Touch of the Demon

He wrapped me again in the sheath of potency, taking some of the weight off my arms. My breath wheezed, and I twitched. I could barely think, but I knew I needed to be able to think, to remember myself. He’d told me I would forget, forget who I was, forget my name. I wanted desperately to lose myself; it was my only possible escape. But I also knew once I did, I would never come back.

“Kara…I’m Kara,” I managed to whisper.

He closed the distance between us, stroked the back of his fingers down the line of my jaw in a move that was more possessive than tender. “You will have a new name soon, and a new life.”

Licking dry lips, I fought to focus on him, barely able to believe that I’d endured such pain only seconds before. “I’m Kara…”

He placed his hand on the right side of my chest, just below the collarbone. “For now, yes.” My pain faded more with his touch. “And I will ever remember you as you were.”

I wheezed out a breath. “Fuck you…hate you.”

“That serves well for now.” He removed his hand, brought the blade to the base of my throat. “And so we begin anew.”

My tears fell as he began to slice. “Kara…I’m Kara.”

We went through the cycle again. And again. Carve the sigil, fire it with a new form of pain. Begin again.

I lost track of how many times we’d gone through this. Maybe it was only three…or seven…or thirty. Eventually I began to wonder if there was ever a time when I wasn’t here, wasn’t a canvas for sigils, wasn’t in agony. I tried to remind myself who I was.

I tried to remember who I was.

“You are Rowan,” Rhyzkahl said, helping me. He lifted my lolling head, looked into my eyes. “Rowan.”

I dragged in a breath, feeling the name. He brought the pain, but then he stopped the pain. Perhaps he was right. I tasted it on my tongue.

He put a hand to the side of my face, cool and smooth, easing the pain. “Yes, say it,” he said voice soft and soothing. “Say your name.”

Kara…Kara…

A name. Felt more than heard, as if from an incredible distance. I tasted it, found it more right than the other. “Kara,” I managed to rasp.

He took a long deep breath, lifted his hand, allowing the pain to return. “No. Rowan.” He moved around to my left side, began another sigil, ignored my keening wail of a scream.

Kara…

“You are Rowan,” Rhyzkahl said, returning to stand before me. Once again he laid his hand on my cheek, once again gave me numb refuge from the pain.

I heard him. Heard the name. Heard the distant call.

Kara…

“I’m…K-Kara.”

He pulled his hand away, allowing the pain to flood in. I spasmed in the bindings, vision going red as my shoulders dislocated.

“You bring the pain upon yourself,” he told me as he brought the blade before me. “Speak your name—Rowan—and end it.”

Kara…Kara…Kara…

I moaned, unable to say either name.

Stepping back, he gestured, pulling my arms out to my sides, though keeping them twisted enough to maintain the searing agony in my shoulders. Another gesture pulled my legs apart until I was stretched in a vicious spread-eagle about a foot off the ground.

Once again he bound me in potency to keep me from twitching and marring his work. He set the blade on my upper back, slowly parting my flesh in the complex pattern.

Once again, he brought the pain.

I hung limp in the cruel position, twitching within the imprisoning sheath as he began a new sigil. A thousand times we’d been through this. Surely it had been that many. Yet other than the carving of my flesh and the ruin of my shoulders, I was undamaged. Each bout of agony was only that, yet all of that.

I couldn’t pass out. That way was closed off to me. But another way beckoned, shimmered with a promise of ease, of a different sort of oblivion. All I had to do was relax my grip on myself. Let go, and the pain would fade away. I could drift there and be nothing.

Kara…KARA!

I moaned. No. I couldn’t let go. I’d never find my way back. “…here,” I whispered.

Rhyzkahl lifted his head. “Mzatal.” He bared his teeth and growled a very nonhuman sound. “Dahn!” He moved swiftly to grip my hair, hauled my face close to his. “What have you done?” He snarled, face contorted in fury.

“…here,” I gasped, “…Kara.”

He released my hair with a shove, then backhanded me. “He will not know you. Your name is ROWAN.”

I shuddered in pain, uncertain which name was right. He moved to my back, drew a breath, and began a new sigil.

Kara…Kara…Kara…

Twitching, I whimpered, “…here.”

Rhyzkahl carved the sigil into my lower back, taking far longer with this one than any other. At last he finished, moved back around to look into my face. “After this, you will know your name,” he said, voice hard again and full of fury. “And he will no longer touch you.”

The pain was about to come again. I saw it in his eyes, in his snarl. This one would be worse than all the others.

Rhyzkahl lowered his head, lifted the blade before him. The red fire writhed over his arm and torso as he called down the agony, bringing pain upon pain, making me feel as if my very bones were on fire. Lost in the agony, I couldn’t even scream.

The relentless torment abruptly flickered and died, and I dimly heard a cry of pain that wasn’t my own. I struggled to focus on Rhyzkahl. His breath hissed through his teeth as he looked down at the knife in his hand. Brilliant blue fire surrounded his fist, and the azure gem in the pommel glowed as though lit by an internal sun. He shook his hand as though to release the blade but the cruel spikes on the hilt still curled around his fingers, locking it in his grip.

I gasped for breath in the brief surcease. He raised the blade before him again, igniting the pattern around us both and in every nerve in my body. “Rowan…Rowan!” he growled.

There was no way to think beyond the pain. No way to hold onto myself. No oblivion to escape to.

Kara!

The entire diagram stuttered. Rhyzkahl screamed in fury and frustration as the rings of sigils fractured in a cascade of arcane sparks. Within three heartbeats all were dark, leaving only a lone amber sigil above us to cast any light. I hung, twitching, as the name, my name, reverberated in my essence. Kara.

“…here,” I breathed.

Rhyzkahl stood with hands clenched as he assessed the ruin of the diagram, clearly seeking what could be salvaged. With a flick of his hand he released the bindings holding me. I crumpled hard to the floor, barely feeling it amidst the other pain. I no longer heard the call, but it didn’t matter now. I knew who I was. I didn’t know much else, but I knew that.

My breath rasped as Rhyzkahl moved to me. He stood over me, looking down, right hand still locked onto the hilt of the knife. It no longer burned with the red fire. Now it gave off a mist, like dry ice.

Breath hissing through his teeth, he crouched and grabbed my left wrist, hauling my arm forward and sending another electric jolt of pain through the dislocated shoulder.

“…please,” I whimpered, “no…more.”

Rhyzkahl’s eyes lifted to mine, then lowered to the mark on my forearm. “I salvage that which can be salvaged,” he said, setting the hideous blade against my skin above the mark. I tried to jerk away, but his grip was too strong, and I was too weak.

“I take back that which I gave to you,” he said through clenched teeth as he sliced the skin of my arm. He began to excise the mark from me, breath coming heavily as the strands shuddered. “And we will begin anew.”

Of all the pain he’d dealt me, all the mind-fucking torments—my skin doused with acid, my organs shriveling and squeezing, my bones on fire—none could compare to the pure hell of this right now. The mark was more than an arcane brand or a mere symbol. Its strands hooked deeply into my essence, and as that horrible blade sliced through my flesh, it was as if all of those strands were ripped from me, tearing and stretching at the very core of my being. I screamed through a throat already raw, arching my back, near blind from the torment. A shudder went through Rhyzkahl, and a tiny part of me knew that the pain of the excision wracked him as well.

He dropped my arm and staggered upright, holding the strip of flesh in one hand and the blade in the other. I sucked in shallow gasps of breath as the echoes of the unholy pain continued to reverberate through me.

I jerked at a sudden harsh tug, though no one was touching me.

Kara

“…here,” I gasped.

Rhyzkahl gave a cry of primal rage. “Dahn. Dahn!” He dropped to his knees and dragged me up, holding my chest to his with his left arm as I sagged. “He will not have you!” He let out an animal scream. “You will not have her!” Breathing heavily, he brought the blade to my throat, looked down into my face.

I felt the blade part the first layers of skin. I met his eyes and forced my words through split and swollen lips. “I…am…Kara.” Even if I died now, at least I remained me.

The tug deepened, and I sucked in a ragged breath. Rhyzkahl continued to hold the blade at my throat, yet didn’t press it deeper, didn’t draw it across to make the slice that would end me.

His eyes stayed on mine as the pull increased.

“Kara!” My name burst from his lips in a harsh scream, reverberating through me as I dropped away from him and into the void.

Chapter 19

I felt smooth stone beneath me, cooler than the floor of Rhyzkahl’s summoning chamber. I lay sprawled on my right side and stomach, my arms twisted at impossible angles. Pain seared through my shoulders and the rest of me, but I could only twitch and whimper. Everything about me felt wrong, unclean, as if I’d been immersed in slime.

Shouted words penetrated the fog of pain, but I couldn’t understand them. The wrongness persisted, as did the shouted commands. I tried to see through swollen eyes. I thought I knew the two men in the room. I knew that neither were the Tormentor. I didn’t know much else.