Sandis pressed her lips together. Yes, in the wrong hands, the Noscon charm could be used for wrong. But in the right hands . . .
People could live. Sickness, dissolved. Injuries, swept away. Suffering, eliminated. Surely there was some way— She looked at the golden loops clutched in Rone’s hands and pulled herself back to reality. Without the amarinth, they’d both be dead. Or waking up in Kazen’s lair.
Sandis swallowed. “If the grafters didn’t know about the amarinth before, they do now.”
He looked at her.
She readjusted herself to a more comfortable position. “It’s something Kazen would want. He’s talked of them before.”
“It’s something anyone would want.” He looked at her pointedly, as if reminding her that if she hadn’t stolen the thing in the first place, he wouldn’t be lying on the floor with stitches in his hip.
Sandis glanced at the door. “Who is Arnae?” He had seemed so familiar with Rone, mocking him in such a familial way. He’d asked after Rone’s mother. Sandis had given him the unfortunate news.
Rone snorted. “He must like you to have given you his first name.”
That made Sandis smile.
“Arnae Kurtz. He’s my old teacher.”
“What did he teach?”
“How to throw a punch.”
Sandis blinked. “Oh.”
Rone sighed. “When I was a kid, I worked sewers and cleanup in this area. Kurtz offered to tell me stories if I would clean the sludge off his flat. I thought it was a pretty stupid trade, but I did it anyway. He got sick for a while, but I kept doing it because I liked wasting my time.”
“Because you were being nice?”
Rone rolled his eyes. “Anyway, apparently it impressed him. After he recovered, he offered to teach me seugrat—the old form of martial arts used by Kolin nomads. I was here almost every day until I found . . .”
He didn’t finish, but Sandis guessed he meant to say, the amarinth. The relic’s power had allowed him to become this Engel Verlad figure.
“He’s nice,” she said.
Rone massaged his forehead. “He’s all right.”
“He saved you.”
He grunted.
Sandis watched the candle flicker for a moment. “What do you do? As Engel?”
Rone lowered his hand. “I think the more important question is, What the hell, Sandis?”
Her breath caught somewhere above her heart.
Rone tried to push himself up on one elbow, winced, and fell back onto the bedroll with a sound of frustration. “I’m right, aren’t I? Everyone knows grafters are all about the occult, and you’ve got dozens of them after you. You’re a vessel.”
She shifted her focus back to the candle. “Keep your voice down.”
He cursed. Was silent for a moment. “You know that’s illegal.”
She glared at him. Rone’s activities weren’t exactly legal, either. She’d seen him break and enter and beat up that man. She was half tempted to say as much.
Silence filled the room instead.
She swallowed. “I didn’t choose it.”
Rone rubbed the scruff on his jaw. “I suppose this Kazen guy did.”
She licked the back of her teeth. “When I was fourteen . . . I lost my brother. I went looking for him, and two slavers grabbed me.”
“In Dresberg?”
She nodded.
“Doesn’t sound right.”
She shrugged. “They did, and Kazen found and bought me a little while later. Said I was special. Turned me into . . . this.”
“A vessel.”
She nodded. “Not anyone can be one. There are requirements—good health, no piercings, virginal—”
Rone grunted.
“—an open spirit—”
“A what?”
“Open spirit,” she repeated, though she knew he had heard her clearly. She didn’t look at him while she spoke—she’d never talked about this to anyone before. For years, her sole companions had been the other vessels, and they all knew as much, or as little, as she did. “It’s . . . I don’t know how to explain it, but it makes you receptive to the ethereal plane.”
“And the demons.”
“The numina, yes.” That vivid image of Kolosos crossed her mind. “Kazen has a special sort of insight. A way of seeing things about you that you fail to see in yourself. Part of me is glad he took me; the slavers weren’t . . . kind. Kazen is at least decent, if you follow his rules.”
Rone pressed his lips together. Looked away.
“But he is also evil. Not the way the slavers were . . . a darker, more manipulative way. It’s an evil that reaches out and draws you in. He made us a part of what he was doing. But it was easy to pretend, you know? Pretend it was all right. Most of the time. But after . . . I always knew it, but after . . .” Her throat constricted, choking off her words.
“After what?”
She steeled herself. “He wanted to—wants to—summon a numen called Kolosos. Something powerful. Something . . . awful. I’ve seen glimpses of him.” She shook her head. “The night I ran away, he tried to summon Kolosos into another vessel named Heath. It killed Heath. Violently.”
A curse soft as a feather flowed from Rone’s lips.
“I know Kazen,” she continued, “and I know he hasn’t given up. But I don’t know how to stop him. For one man to have so much power, especially a man like him . . .” As an afterthought, she added, “I’m one of his strongest vessels.”
Once again, she found herself thinking that it could have been her in that room, not Heath, standing in that blood. Had she not been so meticulous in following the rules, at being the favorite— “What happened with those records?” Rone interrupted her grisly thought. “The ones you . . . touched?”
Sandis swallowed. How much to tell him? How much did she even know? But she didn’t have anyone else to advise her. And didn’t Rone deserve to know the truth? He’d taken a bullet for her.
She knit and unknit her fingers together. “I had a vision. From Ireth.”
“You mentioned that name before.”
She nodded. “Ireth the fire horse. Strength-seven numen. I’m bound to him. In order for Kazen to control a numen he summons, he has to have the blood of the vessel in his veins. He took mine the same day I left. I don’t know if it’s still there . . . If it is, then Kazen could still use me to summon and control Ireth.”
Rone had that look again, that shocked expression that did nothing to tell Sandis what he was thinking. “And he has to touch you.”
“My head, yes.”
“And you can’t . . . control it?”
She shook her head. Picked at the wood grain in the floor. “I cease to exist when Ireth takes over my body. Except . . .”
“Except what?”
She took another moment to think before meeting that still-shocked gaze. “Except that, sometimes, I remember. Kazen doesn’t know. I’m not supposed to. Ireth . . . Ireth has been communicating with me. Or trying to.”
Now Rone’s expression was incredulous. “You talk to a fire horse from hell.”
“He’s from the ethereal plane.” A tiny bit of venom laced the statement. “It’s not his fault Kazen makes him do terrible things.”
“But you talk to it.”
“I . . . no. Ireth can’t . . . talk. Or he hasn’t. I just . . .” This sounded loony, didn’t it? Especially to someone who hadn’t experienced it. “I feel it. Him. What he’s trying to say.”
Rone took his time mulling over that. After what felt like forever, he said, “And what, exactly, is Ireth trying to say?”
“That Kolosos is dangerous. Ireth is afraid of him. He needs . . . something, but I’m not sure what.”
Rone shook his head, smiling a strange smile, and stared at the ceiling. “This is farcical.”
Sandis’s brows knit together. “This is true.”
“This is a dream. You’re a vessel. When I was younger, I honestly thought the occult wasn’t real, that my father spoke about it to scare us—”
Sandis perked. “Your father?”
He dismissed the inquiry with a wave of his hand. “And this guy picked you, of all people, to summon a slagging fire horse into.”
“There are five . . . four others. You saw one of them yesterday.”