Page 57 of Daemon Master

Adrian appreciated the gesture, even if he didn’t see what difference so little aether could make. But when he tugged on it, Heartrender quickly yanked it back. She sent admonishment, and he responded with confusion.What is it? What do you want from me?Sorting through her response left him with an impression of connection—of the union between two disparate parts.

A knee pressed hard into his sternum near his wound, jerking his attention back to Kali as he hissed in pain. She frowned down at him, her dagger poised at his neck.

“Are you even paying attention? I expected more fight out of you.” She patted the second dagger still sheathed at her waist. “Care to try your luck again?”

Tuning her out as best he could with her knee slowly crushing the breath out of him, he tentatively stretched his own wavering aether toward Heartrender. They’d cycled their aether together many times before—was that what she wanted him to do now? Rather than accepting his aether, however, Heartrender directed it toward her own outstretched thread. Following her lead, he tried to combine the two streams of aether. But it was like forcing together opposing magnets.

“Hmph,” Kali snorted. She sat back, easing the pressure on his chest. Disappointment flashed across her face before she could smother it beneath a veneer of professionalism. No matter what she claimed, he had a feeling this particulardutywas more personal than she cared to admit. “So be it. Goodbye, Adrian. May the spirits have mercy on you.”

Adrian frantically shoved his aether against Heartrender’s, holding the streams in place through sheer force of will when they tried to thrash apart. His daemon’s instincts had helped him escape Kali once before. If she thought this could help, he’d put his faith in her again.

A disembodied ringing suddenly reverberated through him. It wasn’t sound, exactly—more a kind of shifting resonance within his aether, as if it were attempting to hum at a certain frequency within his veins. It reminded him of how Heartrender and Lockrod had felt when they’d accepted the true bond. Without any conscious effort on his part, his aether attuned to the vibrations. Heartrender’s did the same until they both matched it precisely, like a pair of bards singing a perfect duet.

Vertigo gripped him as the two conflicting threads of aether linking them snapped into alignment, vibrating in unison until they had merged into a single, beautiful note. The instant that effervescent note rang through his core, he and Heartrender became one in a way they never had before. The full breadthof her thoughts and emotions flooded his mind while her remaining aether felt as easy to access as his own.

Harmony—that had always been the key.And somehow, with her will partially suppressed and their situation at its most dire, Heartrender had figured that out.

In that moment of absolute connection, their aetheric reserves blending together, Adrian knew what he had to do. With a thought, he conjured aMirror Imageof Heartrender to Kali’s right to draw her attention, then anchored another illusion to himself. Shadowlash pounced at the fake Heartrender, passing right through it.

Kali returned her icy gaze to Adrian with a scowl. “I don’t know how you’re doing that, but it endsnow!”

She slashed her dagger across his throat, expecting to slice through flesh. When the blade instead connected with the illusory copy he’d overlaid a hand’s width above him, Kali faltered, her eyes widening.

Drawing on Heartrender’s aether for strength, Adrian levered his hands around Kali’s fingers. Seymour had made him practice the disarming move over and over until he could perform it in his sleep. The dagger slipped from Kali’s grasp. He deftly caught it before it fell and faked stabbing at her face.

Her previous wound must have been fresh in her mind because she screamed, fear overwhelming her training as she raised her arms to shield her eyes. At the last moment, he readjusted and swung the dagger down instead, ramming it into her chest. He’d worried her aetherforged tunic might possess some hidden property like the cylinders or her badge, but the dagger easily stabbed through to the flesh beneath.

Kali gasped, struggling to wriggle back while her fingers scrabbled for the second blade still sheathed at her waist. Panic gripped him. He couldn’t give her the chance to recover—not again. Fueled by his shared reserve, he averted his eyes andbrought the dagger down again and again until the Serenity Corp operative stilled.

The connection between Heartrender and him snapped as abruptly as it had formed. His strength left him in a rush, and he crumpled atop Kali, too weak to shove away. Now that it was over, his stomach churned with the horror of what he’d done. No matter how much he told himself it had been necessary, that did little to temper his remorse.

His last thought before darkness took him was a fervent prayer that his brutal act hadn’t been in vain and that Heartrender and Lockrodwould be all right without him.

fourteen

Reunion

Adrian came back tohimself slowly. His limbs felt oddly heavy, like they’d been weighed down with stones, and his mouth was so dry it ached. Spirits below, what had happened?

A clearing in the woods. Kali leering down at me. Heartrender trapped in a Serenity Corp contraption that shouldn’t exist. The wicked glint of a dagger…

He stretched a shaking hand to his chest and found no wound nor bandages there. That meant enough time had passed for his body to restore itself.

But then, why his parched throat and heavy limbs? Why did his head feel like it had been stuffed full of cotton?

He shifted his weight and a coarse softness slid against his fingers. Not the dirt or dried leaves of the forest floor. Something warmer and almost achingly familiar…

A blanket. He was lying atop a pile of rough blankets.

His eyes shot open. He tried to rise and groaned, clutching the sides of his head as he blinked to clear his blurred vision. Evenwith the room spinning, he could tell he wasn’t in the clearing where he’d fought Kali. He sat on a sleeping mat in a stone hut. Crudely made furniture filled out the space, including a slab of a table and a rickety stool. The faint glow of sunlight outlined the edges of a thick, wooden door set into one wall.

Spirits above, where was he? The last thing he remembered was stabbing Kali and collapsing atop her. Then, everything had faded to black. He’d assumed that would be his final, futile act of defiance against Serenity Corp. Apparently, he’d been wrong.

He struggled to think through the fog filling his mind. Could Seymour have come back for him?No,he thought with a dull flicker of anger and hurt. The man had made his opinion on him perfectly plain. Besides, they’d parted ways weeks ago. Even with a watcher’s survival skills, Seymour couldn’t have tracked him down in time to save him.

Thinking of the Watcher Division made the bare room seem uncomfortably reminiscent of a cell. Perhaps Kali had left a contingent of watchers nearby. She’d communicated withsomeonethere near the end—a seeker. That meant others might’ve known her location. What if he’d killed Kali only to fall into the hands of her minions?

He checked his bonds and huffed a relieved sigh. Both remained intact. Yet, when he tried to reach out to his daemons, something felt…off. His connection to Heartrender was faint, like a thin thread stretched taut. When he realized why, his heart sank.Kali’s containment device!Whoever had brought him here must have left it behind, Heartrender still trapped within.