13. Leah
Leah
The wind whips my hair around my face as we soar over Infernum’s mountains. Syrus is holding me again. His body warmth surrounds me, his scent is in my lungs, and it shits all over my careful efforts to avoid him for the last two days.
Avoiding him was the smart thing after what I saw in that parlor.
I’ve been rising early to grab food before the others, then heading straight back to my room, loaded up with supplies that allow me to hole myself up there, sleeping and meditating in the hopes of strengthening my mind against Syrus.
I’m not sure I’ve been this well rested in six years, despite waking up several times thanks to bad dreams about the demon getting whipped—and then me getting whipped in his place—replacing my usual nightmares.
But I think it’s good I did see it. It drove home that the Lord of Malice could easily turn that lash on me if I resist him too openly. So far, he hasn’t needed to. He can control my every movement, as he so regularly reminds me. But if I managed to give him the slip?
I glance up at his face while he’s focused on the city spread out below us.
This close, I can see the dusting of dark stubble on his jaw and the thick cord of muscle that runs down the side of his neck.
It’s strange, trying to reconcile this intense, physical form—hard and cold and unyielding—with the soft, sly presence that often touches my mind like a caress.
They seem like two separate entities sometimes.
Still, I’m being careful, making sure that when I’m around him, I guard any thoughts about running away in Strata.
I only plan on trying that after I’ve found a way to block him.
If I fail, or he finds me afterward before I’ve fully broken our connection, he might think I need a more memorable demonstration of the fact that he’s in charge.
I drink in details of the city as we start to descend.
To be honest, it doesn’t look totally different from Pax, although the buildings generally look older, with some built from the same glittering stone I saw at the castle.
They’re bigger too, unlike Pax, which tends to cram cottages in together until the street is groaning.
I suppose that’s what comes of having space to expand, rather than having to stay within the safety of preexisting walls.
As we touch down on an outer street, I notice it’s clean too. The air is fresher, lighter. It makes me feel a little like my lungs have been wrapped in a tight grip these last twenty-four years and are finally being released.
We’re not near the heart of the city, so only a few demons pass us.
At first, it seems like no one recognizes the Lord of Malice.
Which is strange, but then maybe he really never comes into the city like Asterim implied.
Soon enough though, a demon we pass ducks his head in quick deference, and those who see it seem to catch on, bowing as they pass and muttering “my lord.”
They barely look my way, which is fine by me. Syrus has made me wear a hooded cloak like the one I arrived here in. I doubt it’s for my safety. More likely, he doesn’t want to deal with the attention I’d draw, being the only human in Malice—in all of Infernum, probably.
The clatter of hooves and a piercing whinny rings out on the street behind us. I turn in time to see Vizmodeus sweep in on one of the steeds I’ve seen flying over the plains so many times—sleek and black and even more bat-like up close, with leathery wings and a snub-nosed, fanged head.
He dismounts in one smooth motion—pretty graceful for a guy who looks like a walking hurricane—and hitches the animal’s reins to a post.
I step over and lean into him, grumbling under my breath. “How come you got to ride a horse, and I had to be lugged here like a sack of potatoes?”
“A sack of potatoes would’ve been better. At least they don’t complain,” Syrus’s voice murmurs into my mind. I do the safe thing and choose not to respond, keeping my gaze on Vizmodeus.
“It’s not a horse, it’s a kelaryn,” the chamberlain sniffs. “You’d think a mire rat would know a bit more about the creatures she picks clean for a living.”
“Funnily enough, no one on the battlefield ever seemed interested in giving me a taxonomy lesson.”
“I suppose none of them had time to waste on you,” he replies. He gives the animal a pat on the neck. It hisses and snaps its jaws in response. Vizmodeus just laughs when he sees my startled expression. “He’s playing.”
“Sure,” I say, unconvinced. “I just don’t know why I didn’t spend more time trying to get to know them while scavenging.”
“Enough,” Syrus says, his lips pressed together in that annoyed expression he pulls so often when I speak. “Show us the spot, Viz.”
“Right.” The chamberlain nods, pulling out his usual scroll of parchment from one of his many pockets and holding it up to the street.
I lean in a little closer and see it’s a map.
He points a pencil in the direction of a stone structure on the corner that looks like some kind of monument, then back to the scaled down drawing of the city.
“The locations seemed random at first,” Vizmodeus says.
“My guess is the ephilium had a trial-and-error period figuring out how to open rifts in the right place. Typical bird-brain navigation. Then, I traced three rift signatures within two miles of each other. One by the crossroads at Trasor, one on the north corner by the Daughter’s Temple, and a third—this one, by the Snare’s Well.
” He looks up at us, eyes gleaming with the triumph of a student who’s done all their homework and knows they’ve aced it.
“Any theories on what connects them?” Syrus asks.
“They’re all landmarks,” I say automatically, studying the map over Vizmodeus’s shoulder.
The pale-faced demon jerks his head around at me. “How did you know that?” he asks accusingly.
I roll my eyes. “You just said so. I mean, a crossroads, a temple, and a well? Anyone in the three realms could tell you what those look like, which means they’d be easy spots to navigate from if you’re unfamiliar with Malice.
” I point at the places Vizmodeus indicated on the map.
“And it looks like they’re all on the eastern side of the city, closest to the Morphos. ”
Vizmodeus shares a look with Syrus, and I wonder if I’ve just said something stupid that’s going to get me in trouble.
“She’s right, isn’t she?” Syrus says, a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth.
“Yes,” Vizmodeus replies flatly, folding up the map, and then under his breath: “But I worked it out too.”
I shrug, shifting uncomfortably under the Lord of Malice’s calculating gaze as he watches me for a moment. I’m relieved when he turns away.
“And the well is where she’ll go through?
” he asks. He draws a knife from a sheath at his waist. It’s an impressive thing—gleaming like obsidian, with a long, sleek handle.
There’s a band of runes etched into it in gold.
Even to my untrained eye, they look far more complex than the ones on the axe I traded a few weeks ago.
It’s the kind of prize scavengers would murder for out on the plains.
“Yes, right on the base, by the stone head of Aurealis the Fanged,” Vizmodeus says, leading Syrus over to the monument.
“Come,” he whispers into my mind, and his magic tugs on my waist as if it’s a pair of warm fingers urging me forward.
Arrogant, controlling bastard. I follow after them, concentrating on keeping the angry words locked up behind my mental walls. I’m testing how loud I can think without the Lord of Malice hearing.
He doesn’t respond or look at me, so that must be progress.
Instead, he and Vizmodeus are leaning down beside the well, discussing something.
Most of their words are Cyrax, which makes sense when Syrus lifts the knife and begins to scratch marks into the stone.
Vizmodeus is telling him which runes to use, I realize.
“This will open the same rift the ephilium made?” I ask.
It had occurred to me that if I knew how to make a rift to Strata, I could open one myself.
But it’s obvious now I’ll have no hope of remembering all those complicated etchings, and I can’t exactly write them down.
Until Syrus dragged me here, I’d never even seen a rift open up close.
The only humans typically allowed to open them are those who man the official trade rift between Pax and Aradis.
There are no government rifts between Strata and Infernum. We’re too afraid of the demons to trust them with a semi-permanent doorway between our worlds.
“It will reverse their rift,” Vizmodeus says, pausing to correct one of Syrus’s runes.
“It’s unlikely they left the same way they came in, given that they didn’t need to worry about triggering the wards on the way out.
This rift will trace the signature of their entry back to its origin point in the Mire, wherever that may be. ”
“And you don’t need blood to open it?” I ask. In spite of myself, my voice shakes a little, my mind going back to the night with the sorcerers and the runes they painted on my body.
Vizmodeus shakes his head, but the hand holding the knife pauses. “They only needed your blood because that rift was special.” Syrus’s voice is quiet even in my mind. “You were supposed to act as the shackles as well as the cell door.”
He goes back to carving the runes as I frown, unable to parse what he meant.
I’m about to ask him to explain when something more important occurs to me.
“So you don’t know exactly what’s going to be on the other side of this rift? Or where we’ll end up?”
“It’ll be in Pax,” Vizmodeus says. “The signature is strong enough to show that, at least.”
“Still,” I say, anxiety twisting my insides. “Isn’t that a bit risky?”
“That’s why you’ll actually be going. I’m just coming along for the ride inside your mind,” Syrus says. “If we’re about to walk into a den of ephilium, it’s better I wear your face.”