Yield the Night (16 page)

“Hang in there, okay?” Ash murmured.

“Hanging,” she whispered.

He carried her into the elevator. She closed her eyes, focused solely on enduring each passing second. Her stomach swooped as the elevator ascended. The doors dinged and Ash started walking again. She heard voices somewhere ahead.

“Bring her this way.” Miysis’s melodic voice came out of nowhere, suddenly beside her. “Sara called up and told me Piper was ill. My healer will be here in a moment. She’s preparing a temporary treatment.”

Ash carried her another dozen steps, then the world wobbled sickeningly as he lowered her onto something soft. She opened her blurry eyes and found herself on a sofa in some kind of lounge-like room. Miysis and Ash were both kneeling in front of her, side by side. And they weren’t even arguing. It was a miracle.

“Piper,” Miysis said gently. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Pain in my head,” she whispered, closing her eyes again. “It’s the magic.”

“What kind of pain is it? Sharp, shooting, burning, pressure?”

“Pressure.”

“It’s escalating too quickly,” Ash murmured to Miysis.

“My people are moving as fast as possible,” he replied. “Teams have already checked the most accessible locations but he wasn’t at any of them.”

“Piper doesn’t have the time for you to search every remotely plausible hideout from here to the Overworld,” Ash growled.

“I know that—”

The pain suddenly spiked, spearing her skull. Piper gasped, flinging out a hand to grab Ash’s arm. She opened her mouth to speak and her stomach jumped into her throat.

Ash and Miysis sprang away as she doubled over and vomited on the floor. Her stomach heaved until she thought it might eject itself from her body. When the spasms finally stopped, she slumped backward, moaning. Ash pulled her off the sofa and back into his arms.

“Where’s your damn healer?”

“This way.”

Ash moved her to the other end of the room and set her on another sofa, and then there was a new voice.

“Piper.” The voice was soft and motherly.

She cracked her eyes open to find a middle-aged Ra daemon kneeling in front of her, smiling gently. Miysis, Ash, Lyre, and Seiya crowded behind the woman.

“Piper, I have something that will help you, but you need to be brave, okay?”

The woman picked up a small plastic box with pin-sized holes in its sides from beside her. She opened the lid and carefully reached inside. Her hand emerged, holding a huge, hairy spider. She gripped its dark body between two fingers and a thumb, its long red legs flailing in undulating waves.

Piper’s blood went cold. She jerked backward. Strength returned to her muscles on a wave of adrenaline as she scrambled away and lunged for the back of the sofa, fully intending to jump over it and run for the nearest lockable room.

Miysis and Ash grabbed her arms, pulling her back down on the sofa.

“Piper, calm down.” Miysis clasped her arm tightly. “It’s just a spider.”

“What the hell kind of spider is that?” Lyre demanded.

“Piper, this is a rune spider,” the healer said. “They are native to certain forests in the Overworld, and their venom contains some unique properties. Foremost, it affects the part of the mind tied to magic. It will numb you to your magic and cause much of it to diminish for a period of time.”

“Why do you have one of those
in your embassy
?” Lyre whispered incredulously to Miysis.

“All you have to do is let it bite you,” the healer said as though it were the most reasonable thing in the world, “and the pain will go away.”

Piper shook her head before the woman had even finished, unable to take her eyes off the squirming spider. It was
huge
. It would fill the woman’s hand were she to let it sit on her palm.

“I’m fine,” she croaked. “I can handle the pain. Put it away.”

“Piper—”

“I’m fine!”

“Piper,” Miysis said sternly, “let her help you. It’ll be over in a second.”

“No!”

“She’s an arachnophobe,” Ash said. “She won’t let it bite her. Can’t you inject the venom?”

“We’ve tried that before. It doesn’t work the same. It needs to come straight from the spider.”

She tensed, prepared to fight them all. She would rather die in agony than let that spider touch her.

A moment of silence.

“It’s fine,” Ash finally said. “You heard her. She would rather have the pain.”

“But Ash—” Lyre began.

Ash made a brusque gesture. He turned to Piper. “It’s okay. You’ll be fine.”

He leaned closer, brushing a hand down her arm. She blinked at him, trying to think beyond the haze of panic and pain. His gray stare was reassuring as he gently touched her cheek with his fingers, wiping away a tear she hadn’t realized she’d shed.

And then she felt the tingle of magic across her skin in the wake of his touch.

“No!” she cried. She jumped away from him but her knees instantly buckled.

He pulled her back onto the sofa so she fell on top of him. Mist spun through her head, fuzzing her thoughts but doing nothing to dull the pain. She slumped weakly against him, her muscles numb and listless from his spell.

“It’s okay,” he murmured in her ear. He ran his fingers through her hair, brushing it off her face. “You’re too tough to let this beat you.”

Someone took her arm, stretching it out and turning her wrist upward. She whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut.

“It’s okay,” Ash whispered again, his lips brushing her ear as he spoke. “You can do this. Don’t you remember when we were trapped in the cellar? I couldn’t think straight, but you were calm. You can handle anything. This is a walk in the park compared to that.”

She took a deep breath. The edges of her panic dulled as he continued to whisper in her ear, his voice sliding down into her bones and making her shiver. She stopped hearing his words, lost in the sound of his voice alone.

A sharp prick on her wrist made her jerk, her muscles unable to do more than twitch.

“Done,” the healer declared, snapping the lid back on the box. “It should start working within twenty minutes. The bite will be sore and swollen for several days, and she may have some other symptoms—brief bouts of dizziness or a mild fever. Nothing to be concerned about.”

“Thank you,” Miysis said. “I’ll call you if we need anything more.”

Ash brushed his fingers across her cheek again, lifting his spell. Feeling crept back into her muscles, but she didn’t move. His arms were around her, his cheek resting against her forehead. He was warm, strong, and his delicious scent of fresh mountain air surrounded her. She closed her eyes and burrowed her face into the side of his neck, blocking out the world as she waited desperately for the pain to stop.

“How long will the effects of the venom last?” Ash asked.

“It depends on the person’s metabolism,” Miysis said. “For daemons, only a few hours. For haemons, a day or two.”

“Can we give her more after that?”

“It’s not wise. It’s still a poison, even if the effects are working in her favor right now. We found each subsequent exposure had less effect on magic and more adverse effects on the victim’s health, especially with back-to-back injections.”

“That sounds ominous,” Lyre remarked, not quite managing a flippant tone.

“We need Vejovis,” Ash said.

“Obviously,” Miysis replied. “As I started to say before, I suspect I know where he is.”

“Where?” Ash demanded.

“I believe he’s gone home.”

“Home? Where is ‘home’?”

Miysis let out a deep breath. “Kyo Kawa Valley in the Overworld.”

A heartbeat of silence.

“Is that,” Lyre asked, dread clear in his voice, “the valley of ...”

“The ryujin,” Miysis finished. “Yes. Vejovis lives in the heart of their territory.”

“But how?”

“He must have some kind of truce or deal with them.”

Another moment of quiet.

“But
how
?” Lyre repeated.

“I have no idea. But that is where he lives, and it’s the safest place for him. Vejovis was instrumental in your escape from Asphodel. Samael will not allow that to go unpunished.”

“Well, he should definitely be safe in the ryujin valley,” Lyre muttered.

Piper lifted her head from Ash’s shoulder and glanced across the group. Lyre stood beside the sofa while Miysis sat on the arm. Seiya stood a few feet away, her arms folded and her expression dark.

“What’s a ryujin?” The name was familiar but her pain-hazed brain couldn’t pull up the information.

“The ryujin are an Overworld caste,” Miysis answered. “Aquatic quasi-amphibians related to water dragons. They are not a friendly people. In fact, they generally kill any other daemons they catch in their territory—Vejovis being the exception. Over the past centuries, various families have attempted to absorb the ryujin’s lands into their territory, but none have succeeded in spite of the ryujin’s relatively small numbers.”

She rubbed a hand against her forehead. It was subtle, but the pain was definitely beginning to wane.

“So what’s your plan then?” Lyre asked. “How will you get a message to Vejovis telling him we need him?”

Miysis’s eyes turned to Piper, intense and analyzing. “To be blunt, I doubt Piper can afford to wait for messengers.”

“What do you mean?”

“We need to take her straight to Vejovis. She doesn’t have time to wait for him to come to her.”

“You want to take Piper
through
Kyo Kawa Valley?” Lyre exclaimed. “Are you insane?”

“The ryujin stay in or near water. We can cross their land to Vejovis’s residence without travelling too near to the river.” Miysis turned to Ash. “I can send a team to find Vejovis, but by the time they reach him and bring him back, it could be too late. I believe our only option is to take Piper straight to him. If we can get her to Vejovis before the rune spider’s venom wears off, there will be no risk of her condition deteriorating to dangerous levels, which I expect will take, at most, forty-eight hours once the venom is no longer protecting her.”

“Forty-eight hours?” Lyre repeated. “But—her magic has only been unsealed for two days! It takes haemon children months to—”

“I didn’t expect her to worsen this quickly, even from this morning,” Miysis said. “I would have expected at least six weeks, probably closer to ten, for her to reach this point. Her magic should require time to develop, like unused muscles that need to be strengthened ...”

“The Sahar,” Piper muttered.

Miysis looked at her. “Pardon?”

“I think ...” She swallowed. “I think the Sahar damaged the seal on my magic. When I used it to break the gold collar Samael made me wear, the Stone’s magic felt like it was tearing me up inside. And ...” She pressed her lips together for a moment. “I’ve been having headaches for weeks. The whole time I was at Westwood. I thought it was just stress.”

Miysis nodded. “That would explain it then. Your magic started developing two months ago when the seal was damaged. The remains of the seal were protecting you from the worst of it, but now that the seal is gone, your magic is nearing lethal levels.”

She flinched at the word “lethal.”

Ash’s arms tightened. “Then we take her to Vejovis—now,” he said. “We can’t chance waiting.”

“You don’t even know if he’s there,” Seiya snapped, speaking for the first time.

“‘We’?” Miysis repeated to Ash, ignoring Seiya. “You can’t possibly intend to come.”

“He’s right,” Seiya said, her voice cutting. “We’re from the
Underworld
. What use will we be there? It’s ridiculous!”

“We won’t be walking through an Overworld city,” Ash replied calmly to Miysis. “The valley will be deserted except for the ryujin. And if we do encounter them, you will need my help.”

“My team and I will be perfectly capable of handling anything we encounter.”

“Good for you. But I’ll be there anyway to make sure you don’t screw it up.”

They scowled at each other, but Piper wasn’t watching them anymore. She pressed closer to Ash, fear rushing through her at the pure hatred on Seiya’s face as she glared at her.

CHAPTER
12

P
IPER
tightened the strap over the armguard covering her left forearm and checked that the band Ash had given her was secure. Miysis’s embassy had three basement levels, and two of them contained nothing but supplies and gear. It was an armory stocked for war. She definitely suspected he had a good chunk of his military scattered throughout the building.

She’d been outfitted with new clothing and gear. Thankfully, it wasn’t in the Ra military colors of red and gold. Just regular browns. Fitted pants of a tough material that could take a lot of wear and tear, and a tan button-down shirt. She’d passed on a leather vest, not liking how it would restrict her movements. Speed and flexibility were her biggest strengths.

What pleased her most was that, finally, she was armed again. A row of throwing knives was attached to her belt, two long daggers were strapped to her right thigh, and a sword was on her left hip. No gun though. The Overworld was, apparently, a gun-free zone. They didn’t manufacture firearms there at all, relying instead on simpler weapons and magic.

Brushing her hands down her front, she nodded to herself. She was as prepared as she could be considering she had no idea what she was walking into. The Overworld. She’d been to the Underworld, though she’d seen very little of it. Asphodel, Samael’s estate, had been beautiful, with old-world elegance and an ancient style of architecture with interconnected buildings and courtyards. Only one building had had electricity: Chrysalis, where they developed products that crossed magic with technology.

Outside the estate, she’d seen mountains and forests with strange species of trees and plant life, but by far the most shocking sight had been the sky, where a massive planet drifted by for large portions of the day, and two suns and three moons arched above both day and night.

What would the Overworld be like? An entirely different planet in some other far corner of space? Seventy years ago, before the Third World War, space travel had been a thing. She’d heard that humans had gone to the moon, but not to other planets. According to Raum, she was the first non-daemon to go to the Underworld and back. Now she would be the first to go to both daemon worlds and back again.