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Another half dozen horses and riders cantered to a stop in the parking lot, Boudreaux in the lead.
“You made it,” I said stupidly, grinning like an idiot.
“Fuck if I’ll let you have all the fun,” Boudreaux said. His eyes widened as he saw Ashava and Jill scrambling to their feet. “Why is there a kid here?”
“Mascot.”
“Real funny, I—” Boudreaux’s face went sheet-white. “Oh fuck. Fuck! No! Kid, stop! You can’t pet that dog! He’ll bite . . .” He trailed off, staring in shock as the bear-sized demon-killing Caucasian Shepherd wiggled and bounced like a puppy around a delighted Ashava.
“Okay, she’s a bit more than a mascot,” I said.
Ashava sucked in a sharp breath and called glorious violet potency to her free hand. In the next heartbeat, Rhyzkahl and a syraza appeared not ten feet away from us. Immediately, the demon released Rhyzkahl’s shoulder and vanished.
“Hold your fire!” I shouted as the horsemen brought their weapons to bear on the intruder.
Boudreaux lifted a hand. “Horsemen, stand down,” he said, eyes on the demonic lord. “It’s cool.” He licked dry lips, then he dragged his gaze away and closed his hand into a fist. “Move out northeast to support Bravo Squad.” With a nudge of his knees, he turned his horse and took off down the street, with his unit right behind him.
Boudreaux’s reaction struck me as odd, but I had bigger worries.
Potency rippled around Rhyzkahl like the distortion waves of a mirage. “Peace, young one,” he said to Ashava, keeping his hands open and at his sides. “I bring no enmity.”
“Why are you here?” I demanded. “We’re a little busy at the moment.”
“The situation is dire and affects us all.”
My eyes narrowed to slits. “Thanks but no thanks. We don’t need the distraction of worrying that you’ll stab us in the back the instant we take our eyes off you.”
“In this matter, we are allied, Kara Gillian.” He paused. “And I will give you the eighth ring of the shikvihr.”
“Wait, what?” I stared at him in utter disbelief. “Are you insane? It doesn’t work like that.”
My surprise doubled as Ashava released the readied potency strike and inclined her head to Rhyzkahl. “Dak lahn,” she said then gave her mother’s hand a tug and started toward the valve-rift. Jill shot a hard look at Rhyzkahl but went with her daughter, apparently trusting that Ashava wouldn’t leave me if there was any real danger.
Great. Now I was alone with a nonsense-spouting lord.
Rhyzkahl’s gaze locked on me with unnerving intensity. “Each ring of the shikvihr conveys an exponential increase in focus, power, and ability. You need every possible advantage if Xharbek is to be thwarted.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” I said, voice acid. “But I haven’t learned the sigils or had any training for the eighth.”
“There is no need. The sigils are merely the components.” He lowered his head, eyes on me. “When you summoned Dekkak, you held the entirety of the ritual within you. You understood the whole of it.”
“Only because I had the nexus and your power,” I retorted. “I’m back to being an ordinary summoner now.”
“Never ordinary,” he said, amusement flashing through his eyes before he grew serious again. “Your prolonged work with my power through the nexus has attuned you to a new arcane frequency. The ability to comprehend the omneity remains with you, though perhaps not as readily accessed. You know the purpose and meaning of the eighth ring. We have but to culminate it.”
His words reverberated with truth that my own essence echoed. I did know and understand the ring. Not only had I watched him a million times, but I’d danced it with Paul in the demon realm. More importantly, I felt it hovering on the edge of my awareness, fully formed and waiting to be taken. I’d never experienced that with any other ring.
Rhyzkahl had absolutely zero reason to lead me astray in this moment—not with the fate of both worlds in the balance.
“You’re right,” I said with a firm nod. “Okay. Eighth ring. Let’s do it.” A lord’s intervention was required to complete mastery of each ring of the shikvihr. Regret lanced through me that it wouldn’t be Mzatal this time, but necessity trumped sentiment.
“Dance, Kara Gillian,” he said.
Determined, I stepped a few feet away, pygahed for focus, and traced the first sigil of the first ring. Except I didn’t. Where the glowing sigil should have been, there was only empty air. Realization hit me like a punch to the gut. “This isn’t going to work,” I said, voice quavering with disappointment despite every effort to control it. “Without the nexus, I can’t do floating sigils on Earth until I have all eleven rings of the shikvihr.”
“Then I have wasted my time.”
Words leaped to my tongue to tell him where he could shove his sick, end-of-the-world petty revenge games, but I reined them back. Rhyzkahl hadn’t agreed with me. He’d simply commented on my own assertions. My own beliefs. My momentary can’t do attitude.
