Rot, Nico realized with a spike of terror. Her field was rotting. No, this was her world. She was master. Nothing happened here without her consent. But even as she thought it, the hunger roared in her mind. The need to eat sent her to her knees. She could almost feel her stomach curling up and vanishing inside her. She had to eat. Had to eat or she would die.
After that, the hunger became all-consuming. It seized control of her mind, bending her to its will. Eat the sword, it commanded. Eat the human. Eat everything. Eat and grow strong. You can’t be king if you’re weak.
“No!” Nico shrieked her answer. “Weak or strong, dead or alive, this is my body. ”
You’ll die, the hunger jabbered. Die die die die die die.
Nico shut herself down, refusing to listen. Slowly, mechanically, she crawled up the large stone that had held the demon in his prison and curled into a ball on top of it, wrapping her arms around her wounded chest as she stared into the dark.
Out on the edges of the field, blackness was lapping like water. It rose as she watched, flooding over the rotting grass and fetid ground, pouring into the chasm where her seed had been. It rose until her rock was the only island in an endless, black sea. Rose until the dark waves were lapping at her feet. The darkness was as cold as the space between the shadows. It froze her wherever it touched, but Nico refused to move.
The hunger was gnawing at her bones now, surging with the black water that threatened to drown her. The madness flooded her mind with each wave, but Nico did not budge. If she moved now, if she showed any weakness at all, she knew without a doubt she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from attacking Josef and the Heart of War.
So she didn’t. She sat perfectly still as the black water rose over her calves, then her knees. Rose to her chest, then her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut when it touched her chin, but her mouth opened despite the bitter, freezing dark that flooded through her lips. Even as the darkness choked her, she opened her mouth and spoke the one truth that must remain though everything else was lost.
I am the master of myself.
I am the master of myself.
She said it over and over until the words ran together. Said it until she was screaming, even though the blackness was pouring down her throat now, eating her voice, dissolving her to nothing. But despite the cold, despite the darkness, despite all that had happened, she kept going. She was the master of herself. The choice to step forward, to take another breath, was hers and hers alone.
This was the lifeline she clung to, her mouth moving frantically, shouting the truth again and again as the black water covered her head.
Josef stood with the Heart planted in the stone between his feet, one hand on the hilt, the other bracing against Eli’s shoulder for balance. In front of him, the sword’s open spirit was slammed down on the mountain slope with enough weight to press the snow into clear ice. The enormous black pillar, however, howled on as before, completely unaffected.
“It’s not working,” Josef announced unnecessarily.
“Well, it is helping to keep the panic down,” Eli said, raising his voice over the demon’s wailing. He pointed at the mountain beneath them. “The stone should be cracking itself in terror by now, but the Heart’s weight is keeping it still. Not too elegant, but it should keep the League off our backs for the moment. ”
“Hang the League,” Josef growled. “I want Nico down from there. ”
They both looked up. Nico was still hanging in the air at the center of the black pillar. The Heart’s pressure hadn’t even touched the surging darkness. It flowed uninterrupted, shooting from the ground to the sky like a black river. Nico’s body was motionless under the flood, her white limbs seized up in terror or pain, probably both. She was so still, Eli wouldn’t have believed she was alive were it not for her mouth.
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Nico’s mouth was moving frantically, her jaw opening and closing like she was screaming the same thing over and over again. It was clearly a full sentence, but with the Heart’s pressure and the roar of the dark river itself, Eli couldn’t get close enough to read the words on her lips. Feeling utterly useless, he looked down at the shredded black fabric he clutched in his hands, all that was left of the coat Slorn had made for her.
“We need a new plan,” he muttered. “You keep up the pressure as long as you can. I’ll think of something. ”
Josef nodded, releasing Eli’s shoulder to rest both hands on the Heart. He trusts you completely, Eli realized with a start as the swordsman settled into his post. It has never occurred to him that you won’t cook up a way out of this.
That thought made Eli feel bleaker than ever. He crept away, tromping over the battle-torn snow until he found a reasonably clear spot. He sat down with a sigh and rested his chin on his fist, the very picture of clever man deep in thought, just in case Josef looked over.
Trouble was, though, Eli didn’t have a clever plan. For once, his sleeves were completely empty. Up here in the mountains, he was miles away from anyone who owed him a favor, assuming there was a favor big enough to deal with something like this. Demons were League and Shepherdess work, but the League was out for obvious reasons and the Shepherdess wouldn’t help him now even if he begged, not that he would. That thought brought the anger flaring back, and Eli closed his eyes, putting Benehime firmly out of his mind. First rule of thievery: one disaster at a time. Always focus on solving the problem in front of you.
Tried-and-true advice, but five minutes of sitting and thinking later, Eli was no closer to a solution than he’d been at the beginning, and he was starting to feel a bit panicky. There really seemed to be no way out of this besides waiting for Nico to win or killing her outright. Neither of those would fly with Josef, and while the giant pillar of darkness wasn’t getting bigger, it wasn’t getting any smaller, either. Their only protection right now was the Heart’s iron grip on the mountain’s panic and the fact that the Lord of Storms would never expect a demon to live through losing its seed. But the Heart couldn’t keep this up forever. Once the sword failed and the panic got out of control, the jig would be up. The League would come, and with Josef so injured already, that would be that.
Dropping all pretenses, Eli slumped forward, resting his head between his knees. But just when he was starting to feel really hopeless, he heard a sound that made him go rigid, the soft, familiar tearing of a cut opening in the veil.
He wrenched his head around just in time to see the white line finish its fall through the air behind Josef. It happened so quickly, Eli could only watch, eyes wide. No, he thought, not yet. With so much going on, why was the League on the ball now?
But while the man who stepped through the white hole in the world was large enough to be a League member, he carried no sword, and he wasn’t wearing the League’s iconic black coat. He was dressed as a workman in a linen shirt and leather apron, but he could have been naked for all Eli noticed. His attention was on the man’s head, or rather the large, brown bear’s head where the man’s head should have been.
“Slorn!” The name was a jubilant shout as Eli jumped to his feet. Josef turned to stare as Eli ran across the ledge, stopping just in front of the bear-headed wizard. “What are you doing here?”
“Monpress. ” Slorn’s muzzle peeled back to show his yellow teeth. “And Liechten, too. Good. Just the men I wanted to see. Give me a hand with this. ”
He nodded back to the white hole in the air, which was still hanging open, but Eli was just staring at him.
Slorn cleared his throat. “Quickly, please. ”
Josef and Eli exchanged looks, and then, since Josef couldn’t leave the Heart, Eli went to do as Slorn said. At the Shaper’s urging, he reached through the white hole and began to pull on the long, rectangular object on the other side. It was unexpectedly heavy, and Eli ended up having to let Slorn do most of the lifting. The thing was off-white and felt almost like soap against his fingers. It
was rectangular, as long as Josef and nearly as wide, its four sides, top, and bottom held together seemingly without pins, hinges, or joints. It actually looked very much like a coffin, Eli thought with a sinking feeling. A smooth, white coffin.
The cut in the veil closed as soon as the box was through. Slorn directed Eli to put it down gently, and then he reached over and opened the top with a creak. Eli swallowed when he saw the hollow space in the middle. It was a coffin. And the white material… He ran his fingers over it again, hissing as he finally realized what he was touching.
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“This is bone metal,” he said, staring at Slorn in astonishment. “What are you doing with a bone metal coffin?”
“Solving your problem,” Slorn said, propping the lid so it would stay up.
“Coffin?” Josef said at the same time. He glared at Slorn over his shoulder. “Killing her is not an option. She’s still in there. ”
“I am the last man in the world who needs to be reminded of that, swordsman,” Slorn said quietly.
Josef snapped his mouth shut.
“Our only hope is to get her contained,” Slorn went on, staring up at Nico. “I don’t know why she hasn’t gotten larger, but I’ll take my luck as I find it. In any event, we should move quickly. ”
“How do we contain that?” Eli said, pointing at the black pillar.
“Demons gain strength by feeding,” Slorn said. “So we’re going to start by locking her away from her food source, and then we’ll see what happens. ”
Eli glanced down at the white box. Suddenly, it looked pathetically small. “I guess we’re about to learn the limits of demons and bone metal. ”
“That we are,” Slorn said. “First, though, we have to get her down. ”
“Leave that to me,” Josef said.
Eli started to protest, but Josef had already left his sword anchored in the stone and started marching toward the black pillar. He walked through the iron weight of the Heart’s open spirit like it was nothing, which, for him, it was. He stopped when he reached the base of the enormous pillar, his bare hands clenched into fists as he stared up at Nico.
She floated in the air above him, her bare feet even with the top of his head. Her already thin body looked skeletal in the liquid shadows, and her face was screwed up in intense pain as her mouth moved unceasingly, screaming the same words over and over.
“Nico,” Josef shouted, his deep voice cutting through the roar of the flowing dark. “I’m bringing you down. Slorn’s going to heal you. I need you to trust me and not fight. ”
If she heard him, Nico gave no sign, but Josef didn’t wait for one. The second he finished speaking, he reached up, grabbing her ankles with both hands. Then, bracing his feet against the stone, Josef began to pull. The dark river roared over Nico’s body, the flowing shadows wrapping around her, pulling her back, but Josef pulled harder.
Slowly, Nico began to sink. Soon, Josef was able to grab her knees, then her waist. By this point, he was standing in the pillar himself. The darkness poured over him like a waterfall, but to Eli’s amazement, it did not consume him. When he had her low enough, Josef grabbed Nico’s shoulders and tugged her into his arms. Wrapping himself around her like a shield, he turned and walked away from the pillar, carrying Nico out of the dark and into the afternoon sunlight.
The second her body left the pillar, the blackness dissolved. The roaring torrent just melted away like snow in the sun. But as the pillar vanished, darkness began to grow around Nico’s body. It oozed up from her skin, covering her like black mold. Josef walked toward them, holding her carefully, but with every step his face grew paler. It took years for him to cross the stretch of clear ground, and by the time he reached the bone metal box, Nico’s body was nearly invisible under the shadows.
Josef fell to his knees beside the coffin and gently set her down inside. As he lowered her, Eli realized Nico’s darkness clung to the swordsman as well. Josef’s shirt was rotted away where she’d rested against him, and wherever the darkness had touched skin, his flesh was gray and unhealthy.
But Josef didn’t seem to mind his injuries. All of his attention was on Nico as he laid her in the box, his hands peeling away from her skin like letting her go was the hardest thing he’d ever done. The second his fingers were out of the way, Slorn slammed the lid down and the mountains fell silent.
The Heart’s spirit lifted the moment the threat was gone, and the sword almost seemed to slump into the stone. Eli didn’t blame it. He felt like collapsing himself, but he forced himself to stand and watch as Slorn checked the box’s seams. They must have passed inspection, for the Shaper’s bear face was calm as he got to his feet.
“We should return to the mountain,” he said. “She’ll be safest there. As will we. ”
“Slorn,” Eli said quietly. “What is going on?”
Slorn raised his hand, and a white line flashed in the air in front of him, falling to the ground in an instant as the white door opened. “Come with me and you’ll get all the answers you want,” he said. “Plus some you don’t. ”
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Eli rolled his eyes. “Isn’t it always that way?”
Josef was silent as he went to retrieve the Heart of War, sliding it onto his back with slow, stiff movements as though he’d aged twenty years. When he returned to them, he grabbed his end of Nico’s box without prompting, and together he and Slorn lifted it off the ground and carried it carefully through the hole in the world. Eli followed after, stopping only to whisper an apology to the mountains before stepping through the cut in the veil and vanishing without a trace.
CHAPTER
18
As Eli stepped through the portal, all he saw was white, and his stomach seized in dread. No, Slorn wouldn’t have taken him back to Benehime. But the portal, the white, white world…
His chest began to heave as a cold sweat broke out all over his body, but before Eli could ramp himself up into a full-blown panic, he noticed that this white world had walls. They were hard to see, but they were definitely there. Benehime’s world had no walls, none he knew of at least. Moreover, Josef and Slorn were still here, fussing over the bone metal box. So was a new man, an older gentleman with a long gray beard wearing the finest robes Eli had ever seen outside—
Eli let out a great breath and looked up, his face breaking into a grin as he traced the tapering curve of the glowing white room. “The heart of the Shaper Mountain,” he said, nearly laughing. “Never thought I’d be here again. ”
“You would not be here if the circumstances were less dire, thief. ”
The deep, unfamiliar voice made him jump, and he turned in surprise to see the old bearded man staring at him with a murderous glare.
“I’m sorry,” Eli said. “Do I know you?”
“No,” the man said. “But I know you, Eli Monpress. Or rather, I know what you did. ”
Eli’s smile turned sheepish. “Could you remind me, then? I’ve done a lot over the years. ”
The man crossed his arms, his beautiful silk sleeves rustling like grass in the wind. “Three years ago you stole five of the finest tapestries ever woven by Shaper hands from our private collection. ”
“Oh, yes,” Eli said. “One of my first big solo jobs. I still have them, you know. ” He clasped his hands over his heart. “The memory of their beauty sustains me every day. I feel truly lucky to have touched such workmanship. I’ve stolen many fine things, but your tapestries are truly the jewel of my collection. ”
On the floor beside Nico’s box, Josef rolled his eyes and Slorn made a little huffing sound, almost like he was stifling a laugh. The old man, however, was not amused.
“Be thankful that the only thing Shapers value more than the work of their hands is their duty to the mountain, thief,” the old man said. “Had the Teacher not given you safe passage, I’d be escorting you to one of our cells. ”
Eli’s smile grew wicked. “Well, maybe once this is over, we could give that a try. I’d actually love to see your cells. A prison so shoddy that Miranda could break out of it must truly be a wonder of the world. ”
The old man went pale with rage, his eyes going wide, but before he could explode, Slorn interrupted. “Father,” he said, “now is not the time. And Eli?”
Eli lifted his head. “Yes?”
Slorn flattened his small, round ears to his flat scalp. “Shut up. ”
With a coy little grin, Eli obeyed.
Josef, Slorn, and the man Slorn called father moved Nico’s bone metal box to the middle of the white room. The enormous hall was perfectly circular, and there was some fussing on the part of the two Shapers about getting the box exactly at the center. Once it was there, Slorn raised his hand. A white slit in the air opened in answer, and Eli blinked in surprise. On the other side of the hole was Slorn’s workshop. It looked just as Eli remembered it, everything neatly shelved and labeled. Slorn stepped through the portal, coming back almost immediately with a long length of shining chain looped between his hands.
It must have weighed a ton. The metal was as thick as Eli’s thumb, and the links themselves were as long as his palm, but Slorn moved the chain easily, spreading it out between his arms like common rope. He spoke quietly to the others, and then he, Josef, and the old Shaper lifted Nico’s bone metal box. As soon as it was off the ground, Slorn began wrapping the chain around it.
He wrapped the box ten times, five across the width and another five going lengthwise before attaching the final link to the first. The glittering metal snapped open at his touch with reverent obedience, sealing itself again so perfectly Eli wouldn’t have believed the work had been done without the aid of a forge if he hadn’t just seen it for himself.