Chapter 4
A s he walks slowly toward me I say, “Look, I know there are political repercussions to you being associated with me—“
“You came for me,” Nariel interrupts, crouching in front of me. “Any assistance I can offer is yours. Tell me the plan.”
My heart twists. “When you’re not trying to make decisions for me, I’d be happy to.”
“As long as your decisions aren’t sidelining me or refusing my help, I am happy to follow your lead.” Nariel gestures behind him at where the portal used to be.
Is that what he was pissy about? That I don’t want to have to rely on him?
“I need to be able to stand on my own, Nariel. The other worlds won’t take me or Low Earth seriously if I’m dependent on you.”
“You are not dependent on me. I have no doubt you would have managed the Lances on your own, had it been necessary. But it was not necessary. People are allowed to help you. Evram isn’t here on his own, is he? ”
“Evram hasn’t shown his face here since Koshiel shoved the new deal down his throat and I made him choke on it,” I say with more bitterness than I mean to.
Evram’s a sore fucking loser, and I know I already beat him and he wouldn’t help me. But there’s a part of me that feels abandoned all over again—like now that I have made the grand magus see me and what I can do, he’s punishing me by refusing to look.
Leaving me alone again.
Again, with no help, while making it abundantly clear to me that I cannot, in fact, do this on my own.
“That isn’t the point,” Nariel says. “High Earth is now sending not just strike teams, but Lances after you. They know you’re a powerful target.”
“But they don’t respect me enough to not send the teams, do they? High Earth wouldn’t bother sending a strike team after an angel. They wouldn’t send one after you . But that isn’t the point either, because the point of freeing you is so that you’re free , Nariel. I don’t want to use you for power. I need my own.”
“Then I will help you get it.” Nariel reaches for my face and holds it between his hands, like I’m precious.
I have cried in front of this man too many times, and I refuse to do it now. But keeping my expression together takes a huge act of will, and I’ m so tired .
Then Nariel says, “I know you don’t need me, but I want to help you fight your battles. Your battles are my battles, Sierra, with or without a bond.”
There’s a beat where my brain stutters to a halt, where all I hear is the post-battle calm around me. Wind against rock, water against shore.
Then it starts up again, and I’m not sure whether my heart or thoughts are racing faster or which one manages to choke out, “Bond?”
His lips quirk faintly. “On further reflection,” Nariel says, “a bond is perhaps not dissimilar from demon marriage.”
I blink.
Blink twice.
Did he just propose demon marriage to me?
“Nariel, I have... so many questions.”
His hands drop down to my hands, which he squeezes. “Promise me first you’ll think about it?”
What is going on. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about! Promise you before what?”
Now that Nariel’s shadows are gone, I feel the moment Seamus arrives back on the island.
We’ve all gotten very good at using gates these past weeks. Once I set them up, all a wizard has to do is use their wand open them.
And Seamus’ eyebrows shoot right up to his hairline seeing how Nariel and I are sitting .
I manage to keep from yanking my hands away. What business of Seamus’ is it if Nariel and I are close?
It’s his business if he thinks I need Nariel to do my own damn job.
“I think seriously about everything you tell me, Nariel,” I say evenly.
His eyes search mine, hearing the retreat in my tone even if I haven’t moved—or perhaps it’s that; that I’m holding so perfectly still in order to not move. After a moment, he nods and releases me, standing.
I stand too.
“Am I interrupting something?” Seamus drawls.
“Yes,” Nariel says at the same time I say, “I have no idea.”
We look at each other.
“Yes, then,” Seamus says, sounding amused.
This is too awkward. Dealing with people is hard enough when I’m not already feeling like a mess.
The sure-fire way for me to restore some equilibrium is to work some magic, so I step around them and start cleaning up the island.
Rocks first. Undoing an avalanche is a tricky business, but since I set the spell up in the first place knowing I’d want to undo it, it’s easier than it could be.
“If High Earth has been attacking here as much as I’m beginning to suspect,” Nariel says to Seamus, “I’m not sure I understand your earlier lack of concern. ”
“Leaving Sierra to finish fighting? I’m not going to stay and be a liability for her to protect.”
I glance back to see Nariel’s head tilt, ever-so-slightly, and somehow the movement looks ominous to me. “No. Your lack of concern over Sierra traversing dimensions on her own, something that easily could have killed her. Were you so certain of her success?”
I turn away. Never mind, I don’t want any part of this conversation. Back to rocks.
“Of course not,” Seamus says. “How do I even know what’s possible or impossible? But what I am certain of is that we’re clearly outgunned, and we’re not going to last long if something big doesn’t change.”
“You were willing to let her take the risk for me?” Nariel drawls. “I’m flattered.”
“No,” I disagree softly, not looking back. “If they’re going to lose me, it’s better they do it before they’re dependent on me.”
Right now, High Earth doesn’t know about Seamus. Right now, he’s not dependent on magic.
He may want magic, and he may like me. But Seamus can take a hard look at the world and see what reality looks like.
It’s not that he’s learned to trust me; it’s closer to the opposite. It’s that he’s learned what trusting me would actually mean.
“Look, I want magic,” Seamus says, “but I have a life without it. No offense, Sierra. ”
“None taken,” I say.
“I see,” Nariel says, and his voice is cold.
“I don’t need judgment from a man who can hide in the shadows any time he wants,” Seamus snaps. “When I go all-in, I’m all-in. And at the moment it does not look like that’s a good bet to keep living at all.”
“I’m working on it,” I cut in before they can get into another pissing match. Avalanche undone; next up, stabilizing the earth I shook to knock the Lances over. “Nariel, leave it. I haven’t had time to catch you up yet, but Seamus has been a huge help. I got him into this mess, and I’m getting him out. Okay?”
“I see,” Nariel says again, more softly, and then he appears at my side in a whirl of shadows. “What was your plan, then?”
“What do you mean, ‘was’?”
“I have never known you to not have a plan,” Nariel says idly.
He has a lot of faith in me. Maybe too much. “You think what you were talking about before is going to change it?”
As I shift the land beneath us, he’s sealing the cracks on the surface.
I wanted to do some magic on my own. But I don’t think it bothers me this time, because I am sure I don’t need him for this. He’s just... helping.
“I think I want you to have alternatives,” Nariel says. “So you know there is someone on your side who is a partner. So you know you are not the only one who has to have all the ideas on your own.”
Never mind, that’s more complicated.
Seamus interjects, “Hey now—“
“You wish to be equals, yes?” Nariel ignores him. “With the powers of each world.”
“Yes,” I agree slowly, abandoning my cleanup efforts momentarily to turn and focus on him.
“What that looks like,” he says as the ground knits itself beneath us, “is not me staying in the background.”
This again. “I heard you before, but the angels—“
“Have punished me for my audacity before, and I’ll survive.”
“I want you to expect better than punishment,” I snap. “You should thrive.”
“And I intend to. But already, the power available in Low Earth means that my people don’t have to take horrible contracts with Bright Earth in order not to starve , do you realize that? You’re acting as though you are to blame for my imprisonment, not that my ensuring your freedom didn’t also help my people.”
Seamus’s gaze flicks between us.
“You’re worried about me,” Nariel says. “It’s sweet, but unnecessary.”
“I’m also worried about our worlds,” I finally manage in a strained voice .
“Then both of our worlds should be an equal part of the solution,” Nariel says steadily, his gaze never leaving mine. “We lift each other up, remember?”
I take a breath.
He’s right. I want him to be right.
But I also know if he helps me, I’m going to get more dependent on him, not less.
“Your grove is my grove,” Nariel says softly. “My power is your power. Tell me your plan.”
It occurs to me that he maybe took that grove comment a little more seriously than I intended.
Not like... incorrectly, because he is welcome to the power of my grove, I meant that. But now that I know he is maybe proposing demon marriage, I’m wondering if maybe I should have been a little more circumspect with my phrasing?
I’m not used to Nariel being the one I need to be careful around, and I don’t like it.
I summon a few loose rocks from around the island and plop down on one. Seamus and Nariel follow suit.
Impromptu meeting time!
“I told you the plan: stealing angel weapons from High Earth,” I say.
But I’m looking at my wand, not them, while I construct a spell to undo one of the explosions Seamus triggered. Maximum efficiency is the name of the game these days.
“I don’t have time to train anyone now, and High Earth is running me ragged because I can’t be everywhere at once, I never know where they’ll show, and I still need to recharge. They’re draining Low Earth’s power manually everywhere they show up, which makes it harder to counter them. I have to break the cycle.”
“Ah,” Nariel says. I feel the power coming from him, so I know he’s doing something, too, but not what. “I am relieved. I thought it must all be spirits gorging themselves while they can.”
That explains some things. I activate my spell and start on the next. “I wondered if that was what was happening near some of the power spots.”
Nariel nods. “I also directed my spirits to feast here—they have been bringing me back magic to use for defenses. But there are more powerful spirits, too, who can spend all their magic on a massive scale, recharge, and do it all again. Low Earth’s power is still high enough after your spell that this may not be a problem yet, but it will be. I can’t ask my own people to moderate while they’re at risk.”
Cool, cool. More problems for me, more problems for him.
“Well,” Seamus says, “that’s just what we needed, isn’t it?”
“Why don’t you stop High Earth from coming here?” Nariel asks. “You had to go to great lengths to travel to Dark Earth; why isn’t it the same?”
“Because High Earth has had centuries to set up spells all over Low Earth so they can travel as easily here as they want, and I don’t have time to find them, let alone undo them. ”
I’m about to trigger the spell I’ve been prepping when I realize Nariel’s already fixed that spot, so the spell is wasted. I grind my teeth and let it go.
Always too late.
What am I even good for, if not this?
I take a breath and switch gears to work on the spell underneath the water.
“Being able to put angel weapons into a few key hands—“ I nod at Seamus, who nods back in acknowledgement ”—will enable other wizards to fight High Earth, too, and serve as a deterrent. Letty’s been flying around setting up anchors for us as she distributes wands to wizards, and so that High Earth can’t find her. So once we can easily travel around the world, too, and more than one person can have power at their disposal to match High Earth, they’ll slow down and change their strategy. Which will give us that time to train for real.”
Nariel nods thoughtfully. “I see. And you don’t want to just make them yourself?”
His power flickers along mine, and I glare at him.
Nariel’s eyebrows lift.
Seamus’ gaze darts between us, catching the undercurrent of whatever we’re doing here.
Not electrocuting Nariel, I grind out, “I don’t know how, I don’t know how long it would take to learn, and I need weapons yesterday.”
I snap off my spell before he finishes whatever he’s doing.
Nariel smirks. Oh, so he’s goading me on purpose.
No—he’s playing . Like we’ve played before. Pushing me, challenging me.
Only this time it’s hitting me very different.
I take a deep breath. It is not reasonable for me to be mad at him.
He’s not trying to undermine me; it’s that I’m in a different place.
“Aha. And how detailed is your plan to steal no doubt thoroughly protected weapons from High Earth?”
“Oh, extremely vague.”
Seamus snorts and buries his head in his hands.
I think he’s laughing.
“Look, I can only make so many plans at a time,” I snap. “Pardon me if circumventing an angelic prison while keeping up with endless unpredictable mage attacks has occupied me.”
My tone is sarcastic, like this isn’t worth concern. It is totally reasonable for this to have taken all my bandwidth.
I still feel like a failure for not having managed more.
Nariel grins. “In that case, while I would be happy to help you learn to make your own magical weapons, why not steal them more easily from Dark Earth instead?”
The water laps against the shore.
Seamus and I both stare at him.
“Dark Earth has angel weapons?” I ask. “With power?”
Nariel’s eyes sparkle at me, tugging at my chest. “No, they’re drained. Abandoned by angels millennia past. But you know the trick of reversing magic flow, and Low Earth now has plenty of magic available to power them up. You just need vessels that can handle it.”
Oh. Oh .
I can practically feel myself sharpening.
Taking what Bright Earth has discarded, and using what only I can do to shove it in High Earth’s face?
I like this idea a lot .
I don’t even feel bad about Nariel changing my plan, because there was no way I could have known this was an option.
“Will it be difficult to get the weapons from Dark Earth?” I ask.
“Not compared to High Earth. I know where several are and what defenses they have.”
Wow. And this way both of our worlds can work together.
Something I can do to actually help.
And since Nariel will be leading, I won’t have to worry about taking charge myself, or about how much better he is at it than me. He’s the one who knows the defenses, so it’s his show. Easy.
The amount of relief I feel at that is kind of troubling, but not enough for me to hesitate.
I stand, brushing off my jeans. “I’m sold. We’ll do your plan. When can we start? ”
Seamus says, “Sometime after we talk about what it means that High Earth just escalated by sending Lances after us. You can’t just leave right now, Sierra, not after this.”
I plop back down. Goddammit.
Back to my shortcomings as a leader. “If I could escalate in return, Seamus, I’d have escalated weeks ago.”
“You have escalated,” Nariel tells me. “You freed me. And that means you don’t only have wizards at your disposal. Gaspar can certainly help coordinate spirits here to find High Earth’s spells.”
I freeze.
Fuck.
Fuck, he is absolutely right.
My relief of moments before evaporates. I stare up at the clear sky, taking deep breaths to try to stabilize myself.
Seamus whistles. “Goddamn. Letty’s already flying all over the place delivering wands—can she teach wizards how to undo them too, do you think?”
“Even better,” I say, and my voice sounds distant, “we can change them into gates that we can use.”
Nariel looks at me sharply; I see it out of the corner of my eye even as I keep my gaze fixed on the sky. My jaw clenches, and I force myself to breathe again.
How did I not think of this? Like, better late than never to have a useful idea of my own, but we’ve been talking for like five minutes and already Nariel is waltzing in and casually taking charge of the fate of both worlds and tossing off better ideas than I’ve had in weeks.
Low Earth deserves to have a wizard that can protect them.
I may have the power and more knowledge of magic than anyone else here, but I’m not cut out for this.
“Sierra?” Nariel questions softly.
But since Low Earth doesn’t currently have a better option, I’m not going to look a gift demon in the mouth, either.
“Right,” I say. “Nariel, how soon can we start?”
He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “My schedule is clear.”
“Now, then. Seamus, hang on, I got you more.” I dig into my pack and toss him a bundle.
Seamus swears. “Don’t just throw diamonds around like that! Jesus, girl.”
Diamonds are my solution for how to pay Ayaka, Seamus, Letty, and Brook for their time helping me. I can use magic to make them, and Seamus knows some questionable people who can fence them without me disrupting any world economies.
“When are you going to teach me how to make diamonds?” Seamus asks.
And also the spell process is difficult enough that it’ll be a long time before any Low Earth wizard can figure this out without me, so I’ll have time to develop some kind of oversight.
I hope.
“Sometime after you can hold a shield in battle,” I tell him easily. “How are your exercises going?”
Seamus flips me off good-naturedly and starts to walk off with the diamonds.
“Wait,” I say, “let’s get everyone on the phone, and then Nariel and I can head out?”
I hate that it comes out like a question, but Nariel just nods. “We’ll get started in Dark Earth,” he says in a low voice, eyes locking on mine.
When we’ll be alone again, and not interrupted by attacking mages.
From the look in his eye, I’m pretty sure I’m about to find out what demon marriage means.