“It’s not that I wouldn’t enjoy having you this close under other circumstances,” Amaranthe said, searching his eyes, trying to find some sign of the man she knew in there, “but I’d really appreciate it if you let go right now, dropped down in that hole, and waited until my comrades come back.” Preferably with that wizard’s head on a stake. “Starcrest too. The letter you sent, it brought him. He’s helping Sespian. We’ll have a resolution before long, I’m certain of it. And the Behemoth is gone. Forge is greatly weakened. Er, you know about that part. But with the technology gone, the remaining members will have less to draw on. Victory is close, Sicarius. Don’t let this foreigner control you, to make you do… anything you don’t want to any more.”
His grip on her shoulder tightened. “Where is Star-”
Abruptly, he threw his head back and roared in pain or frustration-or both. She’d never heard such a cry from him, and it startled her, but not so much that she failed to notice his fingers slipping a half an inch.
Now’s your chance to pull away, she thought, while he’s distracted. Do it!
“Fight it,” Amaranthe whispered, not moving. “Just for a moment. That’s all it takes.”
His arm dropped from her shoulder, and his knife was between their faces so quickly she hadn’t registered more than the released grip. She’d missed her chance to pull away. Or… maybe not. The blade was in his hand with the hilt laid bare between them. It was the familiar black dagger.
“Take… it…” he gasped. “Use it… end it.”
End what? His life? His eyes were pleading with her, and it broke her heart. She couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t argue-who knew how long he’d hold out?
Amaranthe slipped her hand through the grate, hooking it around a bar to grab the knife. He released it and tilted his head back again. He was shaking, as if from the effort of holding his bodyweight up in that position, but she knew it had nothing to do with physical exertion.
In a movement as efficient as she could manage, she slashed the knife across flesh. Not, as he seemed to expect, his neck; she cut into the skin around that cursed opal, trying to slice the full circle before he could jerk away. And jerk away he did, his eyes widening with surprise, or maybe that was pain. Agony.
She dropped the knife and grabbed the opal with her bare hand. Digging her fingers into flesh slippery with blood, she struggled to grasp enough of it to pull out.
Sicarius screamed.
The alien sound startled her so that she reared back, yanking her arm back with her. The hands that had gripped her released. Sicarius fell into the black depths below.
Horrified, Amaranthe stared at her open palm. Slick with blood and gore, the opal pulsed three times, revealing slender tendrils on its underside, tendrils that had, she realized sickly, grown through his skull and snaked into his brain.
After the final pulse, the opal went black. Everything went black.
Tremors coursed through Amaranthe’s body. Disgusted by the device, she hurled it as hard as she could. It had grown eerily quiet in the factory, and she heard it hit one of those vats and clunk to the floor.
“Sicarius?” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “Sicarius, are you…?”
She couldn’t say it. Tears welled in her eyes. If that thing had been so intertwined with him… with his brain, had its destruction destroyed him too?
Chapter 13
Pain. He’d experienced it countless times in his life, and this, he told himself, was no different. He set about erecting the barriers in his mind, walling off the areas that were affected. Later he could meditate and work on healing those areas, but first he had to regain full consciousness and assess the exterior situation. He couldn’t remember exactly what, but something important had been going on.
Breathing. He hadn’t been doing it, he realized, so he focused on that for a time. The expansion of his lungs, in and out, drawing in rejuvenating air. He gradually grew aware of cold stone beneath his back. The grate, the drain. Amaranthe. The memories returned in a rush, bringing a fresh wave of pain, if a different kind.
She was alive!
And he’d almost killed her. Again.
Sicarius had experienced a surge of pure joy when he’d realized she was the one in the factory, that he’d been mistaken and that she’d somehow survived that crash. But he’d rushed to squash the feeling, afraid of how Kor Nas would react. Now shame and anguish filled him, underlaid with frustration for his inability to thwart that cursed Nurian. The memories of the man’s thoughts, of what he’d wanted Sicarius to do to Amaranthe, the pleasure he’d derived from learning that “his pet’s woman” still lived and could be tormented as punishment for Sicarius’s attempts at defiance. Or maybe Kor Nas’s fantasies hadn’t had anything to do with anything as logical as punishment. He’d simply delighted at-
No, Sicarius told himself. Push it aside, like the physical pain. Kor Nas was gone, or at least Sicarius was free of him.
She’d done that. Yes. He owed her again. He hadn’t been certain if the stone could be removed without killing him-or if some fate worse than death might await. Having his throat slit had seemed a superior alternative. She’d made the decision for him though. Good.
A new sensation pierced the cloudy haze of pain and awakening awareness that surrounded him. Moisture. On his face, his cheek and nose. Saltiness touched his lips.
Tears. His?
No…
It took an eternity before he could open his eyes-he needn’t have bothered, for only darkness awaited-and he realized that he remained in the pit. And that Amaranthe was down there with him. Her arms were around him, his head cradled to her breast, her fingers twined in his short hair.
“Should let you… cut that… sometime,” he whispered, his voice hoarser than a blade rasping across a whetstone.
Amaranthe stiffened, lifting her head. Her forehead had been pressed against his, he realized when an unpleasant coolness replaced the warmth of her flesh.
“You’re alive,” she blurted.
“Yes.”
“But you weren’t. You weren’t breathing.”
“A temporary setback,” Sicarius said.
“Did you… did the wizard…” Her grip tightened about him. “Is he gone? Are you… you?”
He remembered her asking those exact words once before on Darkcrest Isle, and a fresh surge of disgust came over him for his inability to do better this time. Focus on her, dolt, he told himself. She’d asked a question.
“I believe so.” Sicarius lifted his fingers to his temple and probed about the crater in his flesh. That would take a while to heal. He hoped he hadn’t endured brain damage that might afflict him later in life. “My body will suffer another scar though. Allying with you remains deleterious to my health.”
Amaranthe let out an explosive laugh, or maybe it was a sob, given the way her chest trembled against his head. “That has to be you. No Nurian wizard would be so…”
“Sespian suggested he and I may share hereditary tendencies toward social awkwardness.”
Amaranthe snorted and wiped her eyes. “An understatement, though he’s not so awkward as his father.” She lifted her gaze toward the open grate above. “What are the odds of either of us, being rather battered and broken, climbing out of here and finding a more comfortable place to sit? Perhaps even growing so ambitious as to apply bandages to each other.”
Sicarius didn’t feel up to standing, much less climbing out of the pit. He’d be content to continue to lie there for some time with Amaranthe cradling his head. Such weaknesses shouldn’t be admitted aloud. Besides, he didn’t know how long she’d be willing to cuddle with him once she learned about the atrocities he’d committed for Kor Nas. Or how little he’d fought to avoid committing them. If he’d known she was alive… and Sespian too. To learn they’d survived delighted him of course, but it deepened his shame as well.