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“Fine. Whatever.” My
frustration made way for more sobering concerns. “Let’s assume I can be all lordy and bring Dekkak through. There’s collateral damage to consider. Innocent people will get hurt or killed. We need to get Elinor and you guys, but there has to be better way.”
Szerain gently took my hands. “I know it would pierce you to your very essence to be the instrument of tragedy, even if indirectly. However, there’s no faster or more certain means to recover Elinor, and the damage in Dekkak’s wake would be as nothing compared to what will come if Xharbek restores Elinor.”
“Why would he want to . . .” The answer hit me with a frisson of primal terror. “Because he and the Mraztur still want a weaponized summoner. Rhyzkahl failed to turn me into Rowan, but with Elinor, they have the original.”
Szerain nodded once, a simple movement laden with centuries of anguish. “If Xharbek restores Elinor, he’ll give the Mraztur a tool capable of destroying Earth.”
“But how could he possibly hope to restore her if the majority of her essence is safely trapped in Vsuhl?”
His eyes met mine. “Because it’s not. You have it all.”
I stared at him in horror. “Wait. What?”
“It had stayed far too long in Vsuhl’s possession and was beginning to degenerate.” A bleak note shadowed his voice. “I risked losing it altogether, and I’d long given up hope of Elinor herself returning.”
Sympathy chased away my unease. “It was a way to preserve it.”
He nodded. “And, in theory, a way to tap its—her—potential, if encapsulated and fused to a host rather than simply merging essences.”
“Sort of like how if someone’s hand gets chopped off doctors might sew it to their ankle to keep it alive until it can be reattached?”
He gave me a long look before laughing under his breath. “God, you’re weird,” he said and wrapped me in a hug.
Lord Szerain. Elinor clawed into my consciousness. Not to be trusted. Not to be trusted!
Panic rose. My muscles tensed and twitched as adrenaline raced through my system. Heart pounding, I pushed away and staggered back, torn between fleeing and lashing out.
I settled on a third option: putting a stop to this bullshit. Distracting-Memory Elinor was one thing, but Body-Take-Over Elinor was oh, hell no. Teeth clenched, I planted my feet and willed the completely inappropriate panic to retreat. I felt Szerain grab my head, and I spared just enough focus to let him read me and see how Elinor was entwined. The rest I used to painstakingly remove her control of my body, like removing burrs from socks.
Soon enough I had my limbs under my own power, and my breathing and pulse to normal rates. I gently eased Elinor back to her usual “place,” sending thoughts of understanding and calm encouragement toward her the whole time.
“She doesn’t like you very much,” I said once Elinor was fully settled.
“Understandable, considering her end,” he said, voice thick with sorrow. “I tweaked the attachment so she can’t mess with you physically again.”
“Thanks. That’s the first time she’s ever taken over like that, and I’m happy for it to be the last.” The mental invasions were bad enough. “Once we rescue her, can you unhook her essence from me and restore her?”
“If all goes as planned, yes.”
“Good. We’ll beat Xharbek to the punch.” Then I frowned. “But how can Xharbek hope to restore her if I have her essence?”
Szerain’s face could have been carved from a block of ice. “As soon as he devises the means, he’ll rip it from you like a scab from a wound and leave your essence to bleed out.”
Shock wiped out my power of speech for several seconds. “The fuck?” I finally sputtered. “Are you absolutely shitting me? I’m only now finding out that this whole time I’ve been living with a motherfucking heartplug that Xharbek could’ve popped free on a fucking drive-by—”
“Kara, stop it!” Szerain snapped.
I cut off my spew of vitriolic what-the-fuck but kept my glare at full power.
“Xharbek is not going to snatch the piece of essence in a drive-by,” he said with exaggerated calm. “He can’t. One aspect of the demahnk constraints, their very nature prevents them from bringing direct harm to the demahnk-human hybrids or their descendants—no matter how distant the relationship. And summoners are in the lineage of the lords.”
I all but pounced on him. “They are? Hot damn! I had a suspicion, but— Do you know who I’m descended from? Oh, hell, please don’t say Mzatal.”
“Amkir would make the most sense.”
I stared at him in horror. “Amkir? Why would that make sense?”
