No, I warned. Not yet.
Fun not, she bit back.
Then shadowed steel met Aedh force. Lilac fire flared down her length, leaping from the tip of her steel to race along the cord that was my father’s energy. He roared, the sound one of fury and pain combined, and released me so suddenly I hit the ground knees first. Pain shot up my legs, but I ignored it and held Amaya in front of me. Her fire flared out from the sides of her blade, forming a curved circle that completely encased my body. And just in time.
Energy hit the barrier, and once again pushed me back into the cupboard. Amaya screamed her fury, her shield burning bright where my father’s energy flayed her. But she held firm.
“Try to remember you need my fucking help,” I said, my voice surprisingly devoid of the fury and fear that tumbled through me.
“I am your father,” he roared. “I may have given you life, but I can also give you death.”
Amaya’s hissing got stronger in my head. Whether that meant she was finding it harder to maintain the shield or she was simply getting more pissed off, I couldn’t say. But the sooner this attack ended, the better for us both.
“My death will hardly help regain control of the two remaining keys,” I countered, still managing to keep my voice even. “Besides, I’ve already been dead. It holds no fear for me.”
The words were barely out of my mouth when the attack stopped with a suddenness that had me blinking. There was a moment of silence before he said, “You died?”
A hint of amusement had replaced the anger, and I frowned. What in the hell was funny about me dying?
“You didn’t feel it?” Amaya was beginning to quiver in my hands, which generally meant she was running low in resources and would soon start leeching mine. And while that was something I couldn’t afford, given that I wasn’t exactly at the top of my game after the last few days, there was no way in hell I was about to ask her to drop the shield. Not until I knew the reason behind my father’s sudden mood switch. “I thought the blood bond meant you could feel my presence no matter where I was?”
“When you wear flesh, yes,” he replied. “But place yourself in death’s hands, and it is a different matter entirely.”
“Why? I mean, wouldn’t me dying break any sort of connection? That in itself should tell you something happened.”
“It is not that simple.”
“It never is.”
His amusement got stronger, but it didn’t make me feel any safer. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“If you had remained on death’s plane, then, yes, I would have sensed it. But you chose to come back.”
“Which clarifies nothing, given the gray fields themselves are the realm of death.” And the Raziq certainly had no trouble finding me whenever I stepped onto the fields.
“Stepping onto them as an Aedh is very different from stepping on them as a soul ready to move on.”
Which I would never be able to do again, thanks to Azriel’s actions. Bitterness stabbed through me – bitterness and anger and a splintered sense of loss. I swallowed heavily and somehow said, “So is the fact I basically died the reason why the device in my heart hasn’t summoned the Raziq?”
“Yes. As I told you previously, only death could stop it.”
Which only meant I was free from the pain of the device, not from the Raziq themselves.
Unfortunately.
“And is that the reason you seem to find my death so amusing?”
“It was not so much your death, but the mere fact that you succeeded in short-circuiting Malin’s plans.”
Malin was the head of the Raziq, and my father’s former lover. She was also a woman scorned, as my father had apparently refused to give her the child she’d wanted, deciding instead to seek out and impregnate my mother. It was a combination that made her less than benevolent when it came to me and, in part, the reason behind my latest kidnapping. What she’d actually done to me during that time I couldn’t say, because she’d erased all memory of it.
Although given that she’d told me my father would more than likely kill me if he ever found out about it, I’m guessing it was something pretty bad. Something that perhaps tied me to her just as much as my father.
“I hadn’t exactly planned to die, you know.”
“Humanity rarely does. It is one of their greatest failings.”
Strength fade, Amaya said, annoyance heavy in her mental tones. She didn’t like having to admit to any sort of failing. Must draw —