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“Heed Rho.” Lannist spoke the words as if each one cost a piece of his soul. “Eighteenth convergence factor less nine ascen—” His body went semi-transparent, and his chest filled with amorphous prismatic light—the true form of the demahnk. I’d seen Zack shift shape before, but it had been beautiful. This was wrong. Was this punishment control like the headaches that plagued the lords? But if so, from who?
“Lannist!” I watched in mounting distress as the light roiled within him. “How can I help you? What can I do?”
He fixed wide eyes on mine, gripped my shoulders with hands that had little substance, as if nothing remained but an outer membrane of energy. “Consent . . . to accept my final . . . service.” His voice skittered away like shattered glass. In the span of a heartbeat, fine strands of potency like molten diamond appeared around the light in his chest, a viciously beautiful web that encased the shifting colors of his essence and constricted.
Lannist threw his head back and screamed, an inhuman sound of agony. I caught him as he sagged, his body light as tissue paper in my arms.
“No no no.” Heart pounding, I knelt and took his head between my hands, pressed my forehead to his and willed him strength to counter whatever was trying to silence him. “I consent. I accept!”
“Trask.” The name of Rayst’s ptarl arrowed through my consciousness. “Ilana.” Mzatal’s ptarl. More followed that I couldn’t comprehend, cut off by a searing blast of suffocating pain, gone in an instant. The last vestiges of Lannist’s physical form faded, leaving only his light—compacted by the web into a white-hot sun. It hung motionless for a silent heartbeat then burst into a billion flickering particles that swirled around our bubble like glitter in a snow globe. They passed over and through me, bombarding me with images and sounds then dimming as they imparted their gifts.
A boy with raven-black hair stands naked atop a mountain, arms stretched wide and head tipped back to catch the sun. Mzatal.
A youthful priest sits upon the steps of a graceful temple, three shining pyramids beyond him in the distance. Vahl.
A white-blond man in a grain field drops his scythe to scoop up tow-headed twins who run laughing to him. Rhyzkahl.
A great wolf with fur the color of pale beach sand bounds through a highland meadow.
I jerked in shock. That was Rhyzkahl as well. I knew.
The wolf stops, gazes up expectantly.
A dragon with scales like flakes of obsidian and eyes of molten gold circles down to land in the grass.
Chills swept over me. Mzatal—terrible and beautiful.
A willowy being with captivating dual-pupiled eyes stands atop a shining pavilion of pale stone columns.
Image after image. Hundreds. Too many to process, but each indelibly burned into my essence. Amkir. Seretis. Rayst. Elofir. Szerain. Vrizzar. Jesral. Kadir. Dozens of wondrous creatures of legend. The lords not only had human mothers, but all save Kadir had lived on Earth for a time, in full control of their paternal shape-shifting abilities. Happy. Free.
One last particle struck me between the eyes. It carried no image or sound, only the feel of Lannist and the immersive plea of save them.
And then all trace of him was gone.
I remained on my knees, hugging myself. Grief for the lords clogged my throat, and sobs racked my chest. Even quick-tempered Amkir—who I utterly despised—had once been soft-hearted enough to jump into an icy river to save a stray dog. These rich and full lives of the lords had been stolen, but why? What possible reason could exist to commit such an atrocity? And now Lannist was dead because he’d exposed it.
Zack had spoken obliquely of the Demahnk Council and the “others,” the enforcers who held him and the rest of the demahnk accountable through ancient agreements, oaths, and decrees. One of Lannist’s images was of an unfamiliar creature on an Ekiri pavilion. And I’d seen dual-pupiled eyes like that before—carved in bas relief in the anteroom of Szerain’s summoning chamber. Had Lannist been trying to impart that the enforcers were, in fact, the Ekiri? Yet, according to the reyza Kehlirik, the Ekiri had left for a new world millennia ago.
Whoever these enforcers were, I had a sick feeling Lannist had purposefully defied them in order to give me information—and paid dearly. The entire incident was a glimpse into the high-stakes game
played by the demahnk, and a terrifying demonstration of the power and reach of what I was up against.
Eighteenth convergence factor less nine . . . ascendants? Ascending? It didn’t make any sense to me, but clearly it was important. Heed Rho. That one was easy. But what about Ilana and Trask? Was Lannist telling me to heed the ptarls of Mzatal and Rayst? Or was he warning me against them?
And what would happen to Seretis now? This ugly turn of events with Lannist was sure to affect him. Rhyzkahl had been shattered when Zack broke their ptarl bond. Would the death of a ptarl have the same effect?
Still raw from the visions and feeling three sizes too big for my skin, I staggered to my feet and took stock of the situation. It didn’t take long: the situation sucked ass. The dimensional pocket remained intact, and Pellini, Giovanni, and Turek were still statuefied.
“This is lovely,” I muttered. I couldn’t see or sense anything beyond the bubble of light, and reaching into the darkness was like pushing my hand into liquid mercury. We were stuck in here.
Cold tendrils of fear wound through me. Fighting for control, I sought to distract myself by clinically memorizing every sensation of the bubble and filing them away for future reference. After all, soon enough I’d be reaching for Szerain and company in their dimensional pocket stronghold. Knowledge was power, right?
Yeah, well, that power wasn’t doing me any good right here and now. I needed to get us out of this thing. But how? A demahnk had created it. Even at my best I couldn’t match their abilities, and I didn’t have a strand of potency to follow out this time. Hell, I couldn’t even shape basic sigils without the help of the nexus, and I felt absolutely nothing of it here, no matter how hard I tried. Meanwhile, Pellini and the others appeared to be in some sort of stasis, while I continued to breathe and have normal metabolic functions. Would they remain frozen in place long after I died of dehydration? Or would I suffocate instead?
Or maybe I’m not completely out of options, I thought as I slapped my hand over the leaf and called to Rho. Though I couldn’t sense even the faintest whisper of the grove, I envisioned the one in Seretis’s realm as a distress beacon beaming an urgent, repeating S.O.S.
Nothing. I pygahed and focused, intensified my distress call. Minutes ticked by.
