Diana Rowland - Touch of the Demon

My brow furrowed. “Idris said something about that. What’s the difference?”

“An agreement is a short term arrangement—perhaps a few months to a few years—with specific terms negotiated,” Helori said. “Marking is long-term, usually lifelong.”

I gave a slow nod. “Okay. I’ll think about that.” I had yet to fully wrap my head around the notion that Mzatal wasn’t my enemy—at least, not at the moment. The idea of willingly working with him still seemed incredibly foreign. I peered at Helori. “Do you trust Mzatal?”

“Do I trust him to always make choices I agree with? No.” Helori said. “Do I trust him to speak the truth to me and follow through on what he says to the best of his ability? Yes.”

I took it all in, considered. Mzatal had certainly followed through on his promise to retrieve me. “I guess I can handle that.”

Helori’s golden-brown eyes met mine. “I have not known him to willfully break an agreement with a summoner,” he told me. “Dealings with other lords, however, have their own rules.”

“Some of those lords are batshit fucked-up.” I snorted. “I mean, did their mamas not hug them or something?”

Helori’s eternal smile faded a little, and he closed his eyes, as if in pain.

I grimaced. “Shit. Sorry. I was trying to make a joke. I guess a bad one.” But my brow furrowed. What nerve had I struck?

He let out his breath in a soft exhalation and looked back over at me. “In jest, you hit very near the mark.”

My confusion increased. “Why are there no female lords? Do they not have mothers?”

“Genetics and arcane levels determined gender,” he said. “Though it was possible for there to be a female of their kind, it did not occur.”

Questions crowded together in my head, but before I could ask any of them he reached and took my hand.

“My beautiful Kara,” he said, clear and ancient eyes on mine, “they do not know their origin. And I ask you to trust me that, for now, it is for the best.”

My cop instincts poked at me to find out more, to continue to question, but I regretfully slapped said instincts down. For now. “All right.” Damn it.

“It cannot remain thus for much longer,” he said, expression briefly shadowed. “There is so much in flux now.” He stood and nimbly leaped over to my branch, then pulled me to my feet. “And, speaking of flux, I am taking you now to the Zadek Kah—a polar atmospheric anomaly that acts as a kaleidoscope-type prism. The play of colored light over the landscape of ice is indescribable.” He grinned. “It is awesome .”

And before I could blink, we were off again.

Since we seemed to flit all over the planet, I lost track of time. Yet it was clear that Helori wasn’t trying to distract me from either the horror I’d endured or my post-traumatic stress. Each place seemed to be a new opportunity for contemplation or conversation or simple self-discovery—like therapy at super-speed.

That second night, we slept curled up in a den of skarl—hyena-like creatures as friendly as house cats. I was dubious at first, especially since the den reeked of skarl-musk, but it turned out that the skarl gave off a comforting vibe that allowed me the best damn sleep I’d ever had in my life. As soon as I woke, though, Helori traveled us to hot springs surrounded by ice and snow to bathe the thick skarl odor away.

After bathing, I lounged on a smooth rock, neck deep in the water. “If you can teleport pretty much anywhere,” I asked, “why did we take the grove to the beach that first day?” That first day—only two days ago, yet it felt like a century.

“It was so it could truly be your choice,” he told me. “You were not ready to tell me what you wanted, but you could tell the grove.”

That made sense. “The climate and terrain here is a lot like Earth,” I said. “The fact that humans can live here so easily, on a completely different world, is kind of mind-boggling.” I gave Helori a questioning look.

He ducked under the water to slick his hair back, then nimbly climbed out of the pool and crouched beside it, apparently impervious or oblivious to the subfreezing temperatures. “Earth and this realm are closely tied in many ways, like sister worlds,” he told me. “A very close family resemblance.”

My lips pursed as I considered that. “Is the geography the same?” I asked. “I mean, is there a North America and Africa and all that? But, you know, with different names.”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head, eyes crinkling with humor. “Same family, not identical twins.”

I chuckled. “I can handle that.”

He laughed. “I am delighted, as I do not think it will change.”

Snorting, I rolled my eyes. “Okay, my mad syraza, what do you have planned for me today?”

Taking my hand, he hauled me out of the pool, ignoring my protest, though I was surprised to find that the warmth of the hot spring seemed to insulate me from the frigid air. A heartbeat later, I thought we were standing at the mouth of a cave very high above the ground. Then I realized there was far too much wind, and that the cave itself sure seemed to be moving around a lot. Plus the floor was weirdly squishy.

I groaned. I’d seen Star Wars. I looked askance at Helori. “Are we in some sort of giant flying demon worm thing?”

He laughed. “Not a worm. A nehkil. Reminiscent of the Earth basking shark, except more reptilian, and it flies. But don’t worry,” he said as my expression no doubt betrayed my apprehension. “We are far too large to make it down his gullet. Ethereal spores prevalent along the coastline are his primary sustenance. You could say that he soars for spores,” he said, laughing.

I gave him a pained grimace.

“You may note them passing in as flickers of light,” he said, then gestured beyond the open mouth of the nehkil. “Is it not a glorious view?”

I had to agree with him there. It was pretty damn awesome. I’d only flown in airplanes a few times in my life, but I figured we were probably a couple thousand feet up. Sea spread off to the horizon on the right, in varying shades of blue and green from near black to luminescent turquoise. Shifting white marked the places it crashed into land or partially submerged rocks. Verdant forested mountains veined with waterfalls and rivers rose to the left.

Helori pulled a blanket from elsewhere and spread it out on the beastie’s, er, tongue, I assumed. I found myself inordinately glad for the blanket, since I was still buck-naked from the hot springs. But, since Helori was nude as well, I didn’t see a point in making a fuss about clothing, and after only a few minutes I forgot about it completely.

We stayed there for what was probably most of the day. The nehkil’s mouth and tongue were nowhere near as moist as I’d expected, and Helori explained that its salivary glands shut down during this open-mouthed basking in order to prevent it from dehydrating. I alternated between enjoying the view, napping, and general navel-gazing while the nehkil flew along the coastline.

The sun was beginning to dip toward the west when I saw a huge arch of stone stretching from a mountain into the sea. Though I was pretty sure that part was natural, there was something about the shapes around and on top of it that were not. As we got closer, I could make out windows, balconies, and arched doorways, all blending beautifully into the stone and greenery of the arch.

“What’s that?” I asked Helori.

Helori lounged on his side, propped on one elbow. “That’s the home of Rayst and Seretis.”

“Both of them?” I asked. “They live there together?”

He nodded. “They each have their own sections, but most is common use.”

“I met Rayst during the conclave,” I said, “He seemed very nice.” I paused. “I don’t despise him.”