Gared grunted and picked up Wonda’s axe as she and Jardir headed down the path. Rojer looked at Leesha, who nodded her head back to the door. She went inside, and he followed as she went right to Bruna’s rocker and put on her shawl. Never a good sign.

“How did he take your refusal?” Rojer asked, not bothering to sit.

Leesha sighed. “He didn’t. Told me to take my time and think it through. He’s invited me back to Rizon with him.”

“You can’t go,” Rojer said.

Leesha raised an eyebrow at that. “You have no more say over who I marry than my mother, Rojer.”

“Are you saying you want to marry him?” Rojer asked. “After a single tea and an awkward lunch?”

“Of course not,” Leesha said. “I have no intention of accepting his proposal.”

“Then why in the Core would you deliver yourself into his hands?” Rojer asked.

“There’s an army at our doorstep, Rojer,” Leesha said. “You don’t see value in looking at them with our own eyes? Counting tents and learning how their leader thinks?”

“Not at the cost of our own leader,” Rojer said. “Duke Rhinebeck doesn’t personally go to Miln to see what Euchor’s up to. He sends spies.”

“I don’t have any spies,” Leesha said.

Rojer snorted. “You have over a thousand Rizonans who owe you their lives, many who left family behind. Surely a few could be persuaded to return home and keep their ears open.”

“I won’t order people to put themselves at risk,” Leesha said.

“But you’ll put yourself?” Rojer asked.

“I don’t think Ahmann would harm me,” Leesha said.

“Two days ago, he was the demon of the desert,” Rojer said. “Now he’s Ahmann? What, do you just shine on any man who thinks he’s the Deliverer?”

Leesha scowled. “I don’t want to hear any more of this, Rojer.”

“I don’t care what you want,” Rojer snapped. “You’ve heard how the Krasians treat women. No matter what that oily snake tells you, the moment you’re out of range of the Hollowers’ bows you’ll be his property, and anyone with you will get a spear in the eye.”

“So you won’t be coming with me?” Leesha asked.

“Night, haven’t you heard anything I’ve been saying?” Rojer demanded.

“Every word,” Leesha said, “but I’m still going. If that’s the kind of man Ahmann is, then war is inevitable and it doesn’t matter what we do. But if there’s even a chance he meant what he said at the table, then there’s a chance we can find a way to coexist without killing each other, and that’s worth more to the world than the fate of Leesha Paper.”

Rojer sighed, plopping down in a chair. “When do we leave?”

SECTION 4

THE CALL OF THE CORE

CHAPTER 26

RETURN TO TIBBET’S BROOK

333 AR SUMMER

THE PAINTED MAN’S MOOD was black as Fort Miln receded in the distance. Any happiness he had felt upon leaving Ragen and Elissa’s manse was swept away by the meeting with Jaik. The conversation played out over and over in his mind, all the words he should have said presented themselves too late, and did little to dispel a nagging doubt that his friend was right.

To take his mind away, he read through the book Ronnell had given him, but that brought no comfort. Laid bare were Leesha’s coveted secrets of fire, with metalwork diagrams to turn their force into tools of precision killing. Tools designed for killing not demons, but men.

Did the corelings drive us to the brink of extinction, he wondered, or did we do it to ourselves?

He caught sight of a ruined keep off the side of the road as the sun began to set. One of Euchor’s predecessors had kept a garrison there, but the keep had fallen to demons and never been rebuilt. Most Messengers, convinced it was haunted, gave it a wide berth. A rusted gate hung bent and torn from twisted moorings, and great holes had been broken in the outer wall.

He rode into the keep, staking Twilight Dancer in a warded circle. He stripped to his loincloth, selecting a spear and bow. As darkness fell, the stinking mists began to seep up between the shattered stones of the courtyard. Corelings rose thickly in unwarded ruins, instinct telling them the odds were good prey might one day return. Fifty men had died when the wards of this keep fell, likely killed by the very demons rising now. They deserved vengeance.

The Painted Man waited until the demons spotted him and charged before lifting his bow. In the lead was a flame demon, but his first arrow blasted the life from it. Next was a rock that took several shots to put down.

When the rock fell, the other demons paused, some even backpedaling to flee, but wardstones the Painted Man had placed around the gaps in the wall and gate kept them trapped in the keep with him. When he was out of arrows, he charged with spear and shield, eventually abandoning that as well and fighting with bare hands and feet.

He only grew stronger as the night wore on and he absorbed more and more magic. Lost in the killing frenzy, he thought of nothing else until at last, covered in demon ichor that sizzled on his wards, he found no more demons to kill. The sky began to lighten soon after, the few remaining corelings in the area fading into mist to flee the sun as it burned their taint away from the surface world.

But then the light reached him, and it was like fire on his skin. The glare stung his eyes, leaving him dizzy and nauseous, and his throat burned. Standing before it was agony.

This had happened before. Leesha said it was the sunlight burning the excess magic away from him, but there was another part of him, a primal part, that knew the truth.

The sun was rejecting him. He was becoming a demon, and no longer belonged on the surface of the world.

The Core called to him, beckoning with offers of succor. The paths, like vents of magic coming up from the ground, were unmistakable to his warded eyes, and they all sang the same song. No sun would burn him in the Core’s embrace.

The Painted Man started to dematerialize, slipping a bit of his essence down along a path, tasting it.

Just once, he told himself. To probe for weakness. To see if the fight can be taken there. It was a noble thought, if not entirely true. More likely, he would be destroyed.

World’s better off without me, anyway.

But before he could melt away, there was a pop and a flash of light as one of the smoldering bodies in the yard was caught in a sunbeam and burst into flame. He looked over at it, watching the bodies ignite one after another like festival flamework.

Even as the corelings burned, his own pain lessened. The sun left him weakened as it always did, but it did not destroy him.

Yet, he thought. But soon. Best give the Brook its wards while you still can.

Landmarks began to appear as the Painted Man drew closer to Tibbet’s Brook, bringing his mind, lingering on thoughts of the Core, back to the present. Here was the Messenger cave where he had succored with Ragen and Keerin. There were the ruins where they had found him. Those, at least, were free of demons. A pack of nightwolves had taken up residence there, and the Painted Man wisely gave them a wide berth. Even corelings thought twice before disturbing a pack of nightwolves. Centuries of demons culling the smallest and weakest had left the few remaining predators in the wild formidable indeed. Named after their jet-black fur, adult nightwolves could weigh three hundred pounds, and a pack of them could take down even a wood demon if cornered.