Geist

Raed’s mouth was full of the taste of iron. “What part of desperate do you not see about you, Merrick?”

The young Deacon was pale, and it was hard to tell if the shake of his hand was due to the tremors of the earth or his own inner fear. Yet he smiled back, a sharp flash of grim humor, the kind that Raed had seen plenty of times on other young men in the heat of battle. Courage was filling him: reckless understanding that this was the end.

Sorcha placed her Gauntlet-encased hand on his head; it was warm like her skin. I cannot say how this Merge will go—the Rossin is unpredictable.

No need to tell me. Raed closed his eyes. I’ve been living with him my whole life.

White light burned through his eyelids and the Pretender realized he should have been terrified—yet there was a moment of bliss as he let it take. He surrendered to it, as he never had to any battle in his life.

Four strands of base metal twined together in the forge of the Bond’s making. The fear of being lost within one another was overcome by the giddy rush of joining. Flesh and mind were flayed open in pain and ecstasy until only one creature remained. One creature created out of four. The wild core of this being was the Rossin, the geistlord trapped for so long in the bodies of the line of kings. But the others were there; the young and brave Sensitive, the angry power of the Active, and the ancient strength of the Pretender. The Bond wrapped them tighter than twins or lovers, holding mind and flesh together. It not only had the power of the Rossin—it had the vision and runes of the Deacons.

The massive cat towered over Nynnia so that she had to tilt her head back to meet its eye. Standing larger than any feline that had ever walked, its hide was tawny rather than the black of the Rossin, but it was patterned with the runes of the Deacons—even the feared Teisyat. Its eyes flickered from blue to brown to hazel and then gold in a spiral of sparks. As the White Palace erupted around it, there was no fear in the Great Beast. The ground shook as the bones ruptured paving stones and houses, destroying all that humanity had built with shards of what they all eventually came to.

The Beast braced itself on its massive paws, and it roared. It was a sound that proclaimed its ascendancy and rivaled both the screams of the fleeing populace and the rumble of the arriving ossuary. Even Nynnia flinched from it, and the Beast was proud. It was more than the world had ever known; a Merging of the royal line, the geist and the Deacons.

And now it would hunt. The boneyard that punctured Vermillion like a white row of spears was but a sign. The Beast snarled, its curved scimitar canines sliding over its lips. It smelled something below, something that wakened ancient enmity in the deepest core of its brain. Something that made its claws flex and clench into the crumbling stone of the fountain.

When Nynnia reached out and laid her hand into the deep fur of its dark mane, it flicked its head around, ready to destroy her. She too smelled of this enemy; the scent more distant and muted by the wrapping of human flesh, but definitely there.

While the Beast recognized fear in its parts, it was full of its own pride and power. Whatever was below was prey and deserving of death. Even though the woman at its side was at least partly the enemy, her human form protected her from its rage. It even tolerated her hand in its mane. This was nothing to do with the Sensitive deep down relishing her touch. No, certainly not—no human could influence it.

“Come,” she said, taking a step down from the broken dais and into the dust of the bones. “The Murashev awaits.”

The Beast and the woman picked their way down the stairs into the White Palace, and there was an eerie beauty about it. Rows of skeletons were stacked up on each side; walls made of thighbones and topped with skulls. All of these bones were ancient, their domes crushed in and smelling of dust.

The Beast’s scything shoulder blades brushed against the curved roof as it swung its head from side to side, inhaling. Humans had been here, humans that part of it recognized. Deacons had passed this way, smelling of old man and incense. A growl disturbed the massive chest.

The Beast could see better than a cat in the dark and could now make out a light ahead. Those swirling eyes narrowed to slits and the rumble in its chest threatened to become a snarl. The Rossin core recognized the light and was ecstatic. The light of the Otherside—home. However, the Deacons within and the uncrowned king were cautious. Something had already breached into this world.

The woman’s hand slid out from its mane, and it paused to glance at her. “You must go on ahead,” she said softly. “I have to get close to the Murashev without it seeing me.” In the near darkness, there seemed to be a glow coming from her, even through the shell of human flesh.

It did not bother the Beast, though deep down the strand of the Sensitive was confused. The creature padded forward on paws of silent velvet through once-tidy rows of bones and skulls.

Whatever had just happened had thrown this section of the White Palace into disarray. Tumbles of ancient skeletons lay all around, and the Beast could not help but crush some as it drew nearer to the light. Not that it looked down; its eyes were riveted to the scene before it. It was obvious that a doorway had been opened because this chamber in the White Palace was full of shades, flickers of white mist hovering around the source of light like eldritch moths.

The Murashev was already here. The geistlord that was no geistlord. The one creature that the Rossin feared. She was such a small creature in this world that the humans in the meld registered astonishment. She stood in the middle of a growing pool of water; water that was pink with the blood of the Pretender. The Murashev was only as tall as the Arch Abbot standing next to her, yet she was the one that glowed. Even the Beast glanced away for a second. For, she was beautiful; more beautiful than anything this realm could offer. Her skin was the scintillating colors of the Otherside, a rainbow of running shades that entranced over a body that was at least humanoid. Long tendrils of what might be termed hair fanned out around her head, curling alternatively toward and away from Hastler. Behind, a long, curved tail twitched, the only addition to a form very similar to those it would burn and enslave.

The Rossin repressed its growl, crouched low in the wreckage of bones, and prepared to strike. Great muscles bunched and the Merged creature charged, ready to rip and rend the Abbot and the Murashev apart.

Then the new arrival turned her face to the Beast. It was the face of one who dwelt in the deepest parts of the Otherside, all beauty and deadly danger. The melded creature stopped midstride.

My new body is here. The Murashev’s lips did not move from their wicked smile, but her words buried themselves directly like splinters into the brain. The final piece fits.

The Beast snarled and roared, held in place by muscles suddenly not capable of anything. The Murashev had not even gestured. She stepped out of the pool, blood-soaked water running down her shifting form, and she walked toward the Beast, trailing light. The white mist of dancing shades followed, leaping in the air with joy at this creature’s arrival.

You have done well, Hastler. The mesmerizing eyes ran over the great shape of the Beast. This scion of our line will indeed make a fine home for my power in this world.

“As promised, great lady.” The Abbot seemed to be made of shadow against the burning light of the Murashev. “Two of our best Deacons, and the Pretender to the throne; worthy material to make you a body for this realm.”

The tendrils of light whipped about, moved by unseen winds, and that eldritch smile burned bright. Indeed, I am the Opener of ways. Blood of kings brought me here, and I will bring fire—enough fire to consume every citizen of the Empire. Each one sacrificed will bring my kin back into this world.

The Murashev burned too hot for this world—she would need flesh, and soon. The Rossin within howled at the trap. The Murashev’s hand reached out and touched the Beast, and it was like winter invading the Merge. The four entities within cried out as tendrils pulled at them to make space for this much greater force. Sensitive, Active, and Pretender screamed as one.

As on the Otherside, the enemy was clever and cruel, more so than any geistlord. She sought to break them apart and find her own place in the Bond. She would become them. The veins of the Murashev twined through them all.