You think you can hide him from Me? You think your silence is a shield?
I gasp, scrambling backward on the bed, pulling my leg free from Imas's grip. I press my back against the headboard, scanning the shadows. The corners of the room seem to be moving, undulating.
He is Mine,the voice hisses.He was forged in pain. You are softening the iron, little witch. You are ruining the blade.
"Get out," I whimper, squeezing my eyes shut. "Get out of my head."
I need not enter,The Serpent whispers, and I feel the phantom sensation of a forked tongue flicking against the inside of my ear.I am everywhere there is misery. And you... you are full of fear now, aren't you?
The pressure in the room spikes. The air turns freezing.
Die,the voice commands. It is not a suggestion. It is an order woven into the fabric of reality.Die, and give him back to Me.
I scream, but no sound comes out. My throat seizes. Invisible coils wrap around my chest, squeezing the air out of me.
I look at Imas. He is sleeping peacefully, his face relaxed for the very first time in weeks, completely unaware that his god has come to collect what is His.
9
LORD IMAS
Iwake to a sensation so unfamiliar that for a moment, I think I have died.
Silence.
Not the heavy, expectant silence of a room before a ritual, but a profound, resonant quiet within my own skull. The static is gone. The screaming demands of The Serpent, the grinding pressure against the back of my eyes, the ceaseless thrumming of chaos—all of it has vanished.
I lie still, staring at the velvet canopy above my bed. My breath comes easy, deep and unencumbered. My muscles are loose, devoid of the tension that usually locks my jaw even in sleep.
It is terrifying.
I turn my head. Leora lies beside me, curled into a tight ball on top of the covers. She is facing away, her breathing slow and rhythmic. I still grip her ankle, my fingers wrapped around the delicate bones like a manacle. Her skin is warm under my palm, and through that point of contact, a steady, rhythmic pulse of calm flows into me. It feels like cool water running over a burn.
I should release her. I should recoil from this alien influence that has invaded my mind and silenced my god.
Instead, my thumb strokes the arch of her foot.
The gesture is involuntary, a reflex of a body that has been starved for comfort. I snatch my hand back as if burned, sitting up abruptly.
The movement disturbs her. She shifts, murmuring something unintelligible, but she does not wake.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand. My equilibrium feels off, lighter, as if I have shed a suit of iron armor I didn't know I was wearing. I walk to the window, my steps silent on the thick carpet. Outside, the storm has passed, leaving Lliandor shrouded in a thick, gray mist.
I look at my hand. The obsidian ring is dead stone.
I should be panicking. To be a Khuzuth Lord without magic is to be a corpse walking. If Malek knew, if the Council knew, I would be stripped of my caste before the sun hit its zenith. I would beDfam—worse than a slave, a non-entity to be used and discarded.
But the panic does not come. The silence Leora provides is a drug so potent it numbs even the fear of ruin.
What is she?
The question gnaws at me, sharper than the missing noise. I called her Purna, a label pulled from nursery rhymes and ancient history lessons meant to frighten children.The witches who stole the night. The women who twisted the dark elves into stone.
But the Purna were destroyed. The Dark Elves hunted them across the continents, burning them out of existence centuries ago. And even the legends speak of them wielding fire and earth, aggressive magics that rivaled our own. They do not speak of this... this negation. This ability to make a god mute.
I need to know.
I dress quickly, pulling on a simple tunic and breeches, leaving the heavy robes of my station for later. I glance back at the bed. Leora sleeps on, an anchor in the chaotic sea of my existence. I leave the room, locking the door with a physical key since my magical wards are useless.
