The Fire Within Them by Matthew Ward

Author:Matthew Ward [WARD, MATTHEW]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2024-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

The tsrûqi fought, the coils of its soulfire worming through Tanith’s thoughts.

Even with her eyes closed, her perception of the world shifted. She clung to the lichen-crusted column as up and down veered a solid fifteen degrees from where her senses insisted they should be. Nausea crowded her throat, the urge to pitch to her knees and empty her stomach almost overwhelming. The soft, dank smells of the depths grew sharper.

Eyes pinched shut, she willed the last frond of her tattoo’s thorn pattern into place just inside her elbow. With a thin hiss, the tsrûqi fell silent, its tendrils retreating deeper into the spirit world even as Tanith herself surfaced. Up and down realigned. The sharpness faded from the world.

“It’s asleep,” she gasped, the thrill of success driving out her nausea.

Esram edged closer, wary of trespassing the passageway the tsrûqi had so jealously guarded. Wary, because on the first approach he’d misjudged the distance and practically fallen on top of her when the tsrûqi had lashed out. They were barely a dozen paces from where they’d first met – from the graven stone that had granted her a vision of the goddess – with only the luminescence of lichen and Esram’s tiny lumani lantern to drive shadows from the rough stone.

“I still don’t believe it,” he breathed, lost in wonder. “Can you do the same to the others?”

“I think so,” Tanith replied with a confidence she didn’t entirely feel, but too proud to show hesitance. “Let’s just take it slowly, all right?”

He slipped an arm around her waist and leaned in to kiss her. “Of course, my lady Tanith.”

“No!”

Heart in her throat and senses drowning in lavender, Tanith pulled away, a stumble on loose stone crushing her shoulder against the passage wall. She willed the need in the pit of her stomach to abate. Half a mile down in the dark from the haven’s buried streets via elevator and stairway there was no threat of discovery. No one to see her glut herself on Esram’s hopeless, helpless, adorable naïveté. Nothing to keep her daemon-half in check but her own imperfect will.

“Not here. It’s not safe. I’m not safe.”

A hurt frown set shadows rippling across his face. “If that’s what you want.”

On balance again, Tanith pushed clear of the wall. More than ever, it was clear that what this was – whatever they were – she couldn’t sustain it. She was going to have to tell him the truth. But not here. Not now. The truth would change everything.

“Esram, I—” Her fingers touched something cold and smooth. Glass. “The lantern. Quickly.”

Frown giving way to curiosity, he drew closer, lantern aloft. Tanith grabbed his wrist, twisting it and the lantern until greasy orange light pooled across a multifaceted black prism buried behind the eyes of Nyssa’s beautiful stone face.

“It’s a sentry crest,” said Esram.

Sentry crests were commonly home to hestics. The paths between the Underways and the haven were dotted with them. Tanith stepped back into the spirit world just enough to confirm her suspicions.

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