We finally stopped on the broad step of basalt just past the entrance. Ahead, beyond a grassy ravine, the glass-walled palace hugged the cliff that dropped five hundred feet to the sea. I reached for Mzatal again, this time with the mental equivalent of a shoulder shake to get his attention. “C’mon, Boss,” I murmured as I repeated the touch, then exhaled in relief as I felt his acknowledgement like a wave of warmth through me.

The air shimmered a few feet in front of me, and Ilana, Mzatal’s ptarl—demahnk advisor—appeared. Though similar in appearance to Eilahn, Ilana was larger, with definitive characteristics of the demahnk: ridges in the hide of her torso and a subtle vertical ridge on her forehead.

“Mzatal is deeply engaged in the plexus chamber and asks what your need is,” she informed me in a chiming voice much like Eilahn’s, but with greater complexity of tone.

“Tell him he needs to get unengaged,” I told her flatly. “Rhyzkahl, Jesral, Idris and someone else just made a grove transfer, and I’m not moving from here in case they go to another location.”

Her large, near-luminous violet eyes went distant, and I knew she was in telepathic communion with Mzatal. After a few seconds she refocused on me. “Which groves?”

“From Jesral’s grove to the one on the coast of the southern continent,” I said, “then immediately to the one where Mzatal brought me when he was going to remove Rhyzkahl’s mark.”

She inclined her head in acknowledgment and silently relayed my message while I fidgeted and waited impatiently for the reply.

It had only been a little over six months since Mzatal had succeeded in summoning me against my will from Earth, but the time before then seemed like a completely different life. And in a lot of ways it was. Back then I thought I had some sort of real agreement with Rhyzkahl, believed he had honor, even if self-serving. My eyes were forced open by his treachery—the evidence of which covered my torso in hideously beautiful scars, sigils Rhyzkahl had carved onto me with Xhan, his own essence blade.

Everything changed that day. I wasn’t the same person anymore. Couldn’t be. Not and survive to protect those around me.

Ilana laid a gentle three-fingered hand on my shoulder. “He is anchoring the strands in the plexus now. I will bring him.” She vanished before I could thank her.

The itch to do something intensified with the waiting, but I ruthlessly shoved down the impulse to make the transfer to the distant grove and do some preliminary recon. Instead, I pygahed—mentally tracing the soothing pygah sigil in an effort to gain calm and aid concentration.

Nope, still antsy. The purely mental version of the pygah was a great way to quickly chill, but I wanted and needed every scrap of focus I could muster. With fluid motion, I traced the glowing sigil in the air before me and breathed in the energy. Instantly, I felt my tension ease. Yeah, that was the good stuff.

Echoes of the four recent travelers remained, but attempts to sense beyond the boundaries of the other grove failed. Like reaching an island and being able to walk every inch of it, yet unable to see anything beyond its shores but foggy sea.

My scars tingled as I felt Xhan, and a shudder ran through me. I knew without a doubt that Rhyzkahl held the rakkuhr-tainted essence blade even now. Millennia ago, Mzatal created the three blades—Khatur, Xhan, and Vsuhl—for himself, Rhyzkahl, and Szerain. For ages the triumvirate held unshakable dominion over the demon realm.

Something happened to break up their little power bloc, but I had yet to put the pieces of that puzzle together.

Ilana appeared before me with Mzatal. Elegant and broad-shouldered, he had lustrous black hair woven into a thick complex braid that hung to the small of his back. His eyes—piercing silver-grey set in a face with an oriental cast—met mine, while both his expression and his aura radiated dark intensity.

“We have to go now,” I urged as he moved to me, but instead of agreeing he dropped to a crouch and wrapped his hands around my knee.

“Some repair first, zharkat,” he said, and I felt his focus like a flow of warmth over me as he assessed my injuries. “I have sent word to Elofir and await his confirmation that he has readied his plexus chamber for monitoring our activities and those of the Mraztur.” Elofir, another of the eleven demonic lords, was a frequent visitor and one with whom Mzatal was damn near friendly.

“I’m okay,” I insisted. “I can walk. We don’t want to lose them.” Though even as I said it, I had to admit that being mobile was way smarter.

Unruffled, he lifted his head, fixed his eyes on mine. “Precisely. With your information, Elofir may well be able to isolate Idris’s strand and lock onto it. Invaluable in the event we do not recover him now,” he explained.

It was what we’d been seeking for months, yet every time we grew close, the Mraztur used the vile potency rakkuhr to thwart our efforts, and moved Idris—much like how I’d used the arcane-nullifying cuff on Earth to avoid being summoned to the demon realm. For Mzatal to leave such an important task to Elofir spoke volumes of the trust he placed in the other demonic lord. Trust, or an airtight agreement.

Searing heat blossomed in my knee and thigh as Mzatal worked an intense and rapid healing. I sucked in a breath, bit down on a curse as he shifted his hands to my arm and eased the pain of the gash.

A syraza passed overhead, made a tight circle then swooped down to land gracefully. Steeev, whose name—with the drawn out eee sound—had quite amused me the first time I heard it. Slightly larger than Eilahn, he crouched beside her and waited silently for Mzatal to finish his work on me. A few seconds later Gestamar swept down and settled behind Mzatal. Our strike team, ready to go.

A message sigil of glowing gold and amber appeared beside us, and I recognized a twist of potency at the bottom as Elofir’s signature. Mzatal lifted one hand from my arm and touched the sigil, but a heartbeat later his implacable intensity degraded into a dark scowl. He dissipated the sigil with a violent sweep of his arm. “He has isolated Idris, but there is interference again, and he cannot get a lock.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, flexing my knee experimentally. “We go as is?”

Mzatal stroked his hand over my arm in a final gesture of healing, then stood, traced out a message and sent it off. “We have no other option. If we can determine the source of the interference and eliminate it, Elofir may still be successful.”

“But if we get Idris back now, it’s a moot point, right?”

He took my hand, strode toward the center of the grove with long strides that made me thankful my knee only muttered now rather than screamed. “You are correct,” he said. “Having a link to him through a strand lock is valuable should he slip from us. Best to assure he does not.” He released my hand and prepared to make the potency offering to the grove, then stopped and looked to me. “It is more expedient if you make the transfer.”

Right. Other than myself, only the lords and the demahnk could activate the grove transportation. However, the grove required no offering from me—yet another part of my lord-confounding grove connection.

I gripped his hand again, found the destination we sought, then asked the grove to take our group there.

The trees around us shifted subtly in position. Different trees, different grove. Soft light of an overcast sky filtered through the purple and green leaves, and warm, humid air carried an acrid tinge.

Mzatal lifted his chin, assessing the area nearby for signs of activity. A heartbeat later his grip tightened on my hand, and he strode toward the tree tunnel, anger flashing in his eyes.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I tried to keep up.