taller than any other, its sharp, knife-like peak cutting the clouds in two. The Heart’s true self.
Finally, slowly, Josef forced himself to let the image go. He unclamped his mind from the memory as he peeled his white-knuckled fingers from the Heart’s hilt. As the vision faded, the world roared back, and Josef stumbled as the pain and exhaustion crashed back down. He was still standing though, his sword still in his hands, his heart still thudding in his chest, full of life. With these things in mind, Josef pried his eyes open to see if his final blow had been enough.
What he saw rooted him to the icy rock. Across the ledge, the Lord of Storms stood, his pale face contorted in disbelieving horror. Overhead, the storm raged, lightning forking from every cloud, but the storm itself had changed. Directly down its center, the strip of clear, blue sky remained untouched, a cut dividing the thunderheads horizon to horizon. And directly below the cut in the sky, a second cut, just as clean, ran across the Lord of Storms’ chest, dividing him from shoulder to hip, nearly cleaving him in two.
Josef stared at the wound in disbelief, waiting for it to close as all the others had. But it didn’t. Inside the Lord of Storms’ body, the thunderheads were churning. Lightning blossomed, lighting him up, but no matter how the storm raged, it could not close the gaps, not the one in the sky nor the one in the Lord of Storms himself. Through it all, the Lord of Storms’ eyes never left Josef, but the look in them changed as Josef watched, creeping from shock to raw fury and, buried beneath it, a burning, grudging respect. He saw it for only a moment before the Lord of Storms vanished.
Josef stumbled, looking frantically for his opponent as he fought to raise his sword again. There was no way the Lord of Storms was defeated that easily. Groaning at the effort, Josef wrenched up his sword and spun, letting the Heart guide him toward the electric feel of the Lord of Storms’ presence just as the man reappeared behind him, right in front of Nico.
“No!” Josef screamed, but it was already too late. The Lord of Storms’ hand was shooting forward even as he coalesced from the cloud, his long, white fingers stabbing into Nico’s chest the second they were solid. Her coat’s scream was so loud even Josef heard it, but black fabric couldn’t stop the Lord of Storms. His hand tore through the screaming coat like paper and slammed into Nico’s rib cage, fingers clenching as he found what he sought. Fast as his lightning, the Lord of Storms pulled his arm back, ripping his hand from Nico’s chest and bringing the black thing with it.
Even in his fury, the sight of what the Lord of Storms pulled out of Nico almost sent Josef to his knees. It was black as ink in the Lord of Storms’ bloody grip and shiny as a beetle’s shell. Its surface glittered in the dull light, a thick, black cylinder as long as an infantry short sword and tapered to a wicked point at both ends, and though Josef had never seen one, he knew it at once. It was Nico’s seed, the demonseed itself.
Nico made no sound as her seed was ripped from her, but her eyes were screaming beneath the cowl of her hood as the Lord of Storms stood, holding the seed in front of him. She fell when he let her go, collapsing into a black pile at the base of the small cliff, her white fingers scrabbling in the snow that was quickly turning black as the blood poured from her sundered chest. Almost at once, her movements slowed, and then stopped altogether. The small, pale hands reached out one final time, and then the fingers fell still, lifeless as the rock below them.
After that, Josef saw nothing but red.
With a raw howl of fury, he charged the Lord of Storms, the Heart swinging madly. The Lord of Storms glared over his shoulder at the sound, and Josef screamed louder still, throwing the Heart of War over his head, but the Lord of Storms made no move to defend. Instead, he clutched the demonseed to his chest, his skin smoking wherever it touched the seed’s bloody surface, and vanished in a flash of white.
Josef stopped, boots skidding on the icy rock as he spun to look for where the man would appear next, but the air felt strangely empty. Overhead, the black clouds were dissipating, leaving the afternoon sky clear and empty.
“No!” Josef howled. “Come back you coward! Come back and fight!”
He screamed and screamed until the words faded to gibberish. He screamed until his throat was raw, sword swinging uselessly at the clear sky. His rage was like a river, washing him away, but hard as it held him, he never turned around. Josef was strong enough to rend the sky and cut the Lord of Storms, but he wasn’t strong enough to turn around and see Nico’s lifeless body.
He might have stayed like that forever had the hands not grabbed his shoulders. The grip was firm, but the fingers were gentle. Even so, Josef spun around, Heart flying and teeth bared like an animal. But the sword grew heavy as an anvil as he turned, and the hilt tore from his fingers. The Heart fell from his grip, crashing into the icy ground, and Josef fell with it.
He landed on his knees with his head in his hands, but even that was too much. Without the Heart, it was exhaustion that calmed him, and he flopped on his side, lungs gasping. As the red haze of fury faded, Eli’s worried face came into focus a foot above his own.
The thief’s mouth was moving, and from the way his lips shaped, Josef knew Eli was shouting his name. Still, it was some time before the pounding in his ears faded enough to make out anything else.
“What?” he croaked.
“I said, ‘Get up you blasted idiot!’ ” Eli shouted. “You have to do something!”
Josef just stared at him. How could he tell the thief he’d tried to do something and failed. That Nico was dead and it was all his fault. That he hadn’t been strong enough.
Pain shot through him as Eli grabbed his cheek and pulled hard.
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it right now,” the thief snapped. “Nico needs you.”
Josef’s voice shook. “Nico’s dead.”
Eli cursed and grabbed Josef’s head, wrenching it up. “Does that look dead to you?”
Josef’s fury drained away, the frustrated sorrow and rage giving way to icy dread. At the foot of the ledge where Nico’s body had fallen, all light was gone. In its place, a pillar of liquid night rose to the sky. It swirled and seethed like a living thing, and at its center was Nico.
She floated at the pillar’s heart, naked and tiny, a splinter of pale white in a river of ink. Her eyes were shut tight, but her mouth was open, stretching in a scream Josef could not hear over and over and over while her hands clutched at the empty, black wound that was spreading across her chest.
The second he could move, Josef went for his sword.
“We have to get her down,” he said, grabbing the Heart.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Eli grumbled, helping the swordsman to his feet. “Like how we’re going to do that.”
“How did you get her to snap out of it last time?”
“She snapped herself out,” Eli said, holding Josef steady. He sighed. “You know, I wouldn’t be so worried about her going crazy if she didn’t find a new way to do it every time. I was hoping you’d know what happened.”
“The Lord of Storms happened,” Josef said. “He took her seed.”
Eli went paler still. “Impossible. If he took her seed, she’d be dead. I don’t know what she is, but dead ain’t it.”
Inappropriate as it was, an enormous grin broke over Josef’s face. “You should know by now, thief,” he said, almost laughing as he tightened his grip on Eli’s shoulder, “Nothing kills Nico.”
He should have known, too, he added silently. He should have kept faith. “Come on,” he said, walking forward. “Let’s get her back.”
Eli did not look comforted, but he fell into step behind Josef.
And all around them, the mountains began to wake as the dreaded fear rose up.
CHAPTER
17
The Lord of Storms stumbled into the white world, clutching the Daughter of the Dead Mountain’s demonseed to his sundered chest. Pain was making his edges hazy, and bits of him were dissolving into cloud without his permission, proof that he was dangerously close to the edge, but the commander couldn’t quite bring
