Yorika
Mikaere's trust is a weapon I've been sharpening for days.
"Lord Nezavek summoned me," I tell him, keeping my voice steady despite the knife tucked against my wrist and the rage burning in my chest.
His metallic eyes study me, searching for deception. But the marks on my skin pulse with Nezavek's essence, and that seems to be enough.
"He is in meditation," Mikaere rumbles. "You should not disturb him."
"He specifically asked for me now." I let a hint of irritation color my tone. "Would you like to explain to him why you delayed me?"
A long pause. Stone grinding against stone as he shifts. "Do not disturb him unnecessarily."
He steps aside.
The path to Nezavek's private chambers is one I've memorized through careful observation.
The realm shifts and breathes around me, but the route remains constant: up the spiral stairs that exist in too many dimensions, through the hall of mirrors that show different possibilities, past the door that opens onto nothing.
His chambers are unguarded. Of course they are. Who would be foolish enough to attack a Void Walker in his own sanctuary?
Me, apparently.
I slip inside silently. The room is larger than I expected, carved from dark stone. Books float in lazy orbits. Artifacts from civilizations I can't name rest on pedestals. And in the center, on a raised platform, Nezavek sits in meditation.
He's more solid than I've ever seen him, his form perfectly defined. The meditation must focus his essence, keep him from dissolving. His eyes are closed, his breathing, if shadow can breathe, is even and deep.
Vulnerable.
The knife slides from my wrist sheath into my palm. Not the ceramic blade. That's for emergencies. This is steel, sharp enough to split atoms, enhanced with void-touched edges I bought from a black market dealer who swore it could cut anything.
Even shadow.
I move closer, each step calculated for silence. The marks on my skin warm, responding to his proximity, but I ignore the sensation. Ignore the way my body remembers his touch. Ignore everything except the hairpin in my pocket and the image of Melara crystallizing while he took notes.
Ten feet. Five. Three.
I raise the knife, aiming for where his heart should be. One strike, clean and quick. Even if it doesn't kill him immediately, it should disrupt him enough for me to finish the job.
I strike.
He moves faster than shadow, faster than thought. His hand catches my wrist, and suddenly I'm spinning through space. My back hits the bed, soft enough not to damage, hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
He's on top of me before I can recover, his weight pinning me completely. Shadow tendrils wrap around my wrists and ankles, spreading me beneath him. The knife clatters away, useless.
"Hello, Yorika." His voice is calm, almost conversational. "I was wondering when you'd try."
"Get off me."
"No."
I struggle, but the tendrils might as well be iron. The marks on my skin pulse with heat, responding to his touch even as my mind screams in rage.
"Did you really think you could kill me?" He asks, genuinely curious. "In my own chambers? While I'm at my strongest?"
"I had to try."
"Why?"
"You know why."
"Because of what you found in my research chamber?" He leans closer, and I smell winter and male satisfaction. "The notes? The confusing evidence? Your sister's hairpin?"
My blood freezes. "You knew I was there."
"My wards recognize you now, but they still report to me. I knew the moment you entered." His free hand traces my jaw, the touch surprisingly gentle. "I let you find it. Let you draw your own conclusions."
"You wanted me to find evidence of your guilt?"
"I wanted you to find evidence. Whether you'd see guilt or something else was up to you." His thumb brushes my lower lip. "You chose guilt. Not surprising, given your need for a villain."
"You are a villain. Those notes."
"Are from three hundred years of hunting the Collector.
Some his original work, some my attempts to understand his process.
All kept to track patterns, find weaknesses.
" His eyes burn into mine. "Did you notice the dates?
How my annotations get more desperate over time?
How they shift from academic interest to horror? "
"I saw conflicting notes. Some about reversal attempts, all marked as failed. Others that seemed like... collaboration. I couldn't tell what was real."
"You saw centuries of desperate attempts to understand and stop him." His form flickers with emotion. "I failed every time. Your sister was the two hundred and forty-seventh victim I couldn't save."
"The dreams showed you taking notes while she died."
"The bond doesn't lie, but it doesn't always show complete truth either. You saw what your mind expected to see, a monster observing suffering." He releases my wrists but doesn't move off me. "Would you like to see what really happened?"
"More lies?"
"No. Truth. Unfiltered. But it will hurt."
I meet his burning eyes. "Show me."
He presses his palm to my forehead, and I'm pulled into his memory completely.
I am Nezavek, arriving at the Collector's latest gallery. The smell hits first: crystal and terror and the specific frequency of conscious suffering. Twelve women, all partially or fully crystallized, all aware.
I search for the newest victim, the one that might still be saved. There, a young woman, maybe twenty-two, crystal creeping up her torso. Her eyes are still mobile, still human.
"Please," she gasps when she sees me. "Please help me."
I pour void energy into her, trying to reverse the crystallization. It resists, fights back, continues its inexorable climb.
"I can't stop it," I tell her. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Then kill me," she begs. "Please. Before I'm trapped."
I raise my hand to grant her mercy, but she grabs it with her one remaining human arm.
"Wait. You're him. The Shadow Walker. The one hunting the Collector."
"Yes."
"My sister. Yorika. She'll come for me." Her grip tightens. "Tell her it wasn't her fault. Tell her I chose to come to the market. Tell her to be happy."
"I'll tell her."
"Promise me something else." The crystal reaches her throat. "Promise you'll help her kill him. Don't let her do it alone. She'll try, but she'll die. Promise me."
"I promise."
Her last words are barely a whisper: "Tell her I love her."
Then the crystal claims her voice, her movement, everything but her awareness. Her eyes stare at me, pleading, terrified, grateful, and utterly trapped.
I stay with her for three hours, talking to her, telling her about her sister's strength, about how I'll find Yorika and keep my promise. I stay until the Collector returns and forces me to flee.
The memory releases me, and I'm sobbing.
"You tried to save her."
"And failed." His weight on me isn't restraining anymore but comforting. "Just as I failed the others. Two hundred and forty-seven failures. Each one carved into my memory."
"The hairpin?"
"I took it before the Collector could return. Kept it to give to you when I found you. A piece of her to remember." He pulls it from his pocket, not mine, his. "I've carried it for three years."
I clutch the hairpin, feeling its familiar weight. "Why didn't you tell me immediately?"
"Would you have believed me? You came here certain of my guilt. That certainty needed to crack naturally, not be shattered by force."
"So you manipulated me."
"I guided you toward truth." He shifts, and I realize he's still pinning me to the bed, our bodies pressed together intimately. "Just as you tried to manipulate me with that clumsy assassination attempt."
"Clumsy?"
"You could have poisoned me. Used the ceramic blade while I slept. Waited until I was weakened from a tremor." His lips curve slightly. "Instead, you chose the most direct, most honorable approach. Because part of you wanted to fail."
"That's not."
"You're a trained soldier. A professional killer. Yet you announced yourself, moved predictably, used a weapon I could easily counter." His hand cups my face. "You wanted to be stopped."
I want to deny it, but I can’t.
"I hate you," I whisper.
"You hate that you don't hate me," he corrects. "You hate that your body sings when I touch you. That the marks I left bring pleasure not pain. That even now, pinned beneath me after a failed murder attempt, you're aroused."
"That's the bond."
"The bond amplifies. It doesn't create." He leans closer, his breath cold against my lips. "You wanted me before I marked you. The bond just makes you honest about it."
"Fuck you."
"Is that another request?"
The words hang between us. I'm acutely aware of our position, him covering me completely, my legs spread by the shadow tendrils, our bodies aligned perfectly. The marks pulse with heat, and I can feel his arousal pressing against me.
"You just tried to kill me," he points out, though his hips press down slightly.
"You just showed me my sister's death," I counter, arching involuntarily.
"And yet here we are."
"Here we are."
He kisses me then, not rough like against the wall but deep, consuming. The shadow tendrils release my ankles so I can wrap my legs around him. My hands tangle in his dark hair, pulling him closer even as my mind screams that this is insane.
"Did our coupling mean nothing?" he asks against my throat. "Can you still kill me after feeling me inside you? After I marked you as mine?"
The echo of his words from my failed attempt makes me pause. "You expected this."
"I expected you to try something. The assassination attempt was predictable. This," he gestures to our entwined bodies, "is a pleasant surprise."
"I haven't forgiven you."
"I haven't asked for forgiveness."
"I don't trust you."
"Yet you're beneath me, legs wrapped around me, begging with your body if not your words."
He's right. I am begging, silently but desperately. The marks have made me hungry for him in ways that transcend logic.
"This is just biology," I protest weakly.
"Biology doesn't explain why you chose me at the auction. Why you sought my chambers specifically. Why even your murder attempt was half-hearted." He grinds against me, and I gasp. "You want me, Yorika. Not just physically. You want what we could be together."
"Which is?"
"Hunters. Partners. Mates." Each word is punctuated with a roll of his hips. "The Collector is still out there. Your sister and hundreds of others need vengeance. We could give it to them."
"After we fuck?"
"After we complete the bond properly. The fucking is just the pleasant part of a necessary process."
I laugh despite everything. "You're impossible."
"I'm yours. As you're mine." He starts unbuttoning my clothes with shadows while his mouth finds my throat. "Say yes."
"To which part?"
"All of it. The hunt. The partnership. This."
The realm shudders suddenly, violently. Not a tremor from Nezavek's dissolution but something external. Something trying to break in.
We both freeze.
"What was that?" I ask.
His eyes darken from burning gold to something closer to ember. "The Collector. He's testing the wards."
Another shudder. Stronger this time.
"How long until he breaks through?"
"Hours. Maybe less." He doesn't move off me. "The bond is stronger now but still incomplete. We need."
"To finish it. I know." I pull his face down to mine. "Then stop talking and complete what you started."
"Here? Now? While he's attacking?"
"Where else? When else?" I bite his lip hard enough to draw that dark essence that passes for his blood. "Unless you'd rather face him while you're dissolving and I'm only half-anchored."
He snarls something in a language that predates human speech, then claims my mouth in a kiss that feels like possession and surrender combined.
The realm shakes again, but neither of us stops.
We have a bond to complete and a monster to face.