Sixteen
TAVISH
My knees slammed into the ground, the impact threatening to make my spine punch through my mouth.
“I could do without that shite happening again,” I said through clenched teeth. But no vampires appeared. We’d left them behind.
Portia staggered to her feet a short distance away. Albie had stayed upright, and he came to me and offered his hand.
“You fall from a greater height than most,” he said.
I let him pull me up. Then I straightened his spectacles, which had been knocked askew by the jump. “Don’t I know it, darling.”
“What is this place?” Portia asked, staring around.
Heat radiated from the ground. The stench of soot and sulfur floated in the air. Scrubby brush dotted the landscape, the twisted plants clinging to life in the barren soil. A blood-red sun blazed overhead, the bloated orb washing everything in shades of rust and crimson. Twin crimson moons were visible in the hazy daylight.
“The demon plane,” I said, wiping dust from my eyes. We hadn’t simply jumped to another time. We’d landed in another realm.
Portia looked around with a wary expression. “Which kingdom?”
“Not certain yet.” The demon plane was dotted with hundreds of kingdoms, some little more than a fort on a hillside. But others were thriving cities with sizable populations and standing armies. Large or small, most tended toward war and petty squabbles. For a mortal species, the demons were eager to kill each other.
A sharpcawdrew my gaze up. A firegull with translucent skin stretched over a black skeleton swept through the cloudless sky and disappeared over a ridge.
I moved forward, my boots crunching in the dirt. Albie and Portia fell into step beside me. The ridge led to a sharp slope. Beyond it, a village of timbered houses filled a wide valley. And beyond that…
The Bay of Orz’galach.
Its red-tinted waters stretched to the horizon. A bustling wharf crowded with boats jutted into the sea. Demons with curved horns hauled nets from fishing vessels with patched black sails. Merchant barges and sleek crafts with crimson flags jostled for space at the dock. A crest with a two-tiered fountain adorned the center of each flag.
“Razrothia,” Albie and I said at the same time. The symbol on the flag was the famed Fountain of Strength, where Razroth warriors bathed before battle.
Portia went pale beside me. “My fathers forbid me to come here.”
Grim understanding lit Albie’s eyes. “Because the Razroth imprisoned your mother.”
Portia turned her gaze to the wharf. “She once told me that it affected my fathers far more than it did her. They don’t speak of it.”
Albie and I looked at each other. Once again, we’d landed in a place connected to Portia.
Anothercawsplit the air, and a second firegull swooped in front of us and flew toward the bay.
“We need to move,” I said, gesturing toward the village. “We’re too exposed here in the open.”
We stayed low as we made our way down the ridge. When we reached the edge of the village, I pulled Portia and Albie behind a quiet row of merchants’ shops. The scent of roasted meat and demon ale drifted from somewhere nearby, and the clang of metal on metal echoed from a smithy across the street.
I peered around the corner.
Firesteeds pulled wagons along the cobblestones, their hooves striking sparks with each step. The beasts looked much like horses on the human plane except for their glowing red eyes and ghostly red flames in place of a tail.
Men and women with curved horns moved up and down boardwalks that lined the streets. A demon male played a fiddle outside a tavern, the lilting notes competing with the clamor of voices and the clip-clop of the firesteeds’ hooves. A demoness passing by flicked a gold coin into the open case at his feet, and he grinned at her as he continued to play.
“What time period are we in?” Portia whispered. “It looks medieval.”
Albie cocked his head. “Medieval?”
She frowned. “You don’t know that word?”
