Diana Rowland - Touch of the Demon

White pain exploded in my face. The power dropped away from me like water from a burst balloon, and I sagged heavily in Mzatal’s grasp. As the world spun around me, I thought I heard Mzatal yell to Vahl to get Rhyzkahl out of our grove.

Our grove.

Mzatal went to his knees, breathing heavily and still holding me. “Kara?”

I groaned. Pain throbbed in my jaw, and everything dipped and tilted around me. “Here. Ugh.”

His hand came up to cradle my face, easing the worst of the throbbing and the spinning-world effect. “Rhyzkahl is gone.”

Somehow I managed a woozy smile. “And you’re here,” I slurred.

He looked down at me. “ We are here.”

I gave him a radiant smile.

And then I passed the fuck out.

I woke about a thousand years later, certain that someone had driven a truck through the bed and over me a few dozen times during the night.

Ilana chimed and stroked hair back from my face. I gave her a faintly puzzled smile, while I tried to remember why I ached from head to toe and why Ilana would be so close and attentive. “What happened?”

“Rhyzkahl sought you yesterday,” she said as she brushed her hand over my forehead.

Rhyzkahl . All of it flooded back to me. “We won,” I said.

She inclined her head. “Yes, you did. Rhyzkahl was denied.”

I exhaled. I knew I should be elated at the victory, but tension coiled in the pit of my stomach with the memory of exultation in sharing with Mzatal and then my subsequent loss of control of the grove energy. “And Mzatal? Is he all right?”

She smiled. “Until only a moment past, Mzatal has not left your side, and then only to attend a matter that could not be left longer.”

“But he’s all right?” I asked again.

She smiled. “He is depleted, though otherwise well.”

A feeling of ease and comfort stole through me. “Now I feel bad for waking up after he left,” I confessed.

The syraza chimed in laughter. “You woke because he left, precious one.”

“Hunh?”

“There was a peace upon you while he was here,” she told me, “and you slept deeply and well. When he left, you reached for that peace like a blanket that had slipped from you, found it missing and so, awoke.”

The truth of it wound through me, and I smiled wryly. “He’s still going to be annoyed that he wasn’t here.”

“Yes, he will be,” she replied, violet eyes alight with amusement. “Take the opportunity to bathe, and you will feel more refreshed when he returns.” Her head tilted, and her eyes unfocused briefly. “He is still with Idris.”

I considered everything that had happened in the past few days, and my smile slipped a bit. “It scared me that I liked him so much.” I grimaced. “When we argued, it was like I lost something I couldn’t replace. I wondered if maybe it was just Stockholm Syndrome, where a prisoner begins to have, um, positive feelings for their captor, but now…” I shook my head.

The syraza leaned forward. “What you name ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ originates here.” She touched my forehead with a long finger. “Determine if the origin of your ‘like’ of him is here,” she tapped my forehead again, “or here,” she tapped my chest above my heart, “or somewhere beyond both.”

“Before yesterday, I was too confused to know.” I sat up and dragged my hand through my hair. “Something happened when we faced Rhyzkahl.” I paused, considered. “I’m not confused anymore. It’s not about weighing pros and cons in my head, and it’s not a weird falling-in-love thing. It’s…” I trailed off as I realized I didn’t have words for it.

“Beyond both,” Ilana said quietly. “Find the balance between the head, the heart, and that which lies beyond.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said with a smile. “But right now I’m going to take a nice long bath. Deep thinking will be a lot easier once I start feeling human again.”

I headed to the bath and lounged for awhile as I processed the events of yesterday. We’d beaten Rhyzkahl. Holy shit. We beat him. My argument with Mzatal seemed so trivial now, though I knew the core of it still mattered tremendously. I remained a prisoner because of the agreement, yet it was hard to even bring up the same feelings about it. A different light had been shed on the trust between us. I couldn’t explain it, but right now I knew I trusted him as much as I could trust anyone. More really.

My hands were nicely pruney by the time I dragged myself out of the bath-pool. I toweled off, slipped on a robe, and headed out, then paused at the sight of Mzatal standing in his usual spot on the balcony, looking out, hands behind his back.

I took a deep breath, padded out in my bare feet. I stood beside him, not saying anything.

“I brought you to these rooms so that I could watch over you,” Mzatal said quietly. He exhaled a low breath. “And, I wanted you close.”

It took me a few seconds to figure out what he was talking about. Then I realized. Oh, right. I moved out. Technically, this wasn’t my bedroom anymore.

He shifted and splayed his hands on the rail. “It cannot be like it was.”

“Well, I fucking hope not,” I replied, with perhaps a hint of acid in my voice. But then I sighed and shook my head. “I hope it can be better.”

“It already is,” he said. “So much has clarified.”

I looked over at Mzatal. I knew much had clarified for me, especially with regard to how much I trusted him. But how much had clarified for him? And, if so, in what way?

His left hand dipped into a pocket then placed a ring on the rail. My ring. The one I’d thrown against the wall. The lovely blue stone had a long crack in it.

I felt a flush rise and opened my mouth to apologize for treating his gift so poorly, but he spoke first.

“While I was on the balcony after leaving you in the workroom yesterday,” he said, voice low and resonant, “I had begun considerations for the restructuring of our agreement.”

I picked up the ring, ran my thumb over the fracture in the stone. “What sort of restructuring?” I asked, stomach suddenly knotted with tension.

He turned fully to me. “I would ask you to trust me as I trust you, and terminate the agreement altogether. It is a limiting factor.”

The tension dropped away so completely that for an instant I felt weightless. “I’d like that,” I managed to say through the near-dizzying relief. Mzatal enfolded me in his arms and bent his head over mine as he let out a long breath, murmuring something in demon.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Words of gratitude are not needed,” he replied. “I cannot give you what is already yours. But I accept them and offer mine to you. Dak lahn .” He pulled away only far enough to take the ring from my hand. “I will have the stone replaced.”

I shook my head. “No. Leave it. I want the reminder, corny symbolism and all.” I smiled and held my right hand up, palm down for him. A smile touched his mouth as he slid the ring onto the middle finger.

I tilted my head back to look up at him. “We kicked Rhyzkahl’s ass, didn’t we?”

His eyes crinkled as his smile widened. “Yes. And well.” But his smile faded a heartbeat later. “Kara,” he said.

Exhaling, I grimaced. “I know. It got out of control,” I said quietly. “I couldn’t stop it. I almost—”

“Yes, but you did not,” he interrupted. “It is not typical for a summoner to channel such energies and was too much without experience or training.”

I thought about that for a moment. “I had something similar on Earth, I mean as far as the big wild energy.” My gaze went to the distant sea. “My car went into a river, and I couldn’t get out. Thought I was going to drown. Then I felt the river and somehow used it to bust my way out of the car. That big power saved my ass there, too, but I never actually had control over it to lose.”