Demon's Cradle (Devany Miller Book 3) (13 page)

“I will help you.”

Baby Tytan laughed, which made me smile. “Thank you.”

“Not without a return of favors.”

My smile vanished. Figured. “Okay. Let’s make a deal. What do you want?”

“For you to return my son’s body to his soul.”

Oh. Crap. “You must know he’s not a baby anymore. Time, years. Centuries, even, have passed.” And I had no idea what would happen if I brought Ty here. If he’d come. If he’d believe me.

“You know him.” The assurance in her voice made me want to kick myself. Why hadn’t I hedged? Damn it. Where were my lying skills when I needed them?

“Yeah. Sort of.” I was his mother too. Or had told him that, once. He’d been Ravana’s spawn. I killed Ravana, ergo, he was my spawn, at least the way the Originators figured it. Then my mind did that thing, where it went and found the most horrible part of the situation and brought it to my attention. “Oh god.” I felt sick. I staggered back a foot or two. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

Because it was too awful to think about, that’s why.

“Are you all right?”

“No.” I pressed a hand to my chest though it did nothing to ease the ache there. “Oh god. Please don’t tell me she took him as a baby.”

The baby, Tytan, began to wail.

“Perhaps it is time for you to see what happened for yourself.” And she took my arm in her hand, though I tried to push her away. She took my arm and she made me see it all.

***

We ended up on the ground, my head in her lap as she fed her life into my head. It only faintly resembled the story Ellisi told me in the Dreaming Caves. My head, already pounding from being in this place of torment, felt heavy and swollen. My eyes ached. I wished I’d never come, never found this place or this woman and her child, that she’d never placed the burden of her story on me.

Her fingers brushed at my hair as she crooned to her son, a song that made chill bumps spread across my skin. The sky spun above me, stars too large and bright against the deep navy blue of the night. I saw the reds, golds, blues, yellows of space, in colors so vivid they hurt to see. I was talking, my lips were moving but I couldn’t connect my brain to those words. What was I telling her? What was I explaining in such serious tones? Or was that Neutria, talking for me?

I waited for her to say something but she did not and I knew, as I knew that the beauty above me might well kill me, that I wasn’t all the way in my body. My soul had become detached from my physical self and floated far above. I wasn’t looking at space, I was in space.

But I could feel her hand in my hair.

She touched my forehead. “Come back.”

That I heard. The prick of sadness on my skin and at the back of my eyes returned. “Where did I go? What was I saying?”

“I took away the taint. It needed to happen without you here. It tried to negotiate with me.” The timber of her voice dropped. “I don’t negotiate.”

“It’s gone?” I dropped down into my imaginary control room. Sure enough, the black gook was gone. Neutria was gone too, or at least my mental construct of her. Parts of the wall looked like it had been eaten at by a virulent acid. Her venom, soaked through the potential into the panel? I hoped it wasn’t permanent damage. Coming free of my mini-trance I said, “Thank you. Did it say where the host is or who it is?”

“‘An army of sheep, led by a lion, is greater than an army of lions led by a sheep.’ Does this mean anything to you?”

Her eyes were a deep shade of green, the color on the undersides of leaves and in the dark spaces of a forest canopy. “No. I—” I paused. Thought of Sharps. Thought of her name and her brother’s. He’d reminded me of a lion when I’d first seen him. “I may know who the host is.” I pushed myself up, grabbing the sides of my head to keep my brain from falling out. “Can you do that for my son as well?”

“I can if you bring him to me.”

I couldn’t imagine bringing him anywhere near this cursed place. Of course, I wouldn’t have a choice if I couldn’t find the host in time. There was no way I’d risk having my son twisted and tortured by the thing that had tossed Krosh into a coma and had ruined so many lives in Sephony’s time. “I’m sorry for all that happened to you.”

“I don’t want the stories told about me to leave out my love for Sorgen. The choice I made. It diminishes us both. However this ends, will you promise to tell the true story about me and not one colored by politics and perceptions?”

“Yes.” I didn’t add, ‘If I live long enough,’ since that kind of negativity never got me anywhere. “I will do my damnedest to get Ty here to you. But listen, he’s not this child. He’s not anyone’s child. Ravana raised him, tortured him, taught him to be Skriven.” I nibbled at a cuticle before I realized that I was doing it, and stuffed my hands in my pockets instead. “I’ve seen what happens when a Skriven gets close to his soul. Can you keep him safe?” I nodded at the babe. I’d kill Ty myself if he harmed that baby.

“Yes.”

No hesitation. A shit ton of sorrow though. The whole situation was crap. “I guess I’ll go, try to track down the host. It may be a while before I get Ty here. I might need him to kick ass with me.”

The small smile didn’t hold any happiness. “I’ve waited millenia for him.”

“Right.” The
emiliometer
was in my pocket and I worked at it with my fingers. “Can I leave from here or do I have to walk back down the path and out the cleft before I can hook?”

“Hook?”

“Make a magical door to step through,” I said, wondering what they’d called it back in her day. “You know what I mean?”

“A khofa? You can conjure them as a Skriven would?”

“Yes. But I’m nothing like the Skriven.” I remembered her words about Ty and I being the same. “I’m not like your son.”

She let the baby in her arms catch her finger and pull it to his mouth to suck. “It matters not whether you believe it. You are like my son, born from the love of a Wydling and witch.”

“My parents were human.”

Her expression was knowing. “Don’t blind yourself to the truth because it doesn’t suit you.”

I opened my mouth to argue and then decided against it. She would believe what she wanted. I wasn’t like Tytan. Maybe she was sensing the heart. He’d had it commissioned, had helped Arsinua collect the ingredients she’d needed to make it. Maybe it held more of him than he’d let on.

Which wasn’t disturbing in the least. No.

“So. Can I make a khofa here?”

She shook her head. “This is a sacred place, twisted though it became through my grief. The nature of Tempest Peaks keeps the souls safe who reside here.”

The burnt man hadn’t looked safe. “Then I need to get going. I have a long walk down.”

She didn’t tell me good luck or goodbye, just stood staring after me as I walked back to the obsidian path and put my foot on it. The air shimmered and she disappeared once more in favor of the tree and the hill, with its silent sentinels.

I stopped in front of him. “Sorgen?”

Once more, the eyes stared out from the wreck of his face. No eyelids. No mercy, no respite from the world.

I don’t know why I said what I did, next. It just came out. Diarrhea of the mouth. Too much taking on of guilt that wasn’t mine to bear. “If there’s a way I can help you, I will try to find it.” I paused. “She asked after you.”

A breeze kicked up, sloughing ash from his skin and tossing it up into the air like confetti. I walked again, squinting to keep from getting his burnt body parts in my eyes.

The cleft was wider than before or maybe I just wasn’t paying as much detailed attention. Either way, I slipped through without any more slices in my skin.

No awful bad people waited outside for me. That was a bonus. I hooked to the Dreaming Place, ready to get Krosh out of hock. My imaginary fishing rod was free of gunk and I was ready to cast my line.

***

Ellisi and the other Elders were still in the main cavern. Someone had brought in a large tray filled with fruits, meats, and nuts. The smell made my mouth water. I dearly hoped I didn’t have to do anything other than ask nicely to get something to eat. “I’m back.”

The old woman’s toothless grin made me smile in return. “Did you find out what happened to the goddess?”

I nodded. “I did. She gave me the truth and asked me to make sure you all heard it. But,” I said, holding up a hand when they erupted in conversation, “I am hungry. Tired. And I think I can wake Kroshtuka. I hope you don’t think I’m rude when I ask that you allow me to tell the story later.”

The grouchy old fart, Fisli, grumbled at that, but Ellisi gestured toward the table. “Get yourself something to eat and then Fisli will take you to your mate.”

Though I appreciated the food, I didn’t know why she had to send him with me. Someone handed me a plate and I filled it with an assortment of goodies before letting Fisli lead me to Kroshtuka. I kept my mouth stuffed full so I wouldn’t have to make small talk. Thankfully, he didn’t have anything to say to me, either, and we walked in silence to the pool where Kroshtuka floated.

Before he left, he said, “If you wake him. Well. Thank you.”

Shocked, I did nothing but stand and stare after him for a whole minute. Then I turned to the pool holding Kroshtuka. Had it just been hours ago that I’d climbed naked into the pool with him? I ate the rest of the food, then set the plate aside and sank into the water beside him, too tired to even peel off my clothes. I shut my eyes and pulled up the control room. No black gook in sight. Thank heavens. Now if only I could get it out of my son, without taking him to Tempest Peaks.

I grasped the reel in both hands and lifted it off the wall. It was heavy and awkward, sized like the reels people used to catch sharks, the pole double any fishing rod Tom ever had. I wouldn’t have enough space to cast it in the control room. I would have to figure something else out. “Any ideas, Neutria?”

She tossed a picture at me, of the field we’d run through during our race with Kroshtuka. As we pictured it together, it became real in my mind. Now I had plenty of room—and no water.

Stupid, slow human. We are not in the Real. Use your imagination.

Right. I took the hint and constructed a lake in my head. This one looked a lot like the lake I’d spent a lot of time at when I was a kid, right down to the paddle boats and life vest shed. I walked down to the water’s edge and looked out over the lake. Then I cast the line out over the water, the golden hook shimmering in the summer sun high overhead. It landed in the lake with a loud plop of sound and only then did I wonder if I needed bait.

Before Neutria could call me stupid again, I pictured a big, juicy worm writhing on the hook. And then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“Come on, Kroshtuka.”

“Devany, what are doing?”

I turned, surprised. Kroshtuka stood smiling at me, dressed in one of Tom’s weekend outfits: polo shirt, khaki pants, loafers. “You aren’t Kroshtuka.”

He shook his head. “No. I’m not your precious little hyena.”

I blasted him with magic from the heart, knocking the Rider up and over the hills in the distance. Then the pole jerked in my hands, the rod almost yanked right out of my grip. “Neutria!”

She poured her strength into me as I braced against the violent pulling.

“I don’t think this is Kroshtuka,” I yelled, though I didn’t know at whom. My muscles shook as I held on, my feet slipping in the dirt. I took a few hop-skips when one particularly vicious tug almost upended me, then my heels caught in the dirt again. “Should I let it go?” And again, no answer. Who would answer?

The lake transformed before me. From blue water to black sand. Two figures appeared. One was Kroshtuka, wrapped up tight in golden string. The other was a nightmare worm, all undulating muscle and gaping maw. The worm I’d pictured as bait, now grown to monstrous proportions. Arsinua’s warning, again, in my head:
Don’t add anything extra. Ever.
Too late. The worm was wrapped around Krosh’s body, pulling him in the other direction.

“Let him go!” I spun, leaning my body away from Krosh now, fighting against the tugging to walk away from the lake. If my line held, if I could drag Krosh off that black sand, he’d be free. He would be free.

There was a sudden thrum of power. Neutria stretched inside me, not enough to affect a change, but enough to enhance my muscles. They bulged, shook, dug in and I started to move. One step. Another. Another. Two back. Three forward. On and on it went, fighting the thing holding Krosh. I wanted to look back at him, to see if he was okay, but of course he wasn’t okay. Looking back would kill him. I’d lose my balance and he would be gone for good.

We weren’t fighting for his body any more, that fucking worm and I. We were fighting for his life.

I passed a tree, slid back by, passed it again. Step after miserable step, earning every inch. The muscles in my arms and legs burned. My fingers throbbed. I couldn’t do it much longer. Not even with Neutria’s strength, and the heart pumping magic in me. I would fall, and that would be it.

A sob broke free from my chest. My foot slipped. I leaned into the pull, leaned, leaned, and the line went slack. I fell on my face, the reel jabbing painfully into my chest and knocking the breath right out of me. No. The line had broken. No. I was screaming as I spun around, shoving myself off the ground.