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Flames appeared. Slivers of red and yellow seeping up through the kindling. Snapping to life. Fed by the wind and dry, fire-ready branches.
“Don’t, my lady.”
He did believe her. She smiled as she held the book over the flames. “Back away from him,” she commanded through chattering teeth.
Lazarus offered her a solemn, heavy stare. Took a step back. And in a move defying sight, whipped a dagger free. Hurled it, spearing the diary and knocking it out of Cat’s hand to lie dusty, pages fluttering in the breeze. Safe from her futile threat.
The wind picked up. Embers rose. Wafted toward the gatehouse roof. Smoldered. Caught.
Lazarus’s gaze followed them.
And Aidan rolled up and to a crouch. His voice slow and steady on a summoning.
Numbness gripped his body, b
eginning above his heart where the scar seared him with a frozen heat. Needles of ice ran along veins and arteries. Lungs crushed beneath a constricting shell of frost. His fingers stiff. His movements slow as glaciers. But he called forth the magic of the Dark Court.
Soon, the creature had promised.
Soon had become now.
The diary would remain free of Máelodor. Cat would remain alive. Anything beyond that, he would put aside as wishful thinking.
“Don’t, Kilronan,” Lazarus warned.
“Too late,” he sneered, already feeling the Unseelie’s approach in the thickening of the air, the narrowing of his vision. Or was that the fire?
Flames rippled along the gatehouse roofline. Ash drifting and mingling with smoke. A horse’s scream came from somewhere behind him.
His fingers fell onto the sword’s grip. Easily. Without thought. As if another worked through him. Someone used to war. To survival. To death.
Lazarus accepted the challenge. “So be it.”
And the clash of metal rang in a crescendo of sparks and the singing of steel.
The Domnuathi’s skills were battle honed. Even bearing the wounds of Aidan’s previous attempts, he fought with incredible finesse. Parrying every thrust. Attacking upon every opening.
Aidan called forth the Unseelie magic. Felt it like a million latching claws into his skin. Biting. Tearing. Pushing its way through him. Taking him over bit by rabid bit. Heat met ice in a boiling fog of thought and action. Another controlling him. Another matching Lazarus move for move with snarling ferocity.
Aidan connected with a sliding blow to the Domnuathi’s ribs. Lazarus responded with a slash into Aidan’s off shoulder, deadening his fingers. Followed it with a spell that overwhelmed him. Crushed him with a mountain’s weight of stone. Dropped him to the ground, his mouth filling with blood. His lungs useless.
Aidan drew deeper into the demon’s well of power. The raw Unseelie magic dropping him through the void. He fell and fell without end, the passage littered with wraiths. But within that abyss there was strength and cunning and survival—of a kind.
Hands reached for him. Voices jeered. He caught a glimpse of the blind-eyed, faceless monster of his dreams laughing. Drawing him down. “Erelth,” it called. “Join with me.”
His mind screamed against the overthrow. But Aidan ignored it as he ignored the slow thieving of his will and then his body. The demon saw with his eyes. Spoke with his voice. Fought with his limbs. With every push of blood through their shared body, the bond between them solidified until the horizon between man and monster blurred and then disappeared. The abyss dragged Aidan on with the strength of a vortex. Pulling him farther into the darkness where eternity awaited with dripping jaws.
Death without the mercy of dying. An end that would be endless.
No. He wouldn’t give in. Let it control him. He rebelled. Crawling from the black. Heaving himself through the inky veil of shadows. The nothing that was the Dark Court’s abode. The Unseelie shrieked its curses. Sank its talons deep. Its fangs deeper, until Aidan screamed against the pain and the burning cold sliding through his veins on its inexorable path to his heart. And the fight became twofold. A physical contest with Lazarus. An inner struggle against a demon who craved his body for its own.
He couldn’t stand against both. Slowly he gave ground. His arms growing feebler with every blow. Panting. Sweat stinging his eyes. Streaming off his body.
Lazarus backed him toward the gatehouse where fire now licked along the beams. Curled down walls. The trapped horse’s terror jolting along Aidan’s spine with clawing shrieks. Echoed by the inner vengeful demonic scream of the Unseelie.
Embers fell onto his coat. Singed his hair. The heat and smoke grew oppressive. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear.
Lazarus fought harder, strengthened by an internal drive rivaling and surpassing even the Unseelie hatred. He herded Aidan. Closer. Closer. Up the path. Into the shadow of the building, where fire leapt high from every window.
