hundred lurid sunsets poured through a gash in the dimensional fabric. An anomaly. A huge one. My heart slammed in terror and awe at the sight. “We have to do something!” I gasped.
His breath hissed close to my ear. “We walk in dream, ghosts to the world. We cannot touch it. I cannot touch it even waking.” Essence-deep frustration infused his words.
Demons bellowed and squawked from the walls of the palace. The leaves of the grove rippled with potency, flaring like glowing gemstones.
Mzatal appeared on the grounds below the terrace, teleported there by his ptarl, Ilana. Immediately, he called his essence blade, Khatur, to his hand and began to dance the shikvihr. Ilana launched herself into the air. More demonic lords blinked in with their demahnk ptarl. Amkir, Vahl, and Vrizaar, and seconds later Rayst, Seretis, and Elofir. No sign of Jesral or Kadir. Mzatal shouted directions, orders that I felt in my essence more than heard. The other lords responded without hesitation to form a large circle and commence dancing their shikvihrs.
Gaps in the circle stood out like jagged defects. Four missing lords. How could they hope to do what was needed without a complete pattern? Yet even as I drew understanding through Mzatal, Rhyzkahl spoke. “A shikvihr must be laid in for each qaztahl, present or not. The lack delays the anomaly repair.”
Jesral and his ptarl appeared. The fox-faced lord looked pale and drawn, but he moved to fill a gap in the circle. Seconds later Kadir arrived with Helori and—to my utter shock—Paul. Helori took to the air while Kadir strode to his place in the wheel with Paul by his side.
