“Oh, we’re agreed on that.” He pulled the spear up and walked over to one of the slit windows. “It’s a discussion we should save for another day. Right now? My heart was missing when we first met because it was pulled from my chest to summon Xaltorath, and he’s rampaging through the streets of the Capital City. If I can’t get back to the land of the living…”
The girl looked at him. “What if you do? Surely you’ll just die a second time? You killed a dragon, so I cannot dismiss your skills, but she is the demon queen of war. Here you’ve had Khoreval to aid you. You won’t have that advantage when you Return.”
“Wait. Is Xaltorath male or female?”
“Xaltorath is a demon. She is whatever gender amuses her.” She raised her chin. “She has been female when I’ve met her.”
“I see.”
“My point is this: what do you propose doing to stop Xaltorath, which would not be done better by the Emperor?”
“What bothers me is Gadrith’s admission he wants the Emperor to show up. I think Xaltorath’s whole role in this was nothing but a diversion to draw the Emperor’s attention. They are up to something, and it will be something terrible.”
“Gadrith?” Her eyes narrowed. “Gadrith, minion of Relos Var?”
“Don’t tell Gadrith that. I’m sure he doesn’t think he’s the minion of Relos Var.”
She scoffed. “Relos Var excels at pulling the strings on all manner of puppets, even those who hate him.”
Kihrin chuckled too. Mostly, he watched the Chasm before them with reddened eyes and a sick heart. “I have to stop Gadrith. This is all my fault.”
“I doubt that,” she said. “Don’t blame yourself unfairly for something you couldn’t possibly be responsible for causing.”
“I don’t think I am,” Kihrin said, still looking out at the distance. He turned back to the woman. “Will you help me? Please?”
“Who is Elana?” she asked instead. “A wife? A lover?”
“No, none of those,” he answered. “Not for me, anyway. We should hurry.”
“Tell me her story,” she said. “And I will tell you my name.”
He hesitated a moment before answering. “I was … imprisoned. It was a lifetime ago. Literally. I was … dead. But trapped. And Elana freed me.” He laughed. “I guess I never have had good timing for running into you, have I?”
“You didn’t—” she protested. “Whoever you think I was. This woman Elana. Whoever you have worked me up to be, you must let that person go. She doesn’t exist. I’m not someone who will come scampering to you because you snap your fingers or flash that pretty smile.” She paused. “Do you have any idea how insulting the idea is? That Xaltorath would try affecting the prophecies one way or the other by showing my image to you? Never was your image sent to me. As if all that were required for a future romance to fail or succeed would be your endorsement alone? As long as you want it … well, I, of course, would bow to your whims over my own opinions.”
“Hey, I said nothing about romance.”
Her expression turned flat. “Don’t be coy. I have eyes to see how you look at me.”
“And who just said my smile was pretty?” As she turned redder, he said, “Maybe he—sorry, she—wanted to make sure the prophecy failed, and she knew you would react this way. Maybe she just wanted to ruin things.” Kihrin cleared his throat. “And as much as I’m enjoying this conversation, we need to leave.”
She crossed over to the dusty, unused hearth. It was very large, befitting the size of the tower, tall and wide enough to march a column of soldiers through it. She stared at it.
“What are you doing?”
“Lighting a fire.”
“Don’t you need something to burn?” Even as he asked that question, flames flickered and built in the hearth, blue and purple and with tiny flecks of green, nothing like a natural fire. “Never mind. My bad. Now what?”
The woman pulled herself onto her horse’s back and held out a hand for Kihrin. “Now we ride.”
As he took her hand, she said, “My name is Janel Theranon.”
He settled in behind her, handing the spear back to her. “Thank you. I only wish I would remember.”
“Remember?”
“I won’t remember when I wake. Neither of us will.”*
She started to say something, perhaps a denial, but instead she shook her head.
“So. Why did we light that fire?”
She smiled and tightened her hands on the reins. “I’ll show you.”
The horse tossed his head with excitement as she urged the great beast forward, and with a fierce, wild cry, she leapt her horse into the flames.
* * *
The horse landed on a hillside of bones, leaping clear of the bonfire flames behind it. They were now in another place.
They were, Kihrin realized, at the Chasm.
He was at a loss to hear much over the roar of an avalanche of rock and debris falling in reverse, flying up out of the giant crevasse in the earth to block out the sky. The rock wall created was never-ending, and he didn’t know where it went or how it gathered. But the net effect gave him a moment of dizziness as if everything were upside down.
“Duck!” Janel pulled him down, sliding sideways across the horse’s saddle as a large ball of lightning sailed through the space where they had been a moment before. The roar of battle surrounded them on three sides as demons galloped and stomped and slithered and danced at humans who fought with spears, swords, maces, and arrows.
Kihrin’s every instinct was to slip off the horse and rush into the battle like sliding into a warm bath, but Janel held on to his arm. “No!” she screamed over the din. “Cross the Chasm.”
He looked at her and then at the wide, ugly crack in the earth. He could see the crack move, trees toppling on the far side as the Chasm grew wider.
No, not wider, he realized. It was moving. Moving as if the canyon itself was encroaching farther into the Land of Peace.
“I’ll never be able to cross that!” he screamed back.
Janel impaled a demon, letting it turn to light on her spear, before she looked back over her shoulder at him. “There’s a bridge. Can you not see a bridge?”
“What? What kind of bridge—” He squinted and looked at the Chasm. There was a bridge, a rickety, small, and neglected thing swinging in the high winds like a toy in a hurricane. “That? This is a joke, right?”
“No!” Janel turned in her seat and put her arm around Kihrin’s waist, pulling him off the back of the horse. “If you can see it, you can cross, but here we must part ways, for I cannot.”
The horse screamed a warning. They looked over to see a large group of demons riding toward them—their focus making it clear they were not here to attack the normal soldiers guarding the Chasm.
“Go!” she said again.
“Come with me,” Kihrin said.
“I cannot…” Janel protested. “I cannot see the bridge. No demon can!”
He put a hand on her ankle in the stirrups. “You’re infected, but the transformation isn’t complete. Something is keeping it at bay. You’re not truly a demon.”