Abolisher

Azryle saw her—a bright beacon of light, but he knew it in each inch of himself that it was her. She was glowing as if she were a star shaped into a human, as if light flowed through her instead of blood.

His heart was thudding against his ribs, threatening to burst forth like a caged feral animal.

He didn’t think how he got here, or whether she was real—only that he needed to be nearer. Needed to feel her on his skin.

It was the strangest feeling—he knew it wasn’t the bond between them prompting all these urges, not any sort of mejest. Everything rushing through him was his own, his to command and control.

Only he couldn’t.

He hadn’t felt a thing for three centuries, and now … now she was here. Tugging everything in him without even trying.

Neither of them moved for moments and moments, then she lifted a delicate hand to his face. The fingers grazed his cheek gently—a ghost of a touch, not even there, like air stroking his skin. But it seemed to have rattled him. Azryle’s skin came alive. But then—

The world rippled. Like it had a moment ago—he’d been at the inn one moment, and then here the next.

Now the ripples were different, stronger.

The glowing forest began fading away, and Syrene dispersed away like a dandelion. The whole place did. Azryle moved to grab her, keep her from leaving again—tried, and failed.

Until only darkness remained.

✰✰✰✰✰

Azryle jerked awake to a freezing river pouring in on him.

For a moment, he thought he was drowning. The moment passed, and Azryle opened his eyes to Ferouzeh towering over him, a bucket in her hand.

Azryle didn’t think, hardly registered that he’d collapsed on the floor, and attacked on an instinct roaring in his body to move, fight.

He went for Ferouzeh’s waist, to knock her to the floor with himself.

But Ferouzeh was good at defending—so good that Azryle had spent centuries marveling at the way she moved when an assault came.

She moved out of his range first. Then her knee brutally came in contact with his temple. Azryle toppled to his side. And remained there, groaning—adjusted himself to face the ceiling.

For moments, he breathed heavily as a ringing echoed in his head, pierced his ears. But he couldn’t deny the satisfying ache in the back of his skull—a soothing pain.

He’d needed that.

Ferouzeh placed her hands on her hips, looked down at him, and merely said, “You picked a wrong damn fight, boy.” Then she crouched beside him, hazel eyes bore into him with a sisterly concern—as if he were an Abyss-damned child. “These nightmares of yours are getting worse.”

But it hadn’t been a nightmare this time—it hadn’t been Felset.

Azryle’s hand lifted to his cheek, a phantom touch still weighing there.

He shook his head, and sat up.

Ferouzeh jerked her head to where the bed sat. “Those are still considered alright to sleep on, you know.”

Azryle ignored her and, dizzily, lifted to his feet. His head spun.

What had happened—

“The tug …” he rasped, gazing down at his chest as if he would perceive a thread linking his soul to hers. Then cleared his throat. “It’d been too strong this time and …” His gaze fell to where he’d collapsed, right beside the room’s door.

Strong wasn’t the word though, no—it’d felt as if some magnet across the world—a too-powerful magnet—was pulling at some invisible string attached to him. It’d felt as if the room was trying to swallow him—

Azryle stopped short. Stilled. All his senses, his thoughts, came rushing to him in a wave.

He scanned the floor, the ceiling—

Not again, not again— She couldn’t have slipped away again—

“The hawk?”

Azryle whirled on Ferouzeh. He’d returned to the inn with an unconscious hawk in his hand, right before his world had shifted.

Ferouzeh jerked her head. “Come.”

Azryle followed the healer out of his room, down the hallway, and into her own room. She tugged him inside and locked the door behind.

He caught her scent before his eyes settled on Delaya Fairdust. And his hand unconsciously drifted closer to the dagger sheathed at his hip.

Even as she was trussed mercilessly to a chair, gagged. Her pale skin paler than it’d been last night, the rose-gold hair was like a bird’s nest. There was dried blood plastered to her face—painting a messy line from temple to jaw.

She began thrashing in her chair when Azryle and Ferouzeh entered, all the foul words she spat came out muffled through the gag. But anger—lively and lethal—burned in her dark eyes.

Azryle had seen that similar fury in certain azure eyes before. He shoved that thought as soon as it came. Not now.

Fairdust’s ankle was … twisted, Azryle noticed. He glanced over his shoulder at Ferouzeh.

“That’s not my doing.” She shrugged. “She had that when I found her in your room.” And she couldn’t have known whether it would be a good idea to heal the woman.

Azryle looked to Fairdust. He must have harmed the hawk when he’d fainted. Good. If that wound had kept her from shifting, that meant she wouldn’t be using her skillset for a while.

“Remove the gag,” Azryle said softly. The vein at his temple was shrieking mercilessly. He didn’t let on.

“She will scream.”

He considered that for a moment. Then, cautiously, advanced towards the frantic—furious—Fairdust. She might be trussed, but from all he’d gathered, she could still lunge at him like a wildcat.

Azryle moved a finger and the cloth unknotted itself at her nape. The gag fell to her heaving chest, unclothing her mouth shaped in a vicious, silent snarl.

Fairdust indeed opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Azryle made sure of it. Instead, she began choking. Color swiftly rose to her face, veins corded at her neck.

He watched those veins. It would be so easy—to snap them, rip them. So utterly satisfying. Suddenly his fingers itched for the dagger weighing at his hip.

“Ryle …” Ferouzeh warned, cautious. As if she could hear just what thoughts were brewing in his mind. What the ripper within him required.

But Azryle only lowered himself enough to come face-to-face with Delaya Fairdust—who was still struggling to breathe. Azryle said too softly, “You hold information about a man who is possibly the only one who can save this planet from its doom. You think I would hesitate tormenting each inch of you to get that information?”

Azryle released the woman.

She began coughing, and gasping—gulping down whatever air she could clutch. There was no fear in her, neither in her scent, nor in her eyes—nothing to indicate she’d budge and give up Kefaas Petsov’s whereabouts. She hadn’t revealed any weaknesses either.

Sudden irritation began gnawing at Azryle. They’d been on this hopeless quest for a year, and this was their last and only lead—

“Where is the stone?” Fairdust croaked.

Azryle started—maybe he would have snapped, or maybe he would have taken a violent step, he didn’t know—but Ferouzeh stepped beside him. “You can have it. You can just go, for all Ryle and I care—all you have to do is give up the whereabouts.” Azryle didn’t fail to notice the tremor in the healer’s voice. He didn’t think on it.

Fairdust laughed. A raspy, huffed sound. He expected her to speak when the laughter faded, expected a jab at the very least. Instead, she only gave him a mocking, unyielding smirk.

The audacity—

She didn’t attempt to jerk away as Azryle lifted his finger to her temple and tentatively tucked a strand of her silken rose-gold hair behind her ear. His voice came out velvet-soft as he spoke. “You sure do hate losing control, don’t you?”

Then he hurled his mejest towards her.

He gripped her mind before she could so much as brace herself.

Fairdust stilled wholly—any ghost of smile disappeared from her face as she felt cold, otherworldly claws grazing her mind. Her eyes went vacant.

“Ryle, no, we discussed—” Ferouzeh started behind him.

But Azryle didn’t listen as he reached inside Fairdust’s mind.

He didn’t wander in places, no—it wasn’t in his nature to violate privacy, to willingly reshape someone’s mind without their consent—not unless the adversary happened to be someone he greatly disliked. Azryle had always valued privacy more so than anything. There had been times when he’d had to grip his victims’ mind and rip it with those unearthly talons upon Felset’s commands. There had been times when he’d had to reach into the darkest places and bring forth the targets’ vilest secrets for Felset to manipulate.

Every time he’d given up a part of himself to her—given up fighting.

Azryle left Fairdust’s mind as soon as he entered it. And the shifter began gasping again, as if a bubble suffocating her had exploded.

Her eyes went wide, face leeched of all color. “What …”

“Either you use your tongue,”—he tilted his head—“or I wield it.”

Fear sparked in her eyes only for a heartbeat before it was shoved down—but it still crept into her scent like a spider. Azryle doubted she was aware of that. Irritation soon took over that fear. She was having debates in the back of her mind—Azryle could tell from the way her jaw moved, the way her lips pursed then parted and back again, the way her eyes wandered and settled—calculating—as if torn between speaking and keeping the words to herself. Despite the chill weather, sweat beaded to her brow. Then—

“Fine.”

Neither Ferouzeh nor Azryle spoke a word. Waited.

“I want to see the stone first.”

“Name of the city first,” Azryle said simply.

Frustration flickered across her face. She knew there was no point in denying, or striking up any argument. For all she knew, he would rip into her mind without hesitation even for the smallest bit of information. “He’s in hiding,” she said. “Being openly obsessed with a device so treacherous as Drothiker doesn’t offer him sweet treats from criminals hungry for power.”

“Where.”

“You read one of his theories, didn’t you? It could be false—like all his other theories. Why are you seeking him anyway?”

But his “theory” about an heir of King of Hemvae being able to run the device through her veins hadn’t been false. If it’d been just an Abyss-damned theory, it’d been damnably right on point, every single detail. Azryle doubted it’d been just an otsatyas-damned concept. This man knew more than anyone—and Azryle had to find him.

Without him, Syrene was dead. And with her dead, Azryle was no more than an empty bulk of flesh and bones. He refused to spend his immortality with a wounded soul—he refused to be tormented in that aspect.

“Where,” he repeated.

“Look—”

Azryle only caught a blur of her green shirt at his side before he found Ferouzeh towering behind Fairdust, a dagger at the latter’s throat. She was annoyed beyond measure. Ferouzeh might be a gleeful bird most of the time, but once someone managed to get under her skin, it didn’t usually end well for them.

Usually, it took fair amount of effort to get under her skin.

“Listen, girl.” Her voice had dropped to a dangerous calm. “I’m not a killer. But I definitely am tempted to feel what it’s like to be one.”

That’s right—Ferouzeh had never killed. That fact always had people flinching—just as Fairdust did. Ferouzeh was a healer, not a murderer. A defender, not an assailant.

Fairdust’s throat bobbed against the steel at her neck. She heaved a sharp, defeated breath. “There’s a town nearby—Silvervale. It’s a quiet town, hidden in shadows; almost forgotten.”

Ferouzeh threw Azryle a suspicious look that said, She could be lying.

Or her information could simply be wrong. He could look into her mind, but it would be fruitless.

He’d never visited the town—Saqa, he’d never even heard of it. But, for some unutterable reason, his heart sped, agitated. He ignored it.

Fairdust said, “Now, the stone—”

“You’ll come with us,” Ferouzeh declared.

“What,” Delaya almost yelled, incredulous. “As much as I would absolutely love to travel with a lovely company as yourselves, I don’t think—”

“Then stop thinking,” Azryle retorted, suddenly at unease from the strange anxiety flaring in his chest. Silvervale. He felt the tug—felt it, like someone had stuck an invisible hook in him, and was now trying to yank it free.

“Look—”

“Either you come with us willingly, or you come with us bound in ropes,” Ferouzeh simply stated. “You decide.”

“You think you can keep a damned stone from me? I’m the most wanted thief in this city, my face is on the posters plastered to the walls in streets. I can steal the underwear you’re wearing right now, without you noticing. You think—”

“Disgusting.”

Fairdust smirked, as if she could see Ferouzeh’s repulsed look behind her. “Why, are you so—”

Ferouzeh brutally kicked her already twisted ankle before she could complete. The shifter’s cry came out muffled through Ferouzeh’s hand already clasping her mouth. Azryle winced—he knew the excruciating pain Fairdust’s eyes watered with as she writhed in her chair, bone grinding against bone.

✰✰✰✰✰

“Are you alright?” Azryle asked the healer as soon as they entered his room, leaving Delaya Fairdust in Ferouzeh’s.

“I’m fine,” Ferouzeh hissed. Even as she said it, she kicked a nearby table, frustrated.

“You can … talk to me,” he offered.

“I’m fine,” she snarled.

Azryle flinched. Not at the tone or the venom in it, but at the burning fury in her eyes. A suffocated, dark fire she’d never let rise.

“Ferouzeh …” he started, cautiously stepping towards her.

Azryle stilled mid-step.

He felt it, then—a phantom thrum radiating from her, a dreadful power that had him retreating his foot. His first instinct was to go for his weapon, second was to call that dark mejest he’d used on Fairdust yesterday. Azryle chose neither. Not with Ferouzeh.

Her hands were shaking, he noticed—with fury, or … that power—

“Ferouzeh,” he called—as if she were far from his reach. “Where is Fairdust’s stone?”

The healer blinked, as if waking up from some hypnosis, that haze from her eyes seemed to clear. Azryle was eerily reminded of Deisn Rainfang—the darkness overtaking her eyes the last he’d seen of her.

The last the world had seen of her.

Ferouzeh’s eyes went colder than winter nights in mountains. Her rosebud lips curled in disdain. “Why don’t you use your disgusting baeselk mejest and find out?”

Azryle didn’t recognize her. This wasn’t Ferouzeh. The tone, the surliness …

“Where is the stone, Ferouzeh?” he asked slowly, cautiously.

Again, her eyes cleared a bit. Then, Ferouzeh reached inside her pants’ pocket, and brought out the dark stone. Azryle’s instincts edged.

“Drop it,” he directed.

She hesitated. There was no mistaking the tremor in her fingers—as if torn between curling her fingers around that thing and letting it tumble.

“Drop the stone, Ferouzeh.”

Her fingers curled around the stone.

Azryle’s hand reached for the hilt of Silencer at his side.

Her grip so tight that her knuckles had turned white.

Then—

Ferouzeh’s eyes shut tight as she slowly—very slowly—placed the stone on the table beside her.

She gasped as soon as she released it, eyes snapping open, a hand clutching at her chest, as if someone had been squeezing her heart and had finally let go.

She met his gaze.

Utter relief gushed through Azryle. Her hazel eyes had returned to normal—clear, and sharp, and dominant. After that brief moment, her gaze snapped back to the stone.

“What is that thing?”