Chapter 26
I yelped and covered my breasts as Carmine appeared in my bathroom.
“What?” I snapped.
His face hardened at the sight of me. Probably other parts too.
I stomped my foot, which had the effect of bouncing everything that had transfixed him. “Why are you portaling in here?”
“In the hopes of seeing you undressed.”
I’d fallen into that trap. I turned to snatch up a towel, and held it in front of my body.
He stepped closer. “One day I’ll touch every inch of your body again. For every minute of sleep you’ve robbed from me, including in these fucking dreams, I’ll feast on your body.”
I broke my glare at his mention of the dreams.
Carmine closed the gap between us to wrap a fist in the towel. “You’re bothered that I know the dreams are real.”
His hand wrapped in my towel bothered me. I did my best to ignore it. “I didn’t know they were real until I returned here.”
“You were fucking me in your dreams all those years,” he murmured.
I forced myself to look him in the eyes. “Just in my mind. None of it was real.”
“The battle of the mind is the most real battle a person faces.” Carmine released the towel at last, then lowered his head to kiss my bare shoulder.
I shivered.
“I must leave the realm for Earth,” he said. “Steth was captured, and the enemy wishes to… negotiate.”
I was surprised when he didn’t choke on the word.
But Steth wasn’t dead? Shit. That was a problem. She was smart. She’d be well aware that Carmine wouldn’t give away a single thing to save her. She would use the information about me and Athira to her advantage. What could I do about that? Just about nothing.
Oddly, I trusted Athira to handle that.
I asked, “Will you be long?”
Carmine tilted my chin. “Why do you ask?”
I frowned. “Just making conversation.”
Warmth flooded us. I’d forgotten about our truth touch. Luckily I’d just told the truth. Go me.
“I’m glad that is so,” he murmured. “You save another male’s life and plan him a birthday party the next day.
You protect him as I can’t be sure you would protect me.
You sleep your chosen son next to another male who should be too weak in power for you to ever trust him with something so precious.
You choose that instead of sleeping your son close to me, a strong male who could easily protect your child.
I exist between rage and jealousy, my mate. ”
He was jealous of Raes and Tsan.
He should be. I’d choose either of them over him if that were possible.
“I shielded you from the Vissimo king’s weapons, if memory serves,” I answered.
“As for trusting you with Axel, it is not a matter of trusting you to protect him. You will do that no matter where he is in the fortress. I trust in what you do as a king. I have seen what overcomes you. The distance gained by sleeping Axel by Tsan could save you from regret in... those moments.” And me from trying to kill you prematurely.
He sucked in a breath as warmth flooded us again.
“What is it?” I asked in the lull.
His throat worked, and he maintained his hold on my chin. “Nothing, mate. Nothing more than thankfulness for a queen who is discerning when I have done nothing to deserve that quality. Or her.”
Heat exploded in my chest and rippled out to my fingertips.
My turn to suck in a breath.
I’d grown accustomed to these odd moments of half-confession from him. More often than not I’d dismissed them as a ruse to drag me along down his chosen path. But I guessed now I absolutely knew… these moments were authentic.
And I still felt unsure about how to respond.
Because if he felt that way, then why didn’t he change?
This was the point when I had to dismiss these thoughts. Because those thoughts led absolutely nowhere.
“I won’t be gone long,” he said, breaking the silence. “Please don’t leave the fortress while I am away. I wish to allow you privacy, but there’s a limit to what I can convince myself of.”
That comment induced a similar confusion to the last. Because why should I be limited by his inability to “convince himself.”
I answered, “I’ll stay here.”
“Thank you, Syera.” He released my chin at last.
He left as quickly as he’d arrived, and I went about dressing, rubbing a hand over my fuzzier head as I did.
I tracked his location through the fortress.
To the hangar. Then to Earth.
I grunted at the sudden end of our thread—like it had fallen off a cliff or simply hovered in space.
I opened a portal to Tsan’s room and whispered, “You there?”
A groan. “Some of us don’t train at dawn. Yes, I’m here.”
“Come on.”
We didn’t have long. When Carmine returned, it could be with the knowledge from Steth that his mother and I were in cahoots.
A sleepy Tsan trudged through the portal.
“Big night?” I asked.
“You’d know if you had stayed longer,” he said around a yawn. “Great party.”
I’d left after finding my new warden.
I lowered my voice. “I didn’t mean to drag you out of bed, but he’s gone. Not for long. Any news?”
He rubbed his eyes. “Kind of. I couldn’t find any of the Tier’s winners.”
“None of them?”
“No recent winners. I stopped after noticing the pattern. You know how I met up with some of the servants here?”
He meant his new friends. “I recall.”
“The party continued in their rooms last night. The mead was flowing, and I was able to get them talking. Yiti knew a winner, the one from three years ago.”
“And?”
“She said the winner was never the same after Tiers. The demon holed up with all her riches, which wasn’t so strange.
But then demons would go into her home and never come out.
A group of demons stormed her walls one day to find out what was going on, and the winner was dead.
Mutilated. And the bones of the lost demons were strewn through the house. ”
I stared. “That’s odd even by our standards.”
“That’s what I thought. We’ve all left a few bodies here and there, but to not dispose of the evidence? That’s sloppy.”
Truth. “Anything else?”
“Another servant mentioned a winner, five years ago. He found a cliff and a big boulder. Dropped the boulder off the cliff and portaled beneath. The boulder cracked enough of his scales that he couldn’t be saved.
Apparently he’d gambled his riches away and demons were after him.
Then one of the yellows in the kitchen knew a third winner from twenty years ago.
He died shortly after the death of his mate. ”
Which wasn’t so weird. Even the second winner…
he wouldn’t be the only demon to take his own life.
Suicide was only an option for the weaker scale colors, as crushing injuries had to be powerful enough to overcome the power of the demon.
A boulder wouldn’t crush the scales of any demon stronger than a blue.
“This is the strange part of all three stories,” Tsan said, starting to appear more awake.
“All three winners were mutilated when found. Claw marks on their scales. Holes in their skin as if they’d picked at themselves for weeks or months.
The demon who’d used the boulder to crush himself was a purple. A strong purple.”
“That shouldn’t be possible,” I blurted. “How did the boulder crush his scales?”
Tsan shrugged. “That was why the orange remembered it so vividly. No one could figure out how the guy managed it.”
My gut twinged with warning. Tsan was onto something. “You couldn’t find any others?”
“Not a single one from the last twenty years. Those I asked told me winners had moved on. When I followed the trails, all of them puttered out.”
I sat beside Tsan. “None of the winners can be found. That is too big to be a coincidence.”
They were all dead. They had to be.
“There’s something going on,” he agreed.
And I was willing to bet that it had something to do with white magic. “How has this escaped everyone’s notice?”
Tsan snorted. “Easy. Demons move around. We piss someone off or get in a fight. Find our mate and relocate. We’re always moving. Look at me. I’ve been at home, in the pinnacles, and in the fortress over a number of weeks.”
That was true of most demons. Raes’s family was an oddity, but they also stuck together to protect themselves and made weapons for a living—that they could use really well.
Not many would mess with them. If any demon was suspicious about Tiers, then my survival would alleviate those thoughts.
But I’d had an antidote to the white magic.
“Current theory,” I slowly said. “There are no real winners of Tiers. The game is a ruse to feed the white magic.” That Carmine harnesses.
He had to sacrifice his own people in an annual fight to the death to remain powerful.
If demonkind knew this… they’d do nothing because of their fear for the demon king.
I sighed. “I need you to do something else. I can’t say when I’ll have another chance.”
“How far do I need to move?” he groaned.
“Through this portal.” I opened one to the desert.
The yellow squinted through. “Am I coming back through your portal? I don’t relish a long walk back through the desert. I’m already dehydrated.”
“No walk. I need you to bring a nismus to the portal.”
“Is that all?” He stood and walked through to the sand, then turned. “Any tips on where to find a nismus?”
I peered past his shoulder. “Behind you.”
Tsan jumped and spun.
He glared at me after. “Very funny.”
I grinned. “She shouldn’t be far.”
I stuck my head through. I didn’t want to leave the fortress in case Carmine returned. He’d immediately sense my absence. “Neti!” I called.
The muted thump of hooves on sand met my ears.
Yes. “She’s coming.”
Tsan grimaced. “Great.”
Neti trotted closer, and her calf—which wasn’t much of a calf any longer—was hard on her heels.
“Don’t knock me out this time, okay?” My nerves were real.
Neti blinked at me, then stepped closer to Tsan. Shit, he had white coils in him, too, after Tiers. A warning leaped to my lips, but Neti just rubbed her head against Tsan’s shoulder.
“Uh…” He cast me a wide-eyed look.
Guess she deemed Tsan as fine. “She likes you. Maybe it’s because you’re yellow.” Whites and yellows used to rule the place together.
“I want her to stop,” he said in a low voice.
She didn’t.
I cleared my throat. Now to talk to an animal that I wasn’t so sure was an animal and not an ancient being in disguise. “Neti, we don’t have much time. I might be crazy for speaking with you, but I’m out of options. Do the names Istg or Ronj mean anything to you?”
She lowered her head and pawed the ground.
“They do?” I darted a look at Tsan. Was that coincidence?
Nothing to do but keep going. “There’s a white magic in the fortress, and the arena too.
It does strange things to the demons who become unknowing carriers.
It’s almost as if the magic feeds on them before the demons weaken too much, or die.
I don’t know. But when I carried that magic, you healed me. ”
Neti walked closer until she gazed directly into my eyes through the portal.
I wet my lips. My gut was ringing a damn bell, and the warning had nothing to do with Neti. “You’re part of the Istg, aren’t you?”
The nismus bowed her head.
That was a yes. That had to be a yes.
I was onto something at least. “I need to know how to harness that power, Neti. I need to figure out how to use it.”
She reared up, and then I was soaring across the room, all thoughts obliterated except for my awareness of the two hoof prints of pain on my chest.
I smashed into the far wall and rolled into a heap on the bed.
Tsan dove inside as Neti roared. Wheezing and choking, I snapped the portal shut, then collapsed back in a heap on the bed.
“Fuck,” I breathed out.
“She didn’t like that idea,” Tsan stated. “But she left you a gift.” He climbed off the bed, and picked up something off the floor.
I groaned and rubbed at my chest. She’d moved so fast. Ouch. “What is it?”
“A crown.”
Crawling to the edge, I peered at the crown in his hands. A delicate crown of twisted silver and a gleaming blue stone in the center. More of a tiara than a crown. A woman had worn this.
The blue stone was one I knew and was happy to have in the event white magic found its way into me again. “What do you make of it?”
Tsan handed me the tiara, and I shoved it under the mattress, then checked Carmine’s whereabouts. Still not back.
“I think… Neti has strong opinions on your current plan. Whatever these Istg and Ronj are, she knew the names. As for the crown, I can’t say. Was it hers? Is it for you? Is she showing you the price of trying to wield this dangerous power?”
I hadn’t thought that far. Then again, I wasn’t yellow. “There’s no option but to harness the magic.”
But I did trust that Neti knew more about this than me. My Magus power trusted Neti’s advice too. Except if I didn’t harness this magic, then how the hell would I take down Carmine? Severing our mating bond was an unknown factor, and what if that wasn’t enough to weaken him after only four rituals.
My brow cleared.
“Got an idea?” Tsan asked.
“Just the idea to enter more rituals with Carmine as a Plan B,” I said. The stronger we tied ourselves together, the harder we’d be hit by parting.
I pursed my lips. “As for more ideas, I’m fresh out.”
“What does your Magus power say?”
My Magus magic was Team Neti. But in what way? When I considered her warning kick, my gut twinged with the need for caution. When I considered that Neti may be lying, my gut didn’t twinge, and when I considered the tiara, my divination affinity flared.
The tiara.
There was something there. The purpose of the blue stone was clear, but the tiara implied leadership—whether that was Neti’s ancient leadership, another member of the Istg, or me.
I retrieved the feminine crown and pushed my demon power over the delicate metal.
Nothing. No power of any description. This was nothing more than an object.
As a demon, I could do nothing more than wear the tiara, crush it, or toss it.
But I wasn’t just a demon. As a Magus with a divination affinity, other doors were open to me.
“What is it?” Tsan asked. “Do you feel something?”
I lifted my head. “The question is what can it say?”
“Oh,” he answered politely. “Of course.”
I snorted at his sarcasm.
Neti had given me a tiara connected to the white magic and its history. The past was thoroughly buried. If clear answers had once existed, then Carmine may have erased that trail long ago.
But not much could be hidden from a Magus with a divination affinity, if that Magus was strong enough to draw forth the past.
Which was a big if.
I blew out a breath. “I need to attempt magic that I’ve never attempted.”