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The seconds stretched to minutes, and I clamped down on my urge to demand an update. I pressed my fist to my mouth, unable to tear my eyes away from Pellini.
After several agonizing minutes, Paul lifted his head and met my eyes. “I need you to do the shikvihr with me.”
“Huh?” I said, caught off guard by the nature of the request. Do the shikvihr with Paul? He had the ability to interpret and subtly influence energy flows, including potency, but his skills weren’t the “make sigils and wards” kind.
“I need you to do the shikvihr with me,” he repeated. “To support Kadir. Please.”
Okay, so I hadn’t misheard him. “Yeah,” I said, shaking off my surprise. I staggered to my feet, nearly going down again when my knee gave way. “Hang on.” I quickly wove a binding that had a secondary property of radiating cold and placed it on my knee, then I wrapped a band of potency around the whole thing. It was a sucky brace, but better than nothing. “How do you want me to do this shikvihr?”
“Dance it like normal.” He positioned himself beside me so that only a few feet separated us. “I’ll do the rest.”
More questions crowded in, but I shoved them aside. I took a few seconds to pygah to help mask the distraction of the knee pain, then I began tracing the glowing curves of the first sigil in the air. I faltered as Paul joined me, matching my movements as if he’d danced the shikvihr a thousand times before. Quickly regaining my focus, I moved on to the next sigil. Though Paul danced the ring precisely, he wasn’t forming actual sigils—which baffled me. What was the point? My sigils tingled in my awareness like mini-beacons of various frequencies, but I sensed nothing from his efforts.
Of course it wasn’t as if I had anything better to do at the moment, and I’d provided support diagrams for lords before, just not through a shikvihr.
I completed the first four rings, igniting each in turn. On the fifth ring, a whisper-touch of Kadir resonated in the pattern. Paul’s expression—lips parted and head tilted—reminded me more than a little of the lord.
They’re using their essence bond, I realized. Mzatal and I had worked together countless times, each an extension of the other, to create an outcome greater than combined individual efforts. It was how we’d created the super-shikvihr. Paul didn’t have the ability to trace sigils but, through the union of minds and beyond, Kadir guided his movements and used him as a proxy. In a way, it was like how I’d been using Pellini as an arcane proxy for the past two months, talking him through needed arcane manipulations. Yet these two didn’t need words.
Kadir’s resonance in the ritual increased with each new sigil I traced, though there was something different about the feel of it that I couldn’t quantify. It wasn’t until I ignited the fifth ring that comprehension hit me. His resonance doesn’t make my skin crawl as much as usual, I thought in amazement. That was Paul’s doing. He influenced potency flows as easily as breathing, and in ways that differed from how lords or summoners worked. Right now, not only was Paul acting as a shikvihr proxy, but he was also modulating the resonance of my rings so that out-of-phase Kadir could draw from them. Freaking awesome teamwork.
And together, we’ll save Pellini, I thought fiercely. Already the lord worked to close the last of the horrific wound.
Halfway through the seventh ring, a faint echo of Pellini filtered through Kadir’s resonance. I finished the ring and ignited it then gasped as the sigils pulsed in time with Pellini’s heartbeat. Hope lifting, I started toward him, but Paul took my arm.
“Wait,” he said. “Kadir needs more.”
My heart sank. “I can’t. I don’t know the eighth ring.” Sure, I’d watched surveillance video of Rhyzkahl practicing, and even followed along, but while that gave me a head start on the broader strokes, it was useless for finer movements.
“It’s all right,” Paul said with an encouraging smile. “Just follow my lead.?
?? With that he began to dance the eighth ring, oh-so-slowly.
You can do this, Kara. Focusing, I copied his every movement, from the angle of his feet and tilt of his wrists all the way down to the subtle movements of his fingers. Kadir’s resonance enveloped me like icy snot, charging my hands with the esoteric energy I hadn’t yet mastered.
Though Paul’s tracings left only empty air, mine formed shimmering sigils. Twice he had me dispel a sigil, patiently repeating the movements until I got it right, but at long last I completed the very last sigil of the eighth ring.
“I can’t ignite it,” I said, panting as if I’d just finished a marathon. Not only did a lord have to culminate a newly learned ring, but I’d first have to dance it on my own and with no assistance. Still, even an unculminated ring gave the shikvihr more oomph.
“Pretend like you can,” Paul said.
Pretend? Then again it couldn’t get much more bizarre than it already was. With a mental shrug, I went through the physical and arcane motions for igniting a ring, oddly unsurprised when it flared bright, igniting to pulse in blazing glory with the other seven.
The sigils dimmed as Kadir tapped their power. I scrambled to fuel them with redirected flows. Pellini sucked in a labored breath, and though I wanted to rush to his side, the ritual needed constant tending.
Kadir formed a gelatinous globe of scum-green potency between his hands and dropped it onto Pellini’s chest. The blob shuddered then broke into a billion chartreuse fragments that crawled over Pellini like neon maggots and burrowed into him—his joints, his gut, his throat, his eyes. Everywhere. Though Pellini didn’t appear to be conscious, he writhed as if being eaten alive.
I turned my worried gaze on Paul.
He met my eyes, his face serene. “It’s part of the process.”
Fine. Weird lord. Weird healing.
But no way was Kadir doing this out of the goodness of his heart. What price would he exact for bringing Pellini back from the dead?
Kadir continued to draw potency from the shikvihr, his long-fingered hands flowing in an intricate dance over Pellini. He brought his palms together, and potency maggots flooded from Pellini’s nose and mouth to gather on his chest in a seething mass. Kadir hummed tunelessly and stroked the pile of maggots. The shikvihr whined like an engine pushed too far then faded to a ghostly grey.
Pellini’s eyes flew open. His back arched, and he let out a scream that went right through my essence. The shikvihr shattered, echoing the sound.
