Requiem for the Rift King, page 92
Or worse.
If he became like the others who’d touched the Emperor’s prize, who would he chase after? What would he do? Would he attack the two men in front of him? He shivered.
Biting his lip, Terin lifted the Hand of God out of the box, trapping the frayed linens and mummified flesh in a cocoon of velvet.
“That’s good,” Zurach said, and the man reached out to snatch the box. “That’s right. Spread it out — yes, on your lap — and let’s have a good look at it.”
~Yes!~ the malevolent voice shrieked.
Terin’s heart skipped several beats. The silence in his head didn’t last long before the other voice’s denial surged through him. Once again, they battled, and when he was ignored, Terin glanced up at the two men. Zurach and Emeric watched him, and both men grinned.
With nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide, Terin loosened his grip on the Hand of God and let the velvet pool over his lap. Once he found the purple-marked edges, he secured his hold on the severed limb, and flipped it so there was no chance it could touch him. The black material fell away to reveal the Emperor’s prized possession.
Whatever creature the Hand of God had once belonged to, it hadn’t been human, Terin was certain of that. Instead of fingertips, long, curved talons pierced through the pale, dusty linens. Where the cloth frayed, tufts of golden fur stuck out. The edge of scales coated the few patches of dry skin visible through the wrappings.
The warmth of something alive radiated from the Hand of God.
His breath left him in a sigh. Was he already dead, but he hadn’t realized it yet? He didn’t ache, not even from the wounds he knew should’ve hurt. That matched what he expected from death.
“What’s taking so long?” Emeric’s voice asked, the sound distant and muffled. Terin frowned, but couldn’t look away from the relic lying across his lap. Even in death, he couldn’t escape from the Citizens.
He’d expected something better. Something more peaceful, like a garden full of roses, and a sky which never darkened.
Maybe it was true that there was no place in God’s Gardens for a slave.
“Patience, brother. We can’t rush these things. Can’t really blame the boy for being careful. It’s quite an old thing. Isn’t that right, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” Terin replied, his voice strong and clear. While it was him speaking, he hadn’t meant to say the words. Something crawled around in his head, and it was aware; of him, and of the collar.
With a start, Terin realized it had prevented the punishment he would’ve endured for remaining silent.
“Pick it up, boy,” Zurach ordered. “Now.”
Terror choked off Terin’s breath, and without his permission, his hand closed around the dry, crumbling linens. The ancient material didn’t break apart, and was as tough as leather. Warmth spread through his fingers and up his arm, to wash over his face, neck, and chest.
Nothing else happened.
“I was expecting a lot more than this,” Emeric growled out. “Zurach, you best have a good explanation for this.”
~Destroy them,~ the malevolent voice hissed. ~They’re not worthy. Filthy. Defiled. Tainted. Frayed. Let’s devour them.~
A haze clouded Terin’s vision, and he struggled to breathe. The voice whispered to him again. All he had to do to be free was say yes, but the word stuck in his throat, and he remained silent.
~No,~ the calm and quiet voice whispered, and the compulsion to listen to the darkness within him shattered. For a brief moment, the heat of rage and frustration tore through his head.
Then, the sensation was gone, and all that remained was regret. Whose, Terin wasn’t certain.
Blaise crouched low, wings clamped to his sides, and his talons pierced through the cobblestones so he wouldn’t be swept off of the promenade. The storm beat at him, pounding at his flanks with blasts of wind not quite strong enough to beat through his hide and scales. Staggering under the repeated blows, he dropped down to his belly and shielded his head under a tattered wing.
One day, Blaise would have to ask Him why he’d been cursed with such poor control over nature and storms. When the storm lulled enough for him to peek out from beneath the shelter of his wing, he glared up at the sky.
The weather wasn’t helping his efforts to come up with a plan — any plan — to find Mikael. It was as if nature had been driven mad by the divine’s plight.
He wasn’t any better at dealing with madmen, as a general rule. At least madmen he could kill or devour, and be done with it without having to think too long on what to do with them. Nature wasn’t something he could eliminate from existence.
Blaise sighed and curled his tail around himself, clacking his beak in frustration. The Speech of humans wouldn’t work with his too-long tongue and his too-stiff beak, and it’d been so long since he’d used the true language of the divines he wasn’t sure if he could handle the power necessary to curtail nature’s fury.
All he could do was improvise.
~While the rain and storm bring life, true peace is that of the dew on the roses,~ he Spoke with his thoughts, whistling and chirping in the futile effort of mimicking the language of the storm.
~Close. Close,~ the wind howled, and beat at Blaise from all sides until he was shoved to his side, one wing pinned beneath him. He growled and barked his displeasure.
~Help?~ Like a repentant child, nature eased its winds, but it still gusted. Blaise managed to lurch to his hooves and stood, legs spread and head drooped low in his effort to stay upright.
Blaise braced for another pummeling if nature took offense at his existence or his meddling. ~Where?~ he asked.
Instead of the violence he expected, the night quieted to the soothing patter of rain on stone. Without the wind, Mikael’s scent faded away to nothing. Blaise stiffened, drew a deep breath, and hissed a curse when he couldn’t pick up the trail in the stagnant air. He stomped on the cobbles, and they shattered beneath his hoof and talons.
Without the scent, Blaise didn’t know where to look. He hissed out another curse, then stilled.
Had nature been trying to guide him all along, driving the scent to him? He lifted his foreleg, and then set his hoof down with a click on the broken stones. A suspicion nagged at him, but he didn’t dare voice it. A breeze stirred, and he sucked in a breath.
The scent was there, but so faint he couldn’t distinguish any more than the fact it came from a divine.
~Where?~ he asked again.
~Come. Come,~ the wind cried, and a breeze tugged at his feathers. When he didn’t move, a gust blasted at him, whipping against his flanks. Blaise hissed, but broke into the rolling canter of a horse. Each stride lurched, and he clamped his wings to his sides to keep from tripping over them. While he wasn’t much different in size, and the mortal creatures had been fashioned — at least a little — in his image, his talon-tipped, split hooves were made for landing, for slashing, and for fighting, not for running.
He’d been born to fly, but he didn’t quite dare to test nature’s benevolence. Being cast down to Lower Erelith City wouldn’t kill him, but he didn’t think much on how long it would take for him to recover from that sort of crippling injury.
If he fell, he wouldn’t be able to save anyone, not Mikael, Lucin, or the people of Erelith, and he couldn’t accept that. Worse yet, he doubted he’d heal enough to move before any of the human’s found him.
Blaise ran.
~Come,~ the wind cried, guiding him through a maze of side streets, cutting across the trade district. While a few windows were lit with flickering candles, most of Upper Erelith City remained dark and quiet. Extinguished lanterns swayed on their poles. When he turned a corner and stepped into the light of one still lit, the wind blew it down from its pole, and it shattered on the ground.
Blaise skidded to a halt and twisted to avoid the hot oil steaming on the cobbles. Snorting at the stench, he charged forward, hooves and talons slipping on the cobbles as he changed directions at the wind’s urging.
“What the—” someone cried out.
Blaise caught a glimpse of gray before crashing into a human. His hooves slipped out from under him, and they went down together in a heap. The scent of fear flooded Blaise’s nose, and his mouth watered. The sweet, metallic tang of fresh blood teased his tongue. Trapped beneath his wing and shoulder, a figure screamed and thrashed.
Blaise drew his head back to strike down, and he paused at the gray-clad woman standing nearby. She stood, her mouth open in shock, eyes wide, and as still as a statue carved of granite. Her fear was sweet and sour, and she quivered, poised to run at his first movement.
Steel clattered against stone and the edge of a sword bit at his wing where it connected to his shoulder. Blaise snapped his beak and hissed, recoiling from the metal. He got one foreleg under him and lifted the other.
~Hunt!~ the wind shrieked.
“Don’t just stand there, kill it!” a man’s voice screamed out. The sword rose to strike at Blaise again. Roused from her stupor, the woman followed the man’s lead and drew a rapier and held it at the ready.
“What is that thing?” she gasped out.
The man opened his mouth to reply, and Blaise’s temper snapped. He slammed down with his hoof and curled his three talons to pierce through the human’s skull. He didn’t wait for the Gates to open. Before the scent of roses could fill the air, and the man’s soul could flee from the dying body, Blaise ducked his head down, opened his mouth, and flicked out his tongue.
The warmth of fading life flooded his mouth and he drank deep. Blood mixed with rain, staining the stones around him. A pale, rosy glow surrounded the twitching corpse.
Blaise breathed in, caressing his tongue over the man’s face, and sucked the man’s soul from the body. Warmth spread through him, and the incessant hunger abated. He hissed and licked at the blood on his beak and hooves. Prodding at the corpse with his hoof, he ducked his beak down to feed.
The woman’s scream and the clatter of steel on stone drew him from his victim. With the taste of the man’s blood and soul still on his tongue, Blaise focused his gaze on his next prey. She took a trembling step backward.
Blaise hissed, clacked his beak, abandoned the man’s corpse, and closed the distance between them in a single hop. Whether she was too frightened to move, entranced, or foolish, Blaise wasn’t sure, but the woman stood her ground, her face as white as a bishop’s coat. Blaise’s gaze settled to her shoulders. Green tassels.
She was a captain.
Blaise grinned.
The woman’s quick and shallow breaths tempted Blaise to feed again, but he fought the urge. Instead of striking her down, he reached out and touched her cheek with his beak. The man’s blood smeared on her pale flesh. He breathed in her scent before dragging the tip across her jawline. Several beads of blood formed from the scratch, and Blaise licked it up. The sweetness of her fear mingled with her desire for life.
Desire for the hunt burned in him, but he swallowed it back.
~Hunt,~ the wind begged, and Blaise ignored nature’s call.
A low groan escaped the woman’s lips, and Blaise shivered at the sound. He touched her lips with the tip of his tongue, and a shudder swept through her thin figure.
If he could take her without destroying her soul, he could use her. He might even be able to learn more of the Emperor’s goal, all without anyone suspecting a thing.
Without her soul, however, her personality and memories would be gone, and she’d be of no use to him. Blaise pressed closer to her. She trembled at his touch, and he hissed his frustration. Part of him wanted to hunt.
The other part of him remembered being human, and remembered the warmth of an affectionate female. He arched his neck and stared into her eyes.
~Do you want to live?~
Their minds touched, and as Blaise delved into her thoughts, and he caught a glimpse of the woman’s strong, but impure soul. Hers was a new soul, lacking the weight of past lives. Blaise couldn’t tell the nature of her flaw without digging deeper, but he decided he didn’t care. Once he was finished with her, it wouldn’t matter. Her terror drowned out her reason, but her will and desire to survive endured, which sweetened the bitterness of her fear.
~Serve me,~ Blaise whispered to her.
In the brief moment he kept their thoughts bound together, he let her glimpse his intentions. He promised no true reward. Instead, he’d spare her being devoured, unlike her companion. Her soul would see His Garden, and he let her catch a glimpse of it through his memories in all of its glory.
Her breath left her in a sigh, and he severed the connection between them. When he spoke to her, he inserted his words into her mind without merging their thoughts. ~Decide.~
The woman shook, and she lifted her hand to touch Blaise’s scaled shoulder, jerking her head in a nod. Before she could do more than gasp, he ducked his head down and bit at her shoulder near her throat. Her body pressed close to him, and she trembled. Applying enough pressure to make her bleed, he tasted her once again. Then, he bit down on the tip of his tongue and mingled his blood with hers.
A soft moan slipped from the woman’s lips, and she slumped against him. A convulsion tore through her, and he waited. She groaned, and clutched at his neck.
When she stilled, panting for air, Blaise rumbled his approval. With the faintest trace of his blood within her, she couldn’t escape him. He dipped his tongue over the wound and willed the cut to close. When he pulled away, her cheeks were flushed.
Arching his head over her, he spread out his wings and shed the water from his feathers.
~Your name, woman. What is it?~
“Mirabel,” she whispered on a breath.
Blaise licked her chin and the scratch sealed. ~I will call for you.~
The woman nodded in a daze, and her blue eyes were clouded with confusion.
Before she could come to herself, Blaise pulled away from her and turned to the soulless corpse behind him. He Spoke, and the body crumbled to dust, which the storm swept away. With a few more words, he twisted the truth to speculation, and erased the soldier’s demise from Mirabel’s mind.
~As you were,~ Blaise ordered. A puzzled expression crossed the woman’s face. Without acknowledging his presence, she staggered away.
He watched her go with narrowed eyes. If all went as he intended, she’d remember nothing until he called for her.
The wind tugged at Blaise once more, and he followed where it led.
“Put it away,” Zurach ordered. Terin wanted to move, but his fingers froze in place, clutched around the Hand of God, and all that separated him from holding the scaled, furred limb was a thin layer of velvet. The talons curled as if to hold his hand, and he wasn’t sure if he was terrified or comforted by it.
He should’ve been afraid. Tranquil lethargy kept him still and quiet, and he couldn’t force himself to care if the two men struck out at him for his inability to act.
“Let’s not be hasty,” Emeric said, and the man leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him. “So, nothing’s happening. We’ve no proof it even does anything.” Rising to his feet, the Citizen braced his hands against his waist and leaned forward, mouth set in a thin line. “Why stop now, Zurach? Without proof, this is a waste of our time. And a great deal of crystal. Do I really need to tell you exactly how much this endeavor has cost me?”
“That’s not how it works, Emeric. If he’s Obsessed, we need to know, and we need to know now.”
“What does that have to do with anything? We’ve got the Hand. We have everything we need to finish this — right here, right now.”
Zurach snorted. “Settle down, Emeric. Boy, put the Hand away.”
After curling up his lip and letting out a wordless grumble, Emeric obeyed. Terin winced at the collar burning through the bandages wrapped around his throat. Roused from his stupor, he secured the velvet around the Hand of God.
The two voices bickered in his head, but he couldn’t understand what they said. Instead of words, music thundered through him, and his bones throbbed with each note.
“Return the Hand to the box,” Zurach demanded.
~Kill them,~ the malevolent voice hissed to Terin, and the deep, dark tones of a dirge accompanied the words.
Terin wasn’t sure what made him so angry, but he snatched the box from the table separating him from Emeric and Zurach. The Hand shifted on his lap, and he grabbed it to keep it from falling.
The velvet shifted beneath his hand, and he brushed against one of the tufts of fur sticking out from the cloth. He couldn’t even gasp. Warmth washed up his hand. Terin’s every thought stopped, and his right hand hovered over the box.
~Perhaps we should teach them to respect Master,~ the other voice whispered, and while the tone was lighter, rage tainted the melodic words.
~Together?~ Surprise and pleasure dulled the edge of the more malevolent voice.
~Yes.~
Terin meant to pick up the box. The slap of his palm on the table startled him, and both Zurach and Emeric jumped at the sound.
Terin didn’t remember standing.
Someone shouted something. A low hum buzzed in Terin’s ears, and a triumphant cry echoed in his head. He couldn’t tell who rejoiced, or why, but the emotion bolstered him and kept him from trembling. It crushed the flash of fear sweeping through him, until Terin wasn’t sure what he felt — if he felt anything at all.
A dark fog coiled around his fingers before consuming his hand and crawling its way up his arm. His face flushed, but beneath the miasma, his skin was cool and tingled. The table creaked beneath the pressure of his hand.
It exploded in a shower of black ash.
The fog crept to his shoulder.
~Yes,~ the malevolent voice whispered, and the tone chilled Terin so much he trembled at the cold seeping into his muscles and bones. ~Let’s devour them. They’re in our way.~
The crack of a hand against his face silenced the voices in Terin’s head. Lights danced in front of his eyes. Before he could fall, a hand grabbed him by the throat and held him up.
