The old, fluid words flowed from Kazen’s tongue with an evil sort of reverence. Four lines, but they felt like four syllables. Sandis breathed and missed them.
White-hot fury descended upon her. Sirens screamed in her ears. Her body was a thousand threads pulled apart, breaking, snapping. Iron and bile, acid and ripping, tearing, twisting—
Sandis awoke with a start. The familiar checkered brown pattern on the ceiling of the vessels’ quarters greeted her. A chill prickled the skin of her arms, but beneath her forehead was a residual heat, and when she closed her eyes again, she felt the impression of fire. Of need. Of . . .
It was gone.
She sat up slowly, knowing quick movements would rattle the headache already beginning to surface behind her temples. She breathed deeply, slowly, staring past her gray bedcovers, trying to remember . . . but there were no memories this time. Only fleeting impressions. She tried to grab on to them, mull over them. Fire. Ireth always left the impression of fire. Need. That had been a frequent one, too.
For three and a half years, Sandis had awoken from possession with nothing more than black gaps in her mind. Not even dreams had filled that void.
These flashes had started six months ago. The memory of a face, a scream, the sound of Kazen’s voice giving an order she never could or would have completed in her mortal human form.
Ireth was reaching out to her. Sandis had told no one. She was an enigma, she knew that, and the puzzle of what the fire horse needed remained largely unsolved. The numen could not speak to her directly, or at least, he had not done so yet.
Blinking rapidly, Sandis allowed herself to come fully back to reality. She winced at a headache. Wasn’t surprised to see herself in a new shirt and slacks—Ireth would have destroyed the ones she wore to the bank. When she reached for the water on her side table, her muscles whined of an overuse she could not recall. She downed the liquid in the wooden cup in three swallows, grit and all. The medicine had settled on the bottom. She’d been unconscious longer than usual.
Her stomach growled. She scanned the room, relieved to find some cold meat and an apple set on a tray near the door. She was a slave, yes, but Kazen kept her and the others well fed. Summoning into a broken vessel rarely ended well.
As Sandis carefully stood on still-shaky legs, she heard a muted, choking sound from the corner of the room. She turned and scanned the narrow beds. Six, including her own. All property of Kazen. Her gaze settled on the quivering lump on Heath’s mattress.
She glanced back at the meat. Sighed. “Heath?”
The lump flinched.
Were it any of the others—Alys, Kaili, Dar, even Rist—Sandis would be more concerned. But Heath was often unwell. His moods changed quicker than a shift at the firearms factory. He wore his fear like a heavy cloak.
Sandis stepped toward him slowly until she knew dizziness would not claim her. “Heath, what’s wrong?”
He rolled over, his dingy long brown hair peeking out from his blanket cocoon. His eyes were bloodshot—Sandis’s probably were, too. It happened, with possession. She’d likely have more gray hairs as well.
“I’m next,” he whispered, sounding more like a child than a man two years Sandis’s senior. “I’m next, I’m next.”
“Kazen probably won’t need us again just yet.” Sandis inched toward Rist’s bed and perched at the edge of it. “Are you hungry? I’ll share.”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear the screams this morning.”
Prickles cascaded down Sandis’s neck. She lifted her hand to rub the skin beneath her dark hair but winced at a prick of pain. A small red dot on the inside of her elbow told her Kazen had taken a syringe to her while she’d been out. She frowned, but it was expected. Kazen needed her blood to control Ireth.
Refocusing on Heath, she said, “I was dead.”
Not literally, of course.
Heath shook his head. Shot up suddenly and clasped both sides of his head with his large hands. “There was screaming. Last week, too.”
The prickling returned. Sandis had woken in the middle of the night to that screaming. She’d covered her ears and rolled over, singing a lullaby to herself until it went away. She hadn’t investigated. Kazen didn’t like them coming out of their rooms at night, and Sandis followed his rules to perfection.
Screaming wasn’t uncommon, down here.
Heath circled his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth. “He’s experimenting again.”
Her shoulders tensed. “Again?”
“He’s doing something. Summoning . . . something new. I don’t know. I’m next, though.”
Sandis glanced at the door, ignoring the waiting food there. “Why are you next?” Her voice had less strength with that question. She cleared her throat. One had to be assertive when talking to Heath during one of his episodes.
Heath shook his head. Rocked. “I’m next. He hates me, I know it. And I’m not bound.”
Bound, like Sandis was. She reached back, tracing Ireth’s name at the base of her neck. Being bound to a specific numen made summoning it much faster. Ireth was a strong numen—a seven on the scale of ten. Kazen used him frequently. Dar and Rist were bound as well.
“Being bound isn’t a privilege.” And yet she’d started to feel a strange closeness to Ireth, a creature she’d never met. A creature she couldn’t meet. She knew Dar and Rist did not have similar feelings. She could tell by the way they talked, by the way they answered—or avoided—her careful questions.
Sandis watched Heath’s rocking long enough to grow nauseated. He said, “He wouldn’t use a bound vessel to summon that thing. He’d use his spares.”
Sandis straightened. “Summon what thing?”
No, this wasn’t good. She was feeding Heath’s worries. He’d lose it, and then Rist would blame her for riling him up.
She swallowed. “You’re valuable, Heath. You know that.” Not just anyone could be a vessel. There were requirements. The first was good health. No sickness, sturdy bones, the basics. Scars and piercings had to be minimal for higher-level numina. Vessels also had to have what Kazen called an “open” spirit, which was either something a person was born with or something he or she obtained through a great amount of meditation. They had all cost Kazen a fortune—a fortune Sandis suspected he’d earned back quickly.
Kazen had been a vessel, once. Only those who had been possessed at some point in their lives could become summoners. There was no doubt, however, that Kazen had since destroyed his brands so he’d never again have to feel the pain he so readily inflicted on others.
“Not like you. You’re his favorite. He’d never use you.”
She tried another tactic. “Alys and Kaili aren’t bound, either, and you’re stronger than they are. Kazen wants you to be . . . flexible.” Heath could summon a seven or less, like herself.
When was the last time Kazen had used him?
But Heath whimpered and buried his face against his knees. Rocking, rocking . . .
“He’s right.”
The new voice startled her. Rist stood at the door, his arms folded across his chest. His dark hair flopped lazily over his eyes.
Heath mewled.
“Not about you.” Rist sounded annoyed. He lost patience with Heath more quickly than anyone else did, which Sandis had always found odd. They were family.
Moving away from the door, Rist murmured, “Kazen’s had a lot of slavers by lately.”
Sandis’s stomach tightened. “You’ve seen them?”
“Kaili has. And I saw one of their stamps on a paper in his office.”