The shadows in the far corner literally parted like curtains, revealing who they had hidden.

I stopped breathing, paralyzed with a fear so sharp that it staked me to the ground where I stood. I whimpered. I didn’t have the breath to scream.

“A final gift for you, little seeker.” The words were from Sarad Nukpana.

The voice and body belonged to Tam.

Talon screamed, a full-throated roar of denial, anguish, and rage. He lunged at his father, and it took all Dad could do to hold him back.

“For shame,” Nukpana chided from inside Tam’s body. “And Tamnais risked everything to find him. Let the boy embrace his father. It may be the last chance he will ever have.”

Terror tried to sucker punch me, but I grabbed it and shoved it down. Terror had no place here, only cold logic, and even colder action. That didn’t stop my stomach from twisting into a tight knot and another whimper from escaping my lips.

It was my worst nightmare and it was standing right in front of me. The combined magical power of the mages’ souls that Sarad Nukpana had ingested made the air around Tam’s body ripple with the sheer magnitude of it. I’d never seen or heard of shields that strong.

Weapons couldn’t reach him; neither could magic.

The Saghred was squirming inside of me, desperate to try. I kept my breathing even, and held as tightly as I could on to the stone’s power. Sarad Nukpana was too strong now. When I made my move, it had to count. I’d only get one chance, and that chance hung on those shields coming down.

“I want to speak to Tam.” I had to force the words out past the pressure building in my chest.

“What if he doesn’t want to speak to you?” Nukpana taunted lightly. “Though even if he wanted to, he’s powerless to do anything about it.” Nukpana twisted Tam’s lips into a smirk. “He’s quite helpless to do anything.”

My hands clenched into fists as a white- hot rage took control of me. I didn’t fight it; I let it in, embraced it, and aimed it squarely at the goblin standing not ten feet away. Had he moved toward me? Or had I stepped closer to him? The Saghred wanted to be much closer. I remembered training with Tam: lose control, lose life. Though now my life wasn’t the only one at stake.

Neither was my soul.

I forced myself to see Tam not as Tam, but as Sarad Nukpana. He was holding Tam hostage, the only difference being that it was from the inside. Big difference, but the same problem.

I’d freed hostages and prisoners before. Find and free them. It was my job, and I was good at it.

I would free Tam.

“You’re welcome to try, little seeker.”

The bastard was reading my mi—

“There is no need to read that which I am bonded to.”

Oh no.

Nukpana sighed in unabashed pleasure. “It saves so much time and trouble to know precisely what my future partner is thinking even as she thinks it. Your umi’atsu bond with Tamnais is most convenient.” Tam’s voice dropped to a familiar seductive purr. “And the intimacy is absolutely delicious. When I took Tamnais, I took your umi’atsu bond. It links you with his magic and his mind. I am in possession of Tamnais’s mind, so I can easily see inside of yours. Soon I’ll be able to control the Saghred—and you just as easily. Rudra Muralin’s knowledge of the stone is extensive, though I am still absorbing his memories. He was detestable as a goblin, but he will prove useful in the coming hours and days.”

I lunged for the body on the bier and drove the point of my dagger against the big artery in Sarad Nukpana’s throat. It just broke the skin and cool blood welled up around it. Nukpana hadn’t been in Tam’s body for long; the corpse on the bier was still warm. “Release Tam now or you’re not going to have a body to come home to,” I snarled. “No blood, no life.” I drew my long goblin sword from the harness on my back. “Or better yet, no head, no Nukpana.”

“My previous body and its identity have become more of a burden than an asset,” Nukpana/Tam replied mildly. “Being notorious has been fun, but it is hardly productive for the work I have planned. So by all means, little seeker, decapitate my corpse. I have no further need of it. It is my intention to remain precisely where I am.” His smile was full of fang. “Would you enjoy that, Raine? Unlimited power in the body of your lover.”

“He’s not my lover.”

Nukpana/Tam took a slow, deliberate step toward me. “Then we shall have to change that very soon. I know Tamnais has desired you for years. Pity he will be a helpless bystander, only able to watch what I will use his body to do to you.”

“Hey,” said a quiet voice. “Remember me?”

Dad had slowly circled and was now within ten feet of Nukpana/Tam. “Looks like we both found bodies.” The steely glint in his eyes promised payback, and his smile said he was going to enjoy every second of it. “Too bad you won’t be keeping yours.”

Nukpana/Tam laughed in a perverse mixture of voices. “Eamaliel Anguis, still a noble Guardian, only now your host is barely old enough to shave. Coward, you took the first body you could find.”

“You took a body you’re going to regret.”

“The seeker will not kill her soon-to-be lover—and neither will her father.”

Tam rolled his eyes.

I didn’t move a muscle; I didn’t even dare to breathe.

That eye roll was all Tam. Nukpana didn’t have a thing to do with it.

And the goblin knew it. That eye roll was followed by a flash of panic. The panic was all Nukpana. Tam may not have been in control, but Sarad Nukpana didn’t have a firm hold on the reins. At least not yet.

The Saghred smelled Nukpana’s fear and relished it. The tiger was licking its chops. The goblin knew that, too.

Dad chuckled. “Problems, Sarad? Is your control slipping? Apparently even your host body finds your antics ridiculous.”

“Then the time for play has passed,” came Janos Ghalfari’s smooth voice from the doorway behind us. The nachtmagus had five Khrynsani temple guards with him. They were completely blocking the opening.

Dad casually glanced past them down the tunnel. “That’s it? No Khrynsani welcoming committee?” The air around him virtually crackled as he powered up his magic. The guards shifted uneasily. Dad flashed them a smile that was more a baring of teeth that told them to bring it on.

“These men are merely an escort,” Ghalfari said quietly. “Many more are here with me, brought from Regor. And you are . . . ?”

“Uncle, allow me to present the infamous Eamaliel Anguis,” Nukpana/Tam said. “New body, old nemesis.”

Ghalfari’s black eyes glittered with something ugly. “The Guardian who stole the Saghred from Rudra Muralin and our king a thousand years ago.”

“I prefer to call it a retrieval,” Dad replied dryly. “From a boy with far too much power and not enough sense or sanity to use it. And I’m only 934. Why does everyone insist on making me older than I already am?”

Ghalfari turned his head slightly to speak to the Khrynsani guard waiting just behind him to the right. “Go and get your brothers in arms. We will have need of them all.” He turned to his nephew. “We must move quickly, Sarad. The paladin knows where Mistress Benares has gone. The map in his possession shows this tunnel. We must prepare.”

Which meant Mychael knew the way in, or someone with him did. That knot in my stomach loosened a little. When it came to backup, you couldn’t have too many, especially when that backup was Justinius Valerian and half a citadel’s worth of Guardians. Ghalfari’s other Khrynsani must be waiting in a nearby bunker.

The Saghred burned in my chest. It didn’t want backup. It wanted the souls in Tam’s body—including Tam’s. I took a deep breath and pushed the urges down, nearly overpowering urges.

“Hungry, Raine?” Nukpana murmured.

“The rock’s on a diet until I say it’s not,” I said through clenched teeth.

“You being here will keep us from going to the trouble of finding Mychael,” Nukpana/Tam said. “Tamnais is trusted by a surprising number of people on this island. Tamnais and the paladin are friends of a sort, are they not?”