“I know. And listen, I like gutting civilians as much as the next guy, especially if they’re annoying or they deserve it, butyoutaught me better. You taught me that shit like this,thisright here”—Sikras gestured all around them—“is not helping.”
Vessik dropped his arms to his sides, limp. “Aren’t you happy for me? I finally got the power to make a difference. Our wizardry apprenticeship did not turn me into the talented mage I’d hoped to become.”
“Those people were pricks. We didn’t need them to do great things.”
Vessik’s eerie monotone continued, unaffected. “The gods did not lend me their aid when I prayed for it day and night.”
“And I renounced all of them the moment they renounced you.” Sikras stepped forward, fingernails biting into his palms. “We never needed the gods. We never needed anything but each other, ever since we were kids, and I willneverforgive myself for leaving you alone to fight Saelihn’s war. I’m so sorry, Vessik. Sorry I wasn’t there for whatever you were ...” He trailed off, jaw set. “I know life knocked you down a lot, but Inevertired of pulling you up. Never tired of offering you my hand. Why did you tire of grabbing it?”
“I never grew tired of grabbing your hand, Sikras. I grew tired of you having to offer it. How could I help others when I lacked the ability to help myself? Finding and fusing with the Cat’s Eye was my final hope to have enough power to quell the sickness in Siaphara. Alas, another of my many failures.”
“I ...” Sikras’s words faded, a stab of regret pulling his gaze downward. “I’m sorry I ended up with it. I never wanted it, Vessik. Never. I just ...” Didn’t want the fusion process to kill him. Didn’t want it to overcome him. Didn’t believe he could handle it. Sikras could not give any comforting answers. He said nothing.
The scraping sound of a short sword leaving its wooden scabbard ended the silence. Vessik planted his feet and pointed the blade forward.
Sikras gawked at it, unimpressed. “Oh, come on, Vessik. We’re casters, not swordsmen. The undead do our fighting for us. Do you have any idea how ridiculous we’d look if we tried to wield swords?” He cringed at the mental imagery. “Like two newborn antelopes suffering from uncontrollable muscle spasms.”
“You should’ve had the decency to stay dead when I killed you the first time. Now I must do it all over again.” Vessik rounded his shoulders. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to kill someone you love?”
Sikras squeezed his eyes shut before forcing them to reopen. “I have a feeling I’m about to.”
When Vessik stiffened his arms, Sikras anticipated an attack. What he did not anticipate was an attack from behind. From spine to sternum, a blade plunged through, streaked red when it exited the other side of his torso.
A guttural cry left him as his back arched, head twisting to view his attacker.
Skeletal hands.
Tattered, ceremonial garb emblazoned with the crest of Goddess Tiagon.
Even undead, he would know her anywhere.
Through the pain, Sikras forced a weak smile. “Hello, darling. Wondered when you’d sh—show up.”
Darkness swallowed him.
Dead. Again.
As Sikras concentrated on retrieving his soul from Enos and returning to his body, Death’s word echoed through the planes: “Four to go.”
There. Back in his body. Unable to reach back and remove the blade himself, Sikras hunched over on the ground and flexed his fingers. “Exspyra’vaeit mahnus.”
A spectral hand manifested before him, seized the blade’s handle, abandoned by Imri after Sikras’s death, and pulled the sword from his torso. As the Cat’s Eye sealed the wound shut, Sikras staggered to his feet, glowering. “You made my wife kill me. Twice. Do you have any idea how detrimental that is to my mental health?”
“Back from the dead again. Then, it really isn’t a parlor trick,” a new voice called out, a booming yet feminine resonance that ricochet off nearby tree trunks. From atop a tall branch, a being leaped. Pointed wings of thin stretched skin softened her landing as she struck the snow-covered ground. Unfurling to her full height to tower over Vessik and Sikras by several feet, the quad-horned beast summoned a smile, multiple rows of pointed teeth shining through her lips. “I could scarcely believe it myself when I witnessed it the first time, particularly after beholding your embarrassing lack of power during the last four years, but here you are. Not an undead, not a talented sorcerer with an aptitude for escaping death, but the Glowing Cat’s Eye in Death’s Darkness itself.”
Sikras blinked, gaze raking from her feet, which were somehow hooved and clawed, to her tail, to the tips of her spiraled set of horns. He knew they occasionally filtered in and out of Chthonia, knew Helspira had even consorted with one to arrange her escape from that nightmarish landscape, but he never thought he would see one in person: a diavolos, the soul-eating spawn of a god and a mortal. “Vessik, I can’t help but notice your taste in company has shifted since last we hung out.”
“Ignore Vessik, dear. I only brought him here because I’d heard you had a penchant for making bargains.” The diavolos hummed, a sultry purr to her voice. “And what better bargaining chip than the soul of your dear friend?”
Sikras snapped his head toward Vessik with a chastising glare. “What’s this woman on about?”
“Please, call meIthusa.” She smirked and patted Vessik’s head. “As you know, your friend’s skill with magic is limited at best, but even so, he’s been quite the little helper over the years; haven’t you, Vessik?”
Blank faced, Vessik nodded.
“Unfortunately,” Ithusa continued, “despite how well necromancers and diavoli pair, our little symbiotic relationship is flawed.”
Symbiotic relationship? Despite his best efforts, the sudden revelation tightened Sikras’s chest. The cursory knowledge he had on diavoli brought no comfort. A necromancer and a diavolos working together had diabolical potential. As the byproduct of a god and a mortal, diavoli brimmed with power but were barred by the gods from using magic against mankind, living or dead. They could, however, channel their power through a human host, not unlike the Cat’s Eye’s relationship with Sikras, or a god’s relationship with a cleric. But that involved consent. That involved an exchange. And Sikras could think of only one thing a diavolos would ask for in exchange for its power.
