Page 23 of Daemon Master

Mist? River?

Despite his confusion, he tried to do as the watcher asked and widen the aether coursing through him. Shaping so much at once strained his control, like flexing a muscle he hadn’t realized he had.

“I can’t,” he said, his voice tight.

“Why am I not surprised?” Seymour sighed. “For now, focus only on shrouding your mind when you sense the Arbiter reaching out. With any luck, that’ll be enough.”

As if on cue, Arbiter Janice’s voice echoed again in his skull. “It’s not too late to make amends, Adrian. Talk to me so we can work it out. No one else needs to get hurt.”

A part of him yearned to believe her. Instead, he clenched his jaw and concentrated on expanding aether around his head to shroud his thoughts. The Arbiter’s voice gradually faded, growing increasingly distant until it vanished altogether.

Adrian let out a relieved breath. “Thanks.”

The watcher resumed his southward march. “You can thank me by practicing your shroud so you don’t get us both killed.”

As afternoon turned to evening and sunlight faded overhead, Arbiter Janice continued her efforts to establish contact. Each time Adrian felt the link forming, he’d raise his mental shroud and wait for the sensation to disappear. He couldn’t imagine the level of control it took to do as Seymour had suggested and unconsciously maintain a partial shroud at all times. Perhaps one day, he’d have the strength for such a feat. Until then, this was the best he could manage.

That night by the fire, he finally found the energy to open Crastley’s journal. Excitement thrummed through him when he saw that, just as the note had said, forming a true bond made the jumbled text perfectly legible.Curious.What he knew of daemonic techniques suggested this kind of long-lasting enchantment should be impossible. Setting aside the mystery for now, he flipped to the first page and began to read.

Two hours later, he slammed the journal shut in disgust. So much for simple answers. Crastley’s handwriting stretched from margin to margin, so cramped Adrian had to strain his eyes to make out the words, and the man’s rambling thoughts leapedfrom topic to topic in no discernible order. The entire thing was maddeningly obtuse.

He rubbed a hand over the worn tome’s cover and sighed. Still, it might hold the answers to everything from Heartrender’s origin to the history of the true bond. No matter how long it took, he couldn’t give up. Their very survival might depend on it.

Over the next few days, they exhausted the last of their rations and had to start relying on what they could scavenge. Seymour continued to press him to summon Trailseeker, souring when he refused and hardly speaking to him since. Not that Adrian blamed him. He knew he was being stubborn. If he really cared about Trailseeker, he’d have freed the beast days ago instead of keeping it in this cruel state of limbo. Yet, fear of losing his strongest protector stayed his hand.

On the morning of their fifth day, Seymour sent Tremorfist out hunting and took up his usual position twenty paces ahead. Adrian, meanwhile, grilled Heartrender on her technique. To his immense shock, he’d learned it reallywascalledMirror Image. Perhaps Heartrender had been communicating with him on some level even then. He couldn’t get a straightforward answer from her on that point, so he’d decided to explore the technique’s limitations instead.

“And you’re certain ithasto be something you can see right at that moment?” he asked.

Her certainty radiated through their bond, and he muffled his disappointment. He’d pressed her on this before, but she remained adamant that she could only create illusory copies of herself or other nearby objects. No replicating illusions from memory, unfortunately.

“What about the size and complexity of the image?”

A jumble of conflicting images answered him. From what he could gather, Heartrender’s response amounted tonothing too big or too intricate. How wonderfully vague. Before he could ask for clarification, she transmitted another flurry of impressions. This time, he had no difficulty interpreting.

“I know, I know. As you get stronger, so will your technique. Is that your subtle way of telling me to stop harassing you about it?”

Heartrender responded with a polite but firmyes,and he chuckled.

Seymour glared back with narrowed eyes. “Perhaps we should quicken our pace. You seem to have energy enough to spare.”

Adrian opened his mouth to reply and then froze, stumbling to a halt so abruptly he almost face-planted into the underbrush. Something lurked in the trees off to their left. A few days ago, he might’ve dismissed the faint aura as weak, but he’d practiced enough with a shroud now that he thought he recognized its use. There was a shrouded daemon watching them.

No, not just one, he realized with growing alarm. More faint auras shone in every direction. They were surrounded.

“Ambush!” he cried as over a dozen diminutive shapes erupted from their hiding places.

Heartrender reacted quickly, conjuring a silent replica of him. Most of the creatures fell upon the closer decoy, but a handful chose correctly. Claws dug into Adrian’s cloak and tunic while tiny fangs pierced his skin. He shouted, flailing wildly at the beasts. One lost its grip on his arm and tumbled through the air. He ripped a second free with his bare hands.

That gave him his first good look at the creatures.Painsnappersaccording to his aethersense, they appeared like a cross between a rat and a lizard, with four taloned hands, whiskered snouts, and spiny crests down their azure backs. Legion daemons like this were rare. Sharing the same aethericreserve spread across multiple weaker bodies, they operated as a hivemind with a unified intelligence. Kill one and you weakened the collective.

He hurled the squirming Painsnapper away and tried to snag another digging at his shoulder but couldn’t get a good grip. Heartrender leaped up, burying her fangs in the creature’s side. The two daemons fell in a rolling heap of blue limbs. By now, the illusory Adrian had dissipated under the Painsnappers’ assault. No longer distracted, the daemons scampered toward him.

He cursed and stumbled away, scouring the area for a weapon. Armored boots stomped into the Painsnappers’ midst before they could reach him. Seymour roared a battlecry as he kicked a beast aside like a ball. Adrian could’ve kissed the spirit-blessed man.

Tremorfist might be out hunting, but that didn’t stop the weaponless watcher from utilizing his metal armor and brute strength to his advantage. In a matter of seconds, he’d crushed one Painsnapper beneath his heel and broken another against a tree.

The remaining daemons near Adrian abandoned their assault on him to swarm the watcher. Seymour’s armor protected him from the worst of their fangs and claws, but some slipped through. A solitary Painsnapper sprang onto his back and sank its teeth into his exposed neck.