I felt his frustration mingle with mine as the ritual built to a throbbing crescendo. “Five heartbeats, zharkat,” he said through gritted teeth. Cursing, I desperately sought a solution. Four. I had my not-a-Glock, but that wouldn’t be enough to even put a ripple in it. It would be like using paintballs to try and stop a charging crack addict.

Three. Beside me Mzatal trembled with the stress of holding the shield. Beyond the diagram Rhyzkahl bared his teeth in a triumphant smile, lifted his blade and gave Mzatal a mocking salute.

That was it. I knew a way to exploit the weakness.

Two. The rings flared, and there was no time left to consult with Mzatal. With his attention so intensely focused on holding Idris, he’d never be able to read my intention in time to respond.

I slammed closed my connection to the grove, jerked my hand into the air and called Szerain’s essence blade to me.

Vsuhl coalesced in my hand for the first time since I’d nearly caused a second cataclysm during its retrieval. During that ritual my grove power had melded with the blade’s with no ill effect, but the addition of rakkuhr—the foul potency utilized by the Mraztur—had catalyzed the other two powers into an uncontrollable force that had nearly ripped the world apart.

I really didn’t want to repeat that experience, hence the decision to cut myself off from the grove before calling the blade. Safety first, and all that.

The blade’s potency flooded me, sharp and fierce, but I had no time to revel in it. I tightened my grip on the hilt and united its power with that of Mzatal’s blade.

Mzatal faltered in shocked surprise, entire body jerking as if he’d brushed a live wire. Yet his loss of focus lasted only an instant, and he quickly recovered to weave the combined blade potencies into the strike. I focused on the weak spot in the rings, but instead of sending potency directly toward the ritual, he simply thrust his hand palm down toward the ground.

Nothing happened.

One.

Even Jesral shot us a look of What the fuck? His eyes came to rest on Vsuhl, and his hands ceased to work the potency. Hunger and desire and avarice flowed from him. Holy shit did he ever want this blade.

Zero. I sucked in a breath as I felt it, and in the next instant Mzatal’s strike burst from the ground in a blinding flash beneath the weak spot of the rings.

The cylinder turned into a seething vortex of potency. Katashi screamed as a surge threw him from the center to land in a crumpled heap almost twenty feet left of the perimeter. Idris cried out in pain, then hunched in on himself as if clinging to the center.

I held Vsuhl, focused the power as I sought a way to extract him from the still active ritual. As soon as the vortex dropped, anyone still in that center would go to Earth. And with the ritual damaged, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be a fun experience.

“Idris,” I breathed, and in that moment I was right beside him—part of the vortex, yet untouched by it. “Idris.”

He looked up at the vortex—at me—tortured desperation in his eyes as he clutched the ritual strands together, repaired them. “Kara . . . no,” he choked out. “I need to go. Have to let them send me. Please. Stop.”

He’s been manipulated, I thought with sick rage. An extension of the mind reading ability of the lords, manipulation involved altering memories, attitudes, motivations, or damn near anything else an inventive lord could dream up. In a summoner, such tampering drastically decreased their effectiveness, yet I couldn’t come up with any other explanation for why he resisted our help. Mzatal continued his efforts to unwind the diagram, but with Idris holding the ritual from the center, I didn’t see how we could extract him without damaging him profoundly.

“It’s going to be all right,” I told Idris.

Closing his eyes, he shook his head, then pulled the strands and was gone.

I yelled a curse and dove forward, both physically and arcanely, to catch a portal strand. I closed my grip around one right before it slithered through.

Idris, crumpled on his side on a cement floor. A man’s hand on his shoulder. A ring on the middle finger—dual stones, dark red and onyx, set in intricate gold filigree.

Mzatal’s frustration and anger filled our connection, and the strand flashed and disintegrated as he sent a seething blast of power into the ritual. The sigil rings shattered, and I felt Mzatal direct the backlash toward Rhyzkahl and Jesral.

Rhyzkahl staggered back a step but managed to deflect most of it. Jesral wasn’t so fortunate and took a direct hit that cast him back hard into the trunk of a tree. Eyes locked on Mzatal, Rhyzkahl stalked into the center of the nexus, likely to replenish potency.

Breathing hard, Jesral shoved away from the tree. His gaze dropped to the blade in my hand, and his face hardened, then in a move like a striking viper he cast an attack at Mzatal.

Mzatal shifted his weight and deflected the strike with an angry flick of his hand. “Send Vsuhl away,” he gritted out.

I hesitated, tempted to argue the need for both blades, yet Mzatal’s insistence remained firm. Reluctantly, I sent the blade away, even as Mzatal hurled a return volley of jagged potency like stylized lightning. With a determined sweep of both arms, Jesral deflected all but one, staggered and spun as it struck him in the hip.

Mzatal’s aura washed over me and tumbled like a raging river of acid toward Jesral, pressing his advantage. His attack followed, in a barrage that knocked the already off-balance Jesral back several feet. Jesral shot a quick look at Rhyzkahl, face shifting to a mixture of anger and outrage as he seemed to realize that Rhyzkahl wasn’t planning to help him in his duel with Mzatal. The Mraztur had broken the age old “lords only fight one-on-one” agreement when they sought to prevent me from recovering Vsuhl but, for whatever reason, Rhyzkahl didn’t seem willing to do so again.

Continuing to trace and enhance Mzatal’s attacks, I glanced at Rhyzkahl. His attention remained fixed on Mzatal, eyes narrowed in what looked like calculated interest. As I watched, he shifted his scrutiny to me and began to trace an odd compact construct with both hands.

Dread coursed through me, and I gave Mzatal a mental nudge. Rhyzkahl’s doing something, Boss, but to my dismay his response was sluggish, distracted. Snarling, he sent another strike toward Jesral, while I tried harder to get his attention. Mzatal. Stop attacking Jesral for a second!

Rhyzkahl’s mouth spread in a vulpine smile as whatever he’d formed coalesced into a golf ball-sized creation that seethed orange and red. My dread shifted to full-blown alarm. Rakkuhr. Mzatal swiped aside a valiant effort from Jesral and drew power for a blow that would take Jesral down. Rhyzkahl glanced to the fully occupied Mzatal, smirked, then lobbed the tightly wound ball toward me in an underhand throw.

“Boss!” I yelled, eyes widening. Frantically, I tried to pull power from Mzatal’s strike to deflect the thing as it expanded and arced toward me like a softball from hell. My alarm finally cut through Mzatal’s haze of anger even as he loosed the attack on Jesral. He snapped his focus to me and then to the rakkuhr-laced sigil ball as it struck his shields. Its outer layers burned away like a meteor entering the atmosphere, the sigil emerging as a glowing red speck that arrowed toward the center of my chest.

In a fraction of a blink of an eye, Mzatal slammed a wave of power at the speck to deflect it.

Almost deflect it. The thing struck my left deltoid and drove in with a wave of agony utterly at odds with its size. I choked out a cry of pain as the sigil scars on that side of my body erupted in fiery pins and needles.