The Pact, page 25
part #1 of The Dark Roads Series
Rook spread his hands. "Serenity, do you even know what it is you are doing?"
He wanted her off-guard. Wanted to unbalance her. It wouldn't work, though; he'd been the one to teach her that trick.
"I know it very well."
He sighed. "No... I really don't think you do."
He pulled back the hood then, and she saw the color of his eyes—the right eye, at least—had changed since she last saw him. Dangerous, bestial yellow had given way to icy, bright blue. At the sight of it, D'aej rumbled in her mind, quickly setting himself in place.
Don't waste any more time with him, Serenity, her darkling purred. If he gets a chain off first this isn't going to go very well.
"Is M'rath'a ready for a fight, then?" she asked coolly. "She sure is quick to anger. Or maybe she knows how much danger you're in."
Rook closed his eyes with a smile, a patient, almost patronizing gesture. "If you are so sure my darkling would rather pass words with you than with me, why don't you ask her yourself?"
"No need to waste the words."
"Just tell me what made you come looking for me," he said. "Give me that, at least, before you murder me."
Instead of answering, she lunged at him, forking a vicious sign at his head. "KEN-AZ!"
A whorl of fire spun off her fingertips and straight at his face. Rook ducked to the side, well prepared for the attack, but she switched to her other hand and the fire switched with her. This time she caught him, igniting the edge of his cloak, and he sprung off his feet, curling into a handspring and landing in a roll to put it out.
Before Serenity could register his hands, he'd forked two quick signs at her, whipping through a complicated set of runes too fast for her to pick apart. A force like an iron fist closed around her, a rune of paralysis, pinning her arms to her side.
She stumbled and fell down hard. Sudden red rage and humiliation fevered quickly through her.
"You think so highly of yourself," Rook said, coming close, beginning to circle her. "And you have no idea how very low you've sunk under that little bastard's claws."
"You weren't there!" she shouted. "I came back from the Rachalör, and you were gone! You just left me there, Rook!"
"What was I supposed to do?" he asked quietly. "I thought you were dead."
"What a convenient decision," she growled. "And how long did you wait before you finally got tired of it?"
His face was grim. "Until the darker wolves retreated back toward the borders of their lands, and to their hibernation. Until the snow stopped falling."
"Liar!" she shouted. "I returned to that cave before the week ran out, and you were long gone by then!"
He shook his head.
"No matter what he's made you think, I am not the liar here."
D'aej hissed and spat in her mind, electric blue sizzles and pops in her ears as he scrabbled to bring up a rune for her, a spell to twist out of Rook's clever hold. It hadn't been meant to go this way. The tribal was not supposed to have the upper hand.
Finally, her mind straightened itself out, and she felt her fingers spring to form.
"Sowilo," she hissed, and Rook's curse melted off of her, freeing her limbs. She spun and forked another chain, letting a lash of sharp ice shower down on him. It caught him across the face and he recoiled, but when he regained himself he smiled, even with the blood dripping down his cheek.
"Come on, Serenity. If you are so sure you can kill me, then go ahead and kill me."
She snarled. He threw his signs at her again, and she ducked to the side, rolling and coming to her feet.
Now, fleshling! D'aej hissed. Do it now! Take him!
She brought her hands together, raking nails across each palm to bring up the blood for the next spell, the final spell, and destroy him just like the man who had murdered Jack right before her eyes.
"URU—"
And then Rook seized her, wrenching her wrist aside with one hand and thrusting two fingers of the other against her skull.
"Perthro."
Bright, blinding pain...
Her mind broke open like a shattering star.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Serenity woke up to the pleasant crackle of a fire. The soothing warmth of its glow, almost motherly, chased the chill of the desert air from her skin, but where once she welcomed it, now she feared it, with a cold, shameful dread in the deepest parts of her heart.
The rune perthro stood for knowledge. It stood for destiny and future paths. Divination...and understanding.
As though coming awake for the first time in years, Serenity remembered. Everything important. Everything that mattered, in the space of time and miles since...since D'aej had come? Or before then?
Since she brought down the mountain and killed the lost soul?
I was the one on the mountain. I was the one that brought down the hammer of thurisaz on the head of your enemy. I lent my power to you, to your remarkable will, to crush the man who would have harmed you.
The light and the heat played across her face, tricky, loving, but all of it a lie. She opened her eyes, again, to see who came to visit her here, in the middle of the nowhere of her mind.
He sat across the fire, dipping and ducking like a flickering shadow in its light. His feline eyes played on her, filled with hate, with cautious anger, knowing here—in this place they had seen before, the place he had kept her prisoner in since the very beginning—here, she would finally be able to see.
"D'aej," she whispered. The illusion cracked.
The fire and the camp melted away. The sounds of the desert fell silent. There remained only the two of them, weaver and darkling. Two halves of the same soul now, since she'd formed an unbreakable pact.
They faced each other across the mirror of her subconscious. One human, one demon. With the same terrible, cold, heartless core.
"I see it now," she said. And she did. The rune of perthro Rook had cast had opened her eyes, her mind's eye, and she recalled all the things she'd been blind to before.
D'aej, tell me what I do not know. What you told me I would forget. What is it you do with me when I sleep? How do you fill these black hours when I am here, in these dreams?
And his words. She remembered them, too.
In the Rachalör.
It was you who cast the rune to bind me. And here I am.
D'aej had made their body wander the Rachalör. The mark of the darkling slithered across its skin like the black veil of poisonous snakeskin all over human flesh. It traveled in wide circles, between the twisted trees, walking the cycle of the moon in and out again. It killed rodents and blackbirds and ate them raw, flesh and bones and all. It dug shelters in the dirt to hide in. The darker wolves retreated past the borders—the snow stopped falling. And still, D'aej held control.
In Eclipse.
You made the idiot decision to bring me among weavers, unenlightened weavers who would kill us both if they knew what you had done. At least one of us has to be sure they aren't about to rope a noose around our necks for witchery.
The gawky red-headed boy. Trading information with him. Flirtatious hints at what she could do. D'aej, in control. Letting him follow her through the stacks and teasing him as she disappeared in the shadows, playing games, games until the night he finally found her. Found where she really went.
Behind the fehu rune.
D'aej, let go! Let me back in!
And then, in Tyr Salem.
Stop using my body to play tricks and pranks and come back here!
D'aej moved her body in the night. At his command it plucked up the rune cards lying on the table and walked across the town, walking straight into the church with no one ever seeing. It laid the cards down neatly, almost lovingly, on the altar. It put them in perfect order. It turned them upside-down.
Then it returned to the inn, gathered her books, her clothes, her supplies, and piled them up on the floor, lighting them with a curse. It wrote the messages on the walls using sparks of flame with the kenaz rune.
Witch! Skank! Devil's Hore!
Then it lay down in bed again, obediently falling into a sleep deep enough to convince itself it had never woken at all.
D'aej.
In control.
‘Partners' is not the word I'd use. Do not be too comfortable in your skin yet, Serenity Walker.
Even when she'd almost broken through.
You want to take me as your own...
He'd been the one in charge.
I had to move you.
Wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted, D'aej had done it. Walked her where he needed her. Used her as he needed to use her.
He'd done those things. And more.
The body was my priority.
I was the one that brought down the hammer of thurisaz on the head of your enemy.
When you wake up, you'll forget this part. And I will lie, and let you go on with your life.
Did you really think you could ever be strong enough to tame one like me?
"You lied," she said quietly. The loss, the grief inside her, hollowed her down to the core. "You let me think I won. You let me think I was in control of this body, that the whole time, we were allies. You let me think you needed me as much as I needed you."
He glowered across the fire. Cold. Understanding. Knowing.
"But you lied."
He didn't reply. He only blinked angry yellow eyes in defiance. Why should he have said anything, anyway? He had no reason to explain. She could see it for herself. And she could do nothing about it.
He'd closed off her heart. He'd numbed her, turned her against everything that could have betrayed him. That explained Nathara's curse, and the effect it had. Maybe the gremlin didn't intend it, and Serenity didn't think she could ever dissect the chain to find the root of its meaning, but it shook away the darkling's crushing weight on her humanity. So she could feel the light of the stars again; so she could remember the scent of the world, of horses, and could understand pleasure and joy, when she didn't even know she had missed them.
D'aej molded her, turned her against everything of the world she belonged to. Including Rook.
Oh, hell...Rook. Why would she ever, ever try to hurt Rook?
Rook...whom she loved.
All this time. D'aej had been slowly destroying her.
"So, what now?" she asked. "Now that I know, now that I can feel again, what it is you're doing...will you let me go?"
Will you kill me, D'aej?
She knew what his answer would be, of course, even before it echoed faintly at her from the winds of memory.
Are you stupid? he hissed. A weaver with your power? A weaver with the passion to bring down the mountains and tear a man's soul from his heart? You're worth nothing to me dead, Serenity Walker. Worth worlds, when I can call you my slave.
Darklings in the camp were supposed to be ill omens.
Her heart sank. Serenity understood.
She finally understood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Rook stood beside her, quietly waiting as the last effects of his spell unwrapped themselves from her senses. She crouched on her hands and knees, choking up bile and spit on the dirt of the old dusty road, and despite the wretched and undignified position she found herself in, she took comfort in feeling him there.
"Yr," she muttered to herself, willing her insides to be at peace. The sour taste of vomit cloyed at her throat and nose. The bitter chill of the wind seemed to bite too hard, and it made her want to start retching again.
"Yr, Serenity Walker," she muttered. "Be still."
Rook said nothing.
"You knew?" she asked finally. Her arms trembled and her stomach wobbled, loose and weak. She didn't think she'd manage standing up again, not quite yet.
"Not in the beginning," he said. "If I'd known what M'rath'a planned, believe me, I'd never have given her a weapon like you."
"M'rath'a?" she rasped. "But... it was D'aej."
"Both of them." he squatted down and put a hand on her shoulder. "M'rath'a and D'aej worked together for you. That's why he's been pushing you to track me down like this. He's been looking for his partner."
Once she'd finished shaking, he stood and walked away from her, his footsteps quiet on the path as he clucked his tongue for the horse to return.
"They arranged everything," he explained as the mare nickered and came near. "And I'm sure they had even more plans for the future. But D'aej found out I'd gotten wise to M'rath'a's plot—the spirits of the otherworld speak in ways we don't yet know about, and I imagine word passed among them that I'd shut her away and had the right of my own mind again. So he had warning of what had happened to his cohort. And he certainly knew if I tracked you down first, I'd open your eyes, just as mine had been opened, and he would lose his control over you. He couldn't let it happen."
"I don't understand," Serenity said. She settled back on her knees and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"It all started with M'rath'a, I hate to admit," he said. "She told me when you were ready to go out on your own, ready to take the bond and come back to me even stronger than before. She had me send you to D'aej. She'd picked you out for him, you see."
Serenity looked up. He had his back turned to her again, but whether it was in disgrace or disgust, she didn't know.
"She looked into my mind," she croaked. "That's why she did it, isn't it?"
"She knew long before then what she wanted you for, Serenity. Since the first night we met you in the tavern, she kept a careful eye on you. Gauging your talent. And she knew you were just what she searched for, just the perfect offering to send to D'aej."
Now he turned his mismatched eyes on her.
"When you killed the lost soul with a spell likely to shatter most weavers from the inside out—blood-kindling it on instinct, knowing exactly how to twist the runes to their worst—she decided you were ready for the last leg of her plan."
Serenity let out a short cry as a malevolent slither whipped quickly to life in her mind. D'aej, coming to. Her hands flew to her temples as he made an instant bid for the body, and she bit down on her tongue, trying to hold him back.
Rook narrowed his eyes. "Give it up, D'aej. You've lost your power over her. She knows what kind of liar you are now."
"It hardly matters to me what the fleshling does or does not know," D'aej's empty voice hissed from her throat, through her teeth. "You may have temporarily regained your mind from M'rath'a's hold but your student will never be strong enough to overthrow me. I hold her and her power, everything she is, and I will do with it what I wish."
"It's not so easy, now I've got her hackles up, is it?" Rook asked in an even, dispassionate tone.
A tremble passed through Serenity's whole body—D'aej trying to shake off the effects of Rook's curse. Neither of them possessed control, for the moment. The body was confused, the connections between brain and limbs not sure where to follow. She fought to hold herself tightly together, lock her limbs down so he couldn't have them, and it hurt, like forcing a flimsy wooden frame under pressure it wasn't meant to withstand. As if she might break herself into splinters.
But she didn't want D'aej in control.
Rook kept watch, his expression cold. She wanted to cry out, beg for him. Why didn't he help her?
"I can break her," D'aej muttered.
Serenity tried to make the tongue obey, to stop the vicious hiss issuing from her, but it didn't comply.
"I broke her in the Rachalör, when she was so sure she could beat me on my own homeland. And I will break her again, even if I have to turn her stubborn mind into rubble!"
Fear swarmed over her. He could do it. He would do it. Living runes, he could crush her.
"Stop!" Serenity shouted, falling into a sob. D'aej thrashed at her brain, making her lurch drunkenly to one side, making her throw out her hands to catch herself in a sprawl. She cried out, tears springing to her eyes, rolling down her cheeks.
"Rook, how do I stop him?"
Rook crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against his horse. "That's what I'm waiting to find out."
The sound of running footsteps rose up behind him, as Jonah and Nathara appeared.
"Stay back," Rook warned, without taking his eyes off of her. "I don't know if my student is strong enough to handle this, and if the demon does get control, I'll be the one who kills it."
D'aej lashed out again, and Serenity rolled from his strike, landing on her side in the dirt. Nathara let out a gasp of fear and lunged toward her, but Jonah stopped the girl with his good hand.
"You can't win this, fleshling!" D'aej snarled. His voice echoed all around her, in her head and out of it, swallowing her and drowning out everything else. The hands reached up to grasp at her face, going for her eyes, and she whipped the head to the side to try and avoid them.
"You are mine, Serenity Walker! Everything in you, everything you are, is mine!"
"Let go of me!" she shrieked.
"That isn't the way this works, and you know it! You chose it, fleshling!"
"No!" she protested, tearing at her hair, arching her back. "No, no, this isn't what I wanted!"
"That is a lie, Serenity," Rook cautioned her. "You don't have any power over it with lies, no matter how much you want them to be true. This is what you wanted. Power to hurt the ones who hurt you, no matter what the cost."
She rolled, trying to scramble away from the thing in her, gaining some purchase on the grass and spinning to face her old teacher again. The tears came fresh now, stinging and hot. Flecks of red danced on the ends of her lashes; she smelled blood, and another painful sob hitched in her chest.
"How can you say such things?" she shot at him.
"Because it's what you wanted!" he shouted back. "If it made you a murderer, it didn't matter, and you knew it from the start! You told me as much, and without a shred of guilt in your heart!"
She shook her head, while inside, D'aej swerved in and out of control, trying to gain an advantage, to seize the body and cast her into the under-mind. "No! I didn't want this!"
"You're lying!" Rook shouted.
"Not this! It wasn't supposed to be like this!"
