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I hurried to back away, nearly tripping on the curb. With seconds to impact, Mzatal wrenched Khatur free and jumped clear. For an instant, he seemed to fly, then he landed in an effortless crouch that sent smoking cracks radiating across the pavement. The massive Jontari crashed behind him, the great wings collapsing last, perfectly framing Mzatal for a split second before they settled gently to the snow.
A ragged cheer rose from the people behind me, but it quickly died away to uneasy murmurs as Mzatal straightened. Blood flowed over his face from a laceration along his hairline. His black gaze took in the bound reyza and the huddled humans, and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a silent snarl. He advanced, malevolent aura rolling before him in a smothering wave like heat before lava, Khatur and Xhan still gripped in each hand.
No, it was the blades that had him in their grip.
Throat tight, I pivoted to Elofir. “I need you to get these people to safety.”
He looked at Mzatal with naked grief before giving me a weary nod. “Save him,” he said quietly.
Death and destruction roiled in Mzatal’s eyes. For several nerve-wracking heartbeats, he watched Elofir shepherd the group up the street, but then he focused on the demon bound in Elofir’s potency net.
Sprout let out a piercing whistle like I’d never heard from any reyza ever, and it took me a moment to realize it was a squeal of terror.
Because he knows he’s about to be killed with an essence blade, I realized. Death by essence blade meant death for real, with no chance of passing through the void. But the badass Jontari demon was all but pissing himself in fear, struggling violently against Elofir’s bindings. I couldn’t imagine a war-focused demon like Sprout fearing death—not after witnessing the suicide of the Piggly Wiggly reyza. Plus, I’d killed Pyrenth with Szerain’s blade, and the reyza had shown no fear. A hideous realization slid icy fingers through my chest. Sprout wasn’t afraid of death by the essence blades. He was terrified of a fate far worse than the mere cessation of life: whatever hellish doom he faced with those same knives in the hands of a nightmare Mzatal.
I put myself between the lord and the demon. “Mzatal,” I said in a loud, clear voice, mentally calling to the very core of his essence. “Is the rift secure?”
His only response was to call potency to him—both native and rakkuhr—until the air around him rippled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Elofir carrying the little girl while he and the humans ran for the barrier. They were out of danger—for the moment—but I had a sinking feeling that if Mzatal succeeded in blading Sprout, he would turn on them next. No one would be safe.
“Mzatal!” Pulse pounding, I closed the distance between us and seized his bloody face in my hands. “Mzatal, leave the demon be.” My eyes sought his. He ripped his gaze from the reyza and looked down at me as rakkuhr rippled over him.
“I’ll take care of the demon,” I said. “That’s why you sent for me—to take care of . . . the situation.” To take care of you, I silently added. That was why he’d said he needed me. With two of the domineering essence blades in full use, he’d known he would need me to bring him back to himself.
Red flickered deep in his eyes. I kept my hands on his face. “I’m here to take care of things,” I said. “I’m here for you. You sent for me.”
His breathing quickened, and a deep shudder went through him. The knives spoke to him in ceaseless, insidious whispers. Xhan, possessive and demanding. Khatur, silky and persuasive. But Mzatal had sent for me to be the third voice, and now he had my words to listen to as well.
He spoke through clenched teeth. “I . . . need. You.”
“Yes. You need me. That’s why I’m here. For you.” I stroked my thumb over the ridge of his cheekbone. “You can do this. I’ll help you.”
Eyes never leaving mine, he sheathed Khatur at his waist then used the free hand to seize the hair at the back of my head in an iron grip. With the other, he lifted Xhan. Rakkuhr flickered over the blade as he brought it close to my face.
I didn’t shrink from it. “I’ve felt the kiss of that blade before, zharkat,” I murmured. “I’ll suffer it again if it calls you back to me, but I prefer your kiss.”
Mzatal remained utterly still for half a dozen heartbeats then crushed his lips to mine, grip still fierce against my scalp. I tasted blood. His. Mine. It didn’t matter. I returned the kiss just as hard and wrapped my arms around his neck. My hand found his braid and gave it a sharp tug.
A shiver went through him, and beyond the kiss I was distantly aware of him drawing Xhan across his thigh. Blooding it. Distracting it enough to allow Mzatal to send it away.
The knife vanished. He wrapped an arm around me, holding me hard against him even as he tightened the grip in my hair. Relief and a zillion other emotions surged through me as I clung to him. “I have you,” I breathed. “I have you now.”
He potency-burned away the blood from his face, then simply kissed me again, hard and deep. I responded in kind, not giving a shit that we were in the middle of a rift-broken street in Russia.
I sketch hurriedly in my journal under warm amber sigil-light. If only I can remember this last portion of the trancer glyph before the Conclave ends, Lord Szerain will—
“Elinor.”
Lord Mzatal! He will flay me while I yet breathe. I shove the journal closed, heart fluttering in my breast.
He grasps my shoulders and calls me a name I do not know. The world tips.
Cold. Snow. Rift-light.
Mzatal held me, grip hard and eyes narrowed. There was no need to tell him this wasn’t the first time an Elinor dream had blindsided me. Though the demahnk and other lords were blocked from reading me, my mind and heart and essence were ever open to him.
He slowly relaxed his grip as if prying himself free then released me. To my relief, his eyes were his again, but a sliver of dread persisted at the sight of Khatur sheathed at his side rather than sent away.
“Elinor’s journal,” I said, annoyed at how thin my voice sounded. “Do you know where it is?”
