I ran on. In the shadows that lurked around the cavern’s point a simple urn sat on a pedestal of stone.

Power within, Amaya said. Crush.

We slid to a stop, raised the sword two-handed, and brought her down on the urn as hard as we could. The dark steel sliced through the urn as easily as it would have through butter, and the contents spewed out, a gluey mess of blood and other matter. In the center of the now shattered urn lay a small heart, its rhythm matching the beat in the stone around us. We raised the sword fractionally and slashed down. The blade shuddered as steel met flesh, then slowly, surely, it sliced through. The beat of life in the stone around us became unsteady, erratic.

Not dead, not yet.

I raised the sword to finish the job, but the Rakshasa’s scream swung me around. This time it was more than fury. This time it was devastation.

And this time it wasn’t just the exotic Rakshasa who came at me, but every damn one of them.

Fight, Amaya said. Now.

We did. With a ferocity and skill that wasn’t mine, we charged into the middle of them and tore them apart, piece by piece. It was a bitter, bloody battle that had blood pouring from almost every scrap of my body, but soon five of them were dead and only the exotic Rakshasa was left.

I expected her to attack, but instead she stepped back. I raised the sword, fighting Amaya’s urge to attack, my limbs trembling with exhaustion as I watched her warily. The Rakshasa’s gaze swept the destruction around us, then moved to the shattered remains of the urn. Something close to grief moved across her ruined features, then her gaze returned to mine.

“It is done,” she said softly. “The dark god is dead. I have failed in my duty to her.”

She bowed low, then dropped to her knees before me and didn’t move.

Waiting for me to step forward and finish what I’d started.

Kill, Amaya said, and my fingers clenched tight against the hilt as I raised the sword.

But I fought Amaya’s desire and stared instead at the Rakshasa. She just knelt there, waiting for death. I shivered. My task had always been to kill this spirit, but it didn’t seem right to do it like this—in cold blood rather than in the heat of battle.

Kill, Amaya said again. Will I?

No. I had a feeling that if I acquiesced to her in this, I’d somehow be handing greater control of my body to the spirit within my sword. Besides, this was my task, not hers, not Azriel’s. In the end, I had to be strong enough to do it.

To prove to everyone that if the need arose, I could do what was necessary to survive.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, then raised the sword to full height and swept it down as hard as I could. The dark blade cut through the Rakshasa’s neck with ease, but as her head plopped bloodlessly onto the stone and rolled away from her slumping body, I staggered and lost what little there was in my stomach.

After which I fell to my knees and sucked in great gulps of air. It didn’t help the buzzing in my head, the trembling in my limbs, or the burning in my lungs. I needed to get out of here—and get help—quick, or this place might become my tomb, as well.

I sheathed the sword, then said wearily, “Amaya, you need to return to the blade.”

Better here.

Fear snaked through me. “No,” I said determinedly. “This is my body, not yours. Your place is in steel, not flesh.”

One, she retorted. Here.

“No,” I repeated, and closed my eyes, picturing the dark energy of her, imagining my hands encasing it, forcing it out of my body and back into steel.

She fought me every step of the way, until exhaustion trembled through every part of me and I was all but blacking out. But if I did that, she’d win.

Damn it, this was my body, my life, and no matter how much it sucked at the moment, I wasn’t about to give it up easily!

It was that determination that kept me going, and slowly but surely I forced her back into the sword. But as her energy and spirit left me, I felt a glimmer of almost reluctant admiration.

My sword respected my actions, even if she’d fought them.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and in the end, probably did a bit of both.

Time to go home, I thought, before either the Rakshasa’s poison took effect or I collapsed from blood loss. And the dizziness sweeping me suggested I was closer to blacking out than I needed or wanted.

But how the hell did I get home?

That odd buzzing heaviness no longer rode the air, but I was weaker than a pup and I doubted I’d have the strength to become Aedh.

Which left me with only one option—chance the gray fields, and hope like hell Azriel found me there before anyone else did. Not that the Aedh had any reason to be hunting me given the tracker they’d placed on my heart, but my father was still out there somewhere, and it’d be my luck that he would choose a moment like this to hunt me down.

I closed my eyes and took a slow, somewhat shaky breath that didn’t seem to contain much in the way of air. As I slowly released it, I released awareness of the battle to breathe, the pain that shook me, and the myriad of wounds that washed blood down my body, and concentrated on nothing more than slowing the beat of my heart. Gradually that beat steadied, amplified, as the dark cavern began to fade and the gray fields gathered close. Warmth throbbed at my neck—Ilianna’s magic at work, protecting me as my psyche, my soul, or whatever else people liked to call it, pulled away from the constraints of my flesh and stepped gently into the gray fields that were neither life nor death.

The Dušan exploded from my arm, her energy flowing, buffeting me as her lilac form gained flesh and shape. She swirled around me, her movements sharp, edgy, as her ebony gaze scanned the fields around us. Looking for a threat that came from within me rather than anything the fields might offer. At least for the moment.

Azriel, I whispered, and hoped it was enough. I didn’t have the energy for anything louder.

He answered. The storm of his approach quivered through me, but I didn’t wait for him. I couldn’t. Blackness was beginning to steal through the gray, and I knew my strength was giving out. I had to get back into my body before that happened, or I might end up stranded here in the fields.

And that could be deadly. A body could survive only so long without its soul on board.

This way, I said, and fled, down through the layers of consciousness and into my flesh. Then the blackness overtook me, and I knew no more.

Chapter 14

Awareness surfaced slowly, as did the knowledge that I was warm and safe and—most important—alive. I smiled, but I couldn’t seem to shake sleepiness or force my eyelids open, and soon I drifted back to sleep.

It was the aroma of cooking that eventually woke me. My nostrils flared as I drew in the tantalizing scent of roasting meat more deeply, and my stomach rumbled noisily.

“That,” a familiar voice mused, “had better be your stomach and not a fart.”

Tao, I thought with a sleepy smile.

Then I sat bolt upright in bed. Tao!

I stared at him. Rubbed my eyes and stared at him some more. Reached out and touched him. Lightly, carefully, like he was a mirage that might disappear at the slightest sense of movement.

He wasn’t a mirage.

He was warm and real and here.

“Oh, god,” I said, and flung myself at him.

He grunted as my weight hit him, then laughed softly and held me as fiercely as I held him. “It’s good to see you, too,” he said softly, his words whispering past my right ear. “You gave us quite a scare, you know.”

I snorted softly and drew back a little, my gaze scanning his features. He was pale, and thin, and deep in his warm brown eyes something more than human burned, but none of that mattered right now. He was awake, he was aware, and most important of all, he seemed to have come back to us whole.

“When did you wake up?”

“About the same time that Azriel dragged you half-dead out of that hellhole you were stuck in.” He gave me a weary smile and flicked my chin lightly. It still hurt, so the wound hadn’t completely healed.

“It was touch and go for a while there, you know. Our reaper tried to heal you, but it didn’t fully hold. You were out for days, and he was like a bear with a sore head. And the depth of his concern scared the hell out of us.”

Why wouldn’t the healing hold? I glanced around the room, half expecting an answer, even though I knew he wasn’t near. “Where is he?”

Tao shrugged. “He said something about needing to inform Hunter that the task was done.”

Oh fuck, I thought, and hoped like hell the “informing” didn’t involve violence. We didn’t need Hunter or the council as enemies right now. I took a deep, somewhat calming breath, and my stomach rumbled again.

Tao laughed. “Sounds like you’d better get something into that belly of yours.”

“Only if you do the same.” I scanned him critically. “You, my lad, need to put on some weight.”

He grimaced. “Ilianna’s been feeding me like a horse for days, and with little effect. The new me, I’m afraid, will probably remain razor thin.”

I hesitated, then said softly, “How is the new you?”

“Awake, alive, and damn grateful for both.”

“But?” I said, sensing there was one.

“But,” he added grimly, “I also fear it.”

Given that he’d consumed a fire elemental—and survived, something no one had ever done—he had a right to be scared. We didn’t know what the long-term effects were going to be—not even the most powerful witches in the country could tell us that.

Still, I said, “Why?”

“Because I can feel it in me, Risa. Its presence burns constantly at the back of my mind, and though I’ve won this battle, I’m not sure I’ve won the war. It could yet take me over.”

I cupped a hand to his cheek. His skin burned under my fingertips. “You’ve made it this far. You can—and will—control it.”

“Then you have more faith in my strength than I do,” he muttered, and rose. “I better get back to the kitchen, before Ilianna cooks the hell out of those steaks. Do you want to eat in here, or out there?”