the stomach. Sinews popped, and bones poked from her joints in unnatural angles. Something was coming through her.
Lisah and Gazian screamed as if their lives depended on it, bolting for the door, but Raed was rooted to the spot. He knew there was no point in him running. He had enough experience with geists that he recognized a powerful one when it loomed over him.
At his side he heard Sorcha shout something, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the geist. It looked like a perverse hand puppet of the Lady Jaskia, stretched around something else—something that was pushing up through her.
The Deacon at his side summoned her blazing rune Shayst; green light licked her fingers as she held her Gauntleted hand toward the creature. It was the rune designed to pull power away from a geist, but her face by the light of it was twisted—not the usual calm mask. Without Merrick, Raed realized, she was still struggling.
Then fire ran up his spine, his vision blurred, and everything became irrelevant. Raed clutched his stomach, feeling panic consume him along with the pain. “Sorcha!” he yelled as his flesh turned against him. The Rossin would not stand for this. It was roaring its way up from inside him.
He caught a glimpse of the Deacon turning toward him and felt a faint tug of the Bond between them like the end of hope—but it was far too late. The control slipped away from her—without Merrick in the Bond, she wasn’t strong enough to hold the Rossin.
Raed managed one more strangled cry to Sorcha, and then he fell toward the Curse, hearing his own scream turn into the geistlord’s cry for blood.
It was one of
Yet the Rossin had strength that Hatipai had not really explored properly at their last meeting. She hadn’t taken full notice of the changes time could produce among humans—let alone known the power of the Deacons. Her lack of knowledge was the Rossin’s advantage—one that he seized upon.
Since she had been contained, the various Orders of Deacons had come to power, and as he ruptured into the world, he felt it again—the rune-fed strength that flowed from the redhaired one. The Deacon’s foolishly constructed Bond was still in place—it constrained him, but it was also a source of unexpected strength.
As he took over Raed’s body, he drew on it with great satisfaction: fur rippled and broke through skin, jaws lengthened and grew teeth as sharp as razors, flesh twisted. The Rossin was once again breathing in the world of humans. He announced his coming with a roar that sent humans screaming in blind panic.
Unlike Hatipai, his enemy, he was confined to one person, his essence tied to a single bloodline, and he could not construct a body from scraps of flesh. It had advantages and disadvantages. As the great lion shape snarled his rage into the confines of the library, he felt the advantages particularly strongly.
Muscles stretched and popped, and he shook himself. Human females squealed and tried to run, but his bulk blocked the door. The Rossin did not bother to swipe at them but leapt at the ghast snapping in the corner of the library.
This creature was made of human flesh as well, but it was merely a meat puppet compared to a fully realized geistlord. The thing’s curved, needlelike teeth shattered on the Beast’s hide as it lunged forward. Its smell was something dried and moldy—an odor not to the Rossin’s liking. The human trapped within the ghast screamed in pain as her flesh buckled in the ghast’s control. Unlike the Young Pretender, she was feeling everything her inhabitant did.
It was almost mercy when the Rossin’s jaws closed like a trap around its throat. He shook the ghast hard, like a cat with a particularly vile rat. The thin thread of human life was broken and the focus of the geist destroyed. It was sent howling back to the Otherside, and the flood of human blood in the Rossin’s mouth was untainted.
It poured over his long, rough tongue and filled his throat with sweet, sharp flavor. Blood and power—they had always been tightly bound. This is what had brought him here to this world.
The Rossin spun on his paws, his great size making him awkward in the confines of the library. A shelf fell and smashed the window with a tremendously satisfying clatter that sent the humans into another massive screaming panic. It drew the Beast’s attention to them.
The Deacon was nearby, standing still against the far wall. She had her Gauntlets on, but her hands were limp at her side—for there was no rune in their lexicon that could draw power from the Rossin. He was as grounded in this world as they were.
“Shut up,” he heard her hiss, presumably to the terrified females sobbing in the corner, smelling of urine and sweat. They were jammed in between two tumbled shelves of books. “Stay very still,” the contemptible Deacon instructed them, and the Rossin felt her trying to take hold again with the Bond. Yet she was weak. The Bond was weak. Somehow the foolish creature had lost her partner.
The Rossin’s lip curled back and it inhaled. The other Deacon was not dead; that would have left this female completely exposed to him. No, the Otherside was close, and he had gone through there. Such a thing had not been attempted by a flesh human for generations. The Rossin was almost impressed.
However, should the male Deacon make a miraculous return, then the Bond would be restored to its strength—the Rossin had to move quickly.
The great cat snarled and lashed his tail, but he had no time to wreak havoc upon these quivering females. She was out there once again seeking to overcome him. All she had to do was find a body strong enough to contain her, locate the Ehtia device, and then even he would have trouble overcoming her.
When he roared at the female, all curving fangs and hot spittle, it was to show the Deacon that he would deal with her later. Soon she would feel his wrath. That quite unhinged the other two women, and they bolted from the fragile safety of the tumbled bookshelves toward the imagined safety of the door.
In reflex the Rossin lunged, his massive paw catching one around the torso, ripping her open, spilling blood and gore over his fur and the floor. The other he snapped at, enjoying the tiny scream, and then the crunch of her backbone between his jaws. He enjoyed aw more satisfying chomps before dropping the broken thing to the ground.
The Deacon yelled, her Gauntlets now flaring bright red with a rune that could not touch him. If she was protected from the ravages of the geistlord, then he was just as protected from her. The fire flowed over and past him as if he were her, which in a way he was.
It must have cost her to do that—foolishly loving his host as she did. With great contempt the Rossin bunched his hindquarters, leapt clear through the window, and landed on the roof of the lower palace. It was a feat no mortal creature could have performed.
Behind he could hear running and shouting—but such sounds were no longer his concern—all that mattered were those sounds of horror that lay ahead. His mouth was already watering as the prospect.
TWENTY-TWO
The Last Time
Merrick pulled himself to his feet, feeling the effects of Onika’s presence pass. Barely had he finished his recovery, when the burrowing ship lurched, knocking him off them again. The Prince caught him by the elbow, and with an impressive display of catlike grace managed to wedge both of them against the wall while the ship continued to vibrate and strain. The weirstones in their cradles rolled like children’s marbles, but thankfully none came loose.
Around them the metal groaned like a sick person, and for an instant Merrick had the image of it collapsing inward. He could almost taste the earth in his mouth, and he immediately reacted how he’d been taught—he flung his Center out. Instantly his senses were flooded with power—a power that he recognized.
“A geistlord!” he yelled, but Onika was not there to hear his pronouncements. He snatched up a weirstone and bolted back through the hatchway they had come through. All the way the ship shifted and bucked under them,
