Unfortunately he recovered after a few minutes, pushed his hair out of his eyes and turned on her with a smile. “Don’t worry, my dear, everything is still on track.” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her close. “I know you are not a Sensitive, but you must be able to feel it!”
Sorcha hadn’t wanted to mention it, but she did. Even to her weakened and damaged Center the pulse of the place was unnerving.
However, what was even more so was his grip on her arm. She had already seen the runes he had made for himself. When she glanced down at the marks on his arms, she saw the silvered forms were shifting on the surface of his skin like undersea creatures. Her breath was stolen as they crossed over to her flesh.
Where he touched her, she felt as if hot irons were being applied, and she screamed. Derodak shoved her down against the floor, and Sorcha found her legs couldn’t hold her. Now Derodak wrapped his arms around her, until they were pressed as close as lovers. Worse than these new runes on her was the sensation of him drawing something from her.
Sorcha’s voice cracked in her throat and then died. The real world no longer mattered. Derodak was guiding her Wrayth heritage, pushing it out into the world, wider and wider.
Sorcha felt as though she might crack under the pressure, but somehow she did not. Her mind blurred, struggling to hold on to some vague sense of self as she became a vessel for human experience. She was being forced to take in the whole world of humans. Women, men, children, young, old, the newborn and the dying; she reached out and touched them all.
Though Sorcha could not control them as the Wrayth had wanted, she could draw a tiny portion of them into herself. Derodak fed on that piece, fed on it and then used it in his own way.
Dimly she realized he was speaking in the language of the Ancients, the language of the Ehtia. The Otherside was so close now. The room plunged into icy chill, the kind that even Sorcha, floating and distant, could feel in her bones.
Then he began to cut her, spreading her blood on the sand. It didn’t hurt because she was barely there, but Sorcha understood now. This sand was here for a reason, carefully protected. This was the front door of the Otherside. The sand was from there, not from this world.
As she managed to look up, Sorcha saw the thing that was written about in all the history books. The Break.
The moment when the Otherside opened was the greatest terror of all people—the one event that all cultures, all civilizations had felt the agony of.
Now Sorcha began to appreciate what those ancestors had seen; the world was ripping apart and beyond it was the Otherside. She and Merrick had traveled there once, but their mind—at least hers—had forgotten the details.
Flames, emptiness and eternal hunger waited there. Linked with her Sensitive they had flung their souls into it once, but their minds had carefully hidden it from them. Now it was displayed in its full glory and horror. She recalled all the pain, flames and danger they had risked. It was no place for a human. It was the realm where the Ehtia had their very bodies ripped from them. None could survive there. She felt the alternating cold and heat on her worn-out body.
That was not her greatest fear anymore, because something else was coming. As Sorcha lay back in the sand, bleeding, a giant gray tentacle was pushing apart the breach, ripping a hole through the roof of the cavern and into the world.
Sorcha wanted to scream, to do something to release the pressure, but she had nothing—no choice but to experience the true horror of it all. Derodak was laughing in triumph, sure that he was about to become the greatest being in any realm.
Then he lowered his gaze, pulled out the knife and began to slowly dissect Sorcha Faris on the sands of the Otherside as fuel for the Maker of Ways.
TWENTY-SEVEN
A Predator’s Decision
The Rossin ran through the streets of Vermillion like a creature maddened. Its citizens scattered screaming, as he bounded past them. He knocked many over, but he did not turn to devour them. His only thought was to get away from Derodak and what he was about to unleash. All his plans to gain his freedom seemed to have come to nothing. The Fensena had not come back, and his pelt was on the back of that cunning Sensitive partner of Sorcha’s who was hundreds of miles away. Still he would take what he had.
Yet, what was it he had?
Soon, the Maker of Ways would arrive and then there would be no going back. The Otherside would swallow this realm, and he would be in dire danger. He had many enemies in that realm, and time did not matter to them.
As his great padded paws fell on the last bit of paved road in Vermillion, he stopped. He had reached the Edge—the most unfortunate patch of swampy ground in the city. Here the marshy ground supported only the poorest of the city, before giving way to wetlands that stretched for miles. He would have to swim, and then get as far from Vermillion as possible. Hiding was not in the Rossin’s nature, but he would have to learn it quickly if he wanted to survive.
He’d just placed one paw onto the wet ground that was the beginning of the wilderness, when a voice whispered in the back of his mind.
Do you really want to run? What will that get you?
It was his host. Raed Syndar Rossin was near the surface, listening, and now speaking, and that was highly unusual behavior.
The great cat shook his mane, breathing hard.
The great geistlord does not run! Raed continued, his voice growing stronger by the moment. The Rossin stays and fights.
The cat turned and glanced over his shoulder. From here, there was a narrow view of the Imperial Island in the distance. He knew what would be going on there. It wouldn’t be long now.
You wouldn’t let them put a chain on you again, so why do you need to run?
The Rossin growled deeply, his claws flexing into the ground for an instant.
Raed’s voice didn’t seem as weak and foolish as it had in the past. You are the Rossin, and this is your world. You must fight for it.
It was true. This was his world, and it had weakened him too much—if he went back to the Otherside it would mean certain destruction. If he did not fight, then there was no hope.
The great pard roared, howling his frustration into the wilderness, and then he made his decision.
The Rossin wheeled about, and this time sprang back toward the palace. His paws hit the cobblestones with rhythmic thumps that sounded like battle drums in his ears. He roared, tossing his head and snarling at the challenge to come.
Soon enough he had eaten up the distance between the Edge and the Imperial Island, and was barreling along the Bridge of Gilt. Inside, he felt Raed Syndar Rossin share his determination and strength. It was an odd sensation since both of them had spent years battling each other. Now, feeling the human’s strength of will, the Rossin wondered at it. Had he underestimated his host all this time? What might they have achieved if they had worked together? What might they still do?
They sprang onto the square and bounded toward the castle wall. The human defenders had all been slain by the Circle of Stars and replaced by Deacons. These Deacons, Raed let the Rossin hate.
He saw fire, green and red, flash at him from left and right as Deacons on the battlements threw their runes at him. None had any effect, flowing over and through him. It was exhilarating more than anything. When the great cat leapt at the postern gate in the palace doors, they cracked and broke under him. The Vermillion palace had not been made to stand attack in any real sense. The city was protection enough for the palace of an Emperor, but the Rossin was not a normal foe.