Each mile laid between the Absolian and us was a victory.
His influence was stripped from my being one layer at a time, until I was raw and vulnerable from lack of its inexorable pressure. I felt his gaze still, the weight of those cold, wintry eyes, and knew I'd escaped desolation by a meager margin. If the witch hadn't listened to me, if she'd tried to defend us from the mages with her magic, we would have been pulverized right alongside them.
I shouldn't have been able to sense Aurelius with such keen awareness, nor should I be able to feel the crackling pulse emanating from the mage's incantation. Humans couldn't sense magic, so my perception of it either suggested prior knowledge of its existence left remnant sensitivity on a soul, or I wasn't entirely human. I wasn't sure which option was more alarming, but I was certain I didn't have the luxury of thinking it over. Not with that winged cretin flying around.
Brother. I wondered if Aurelius cared. I wondered if I cared. The Absolian and I existed on opposite ends of the Rending, which bode ill for our previous association, seeing as both Sethan and I had been thrown from Absolia while Aurelius hadn't. I'd never know what'd truly happened in that far-flung realm, and trying to question it was foolhardy.
Kin or no, an Absolian was an Absolian. Absolians cared for nothing but their own ambitions and the will of their High King.
Saule coughed and choked on her own breath. She still clutched her arm against her chest, the static charge of red lightning crackling from her shoulder to her elbow, though the wound itself was small and had begun to clot. Her face gleamed with perspiration.
"What, by the Pit, is wrong with you?" I barked, alarmed by her pallor. I didn't need a dead witch in the car. Getting across the country was challenging enough without transporting a woman's corpse.
"Twitch-finger," she gasped.
"What?"
"Twitch-finger spell of electric b-binding." She pulled her hand from her injured limb, and I noted how the charge leapt between her bare palm and the site of impact, attempting to bring it back down against her body. The electricity of the mage's spell filled the car and had the hair on my arms standing on end.
"When does it fade?" I asked, wary of the lightning and its random jumps. Was it contagious? If we were both paralyzed, I'd be utterly screwed.
"No," the witch managed to grate through clenched teeth. "No, it won't fade. I need to get to an alchemist."
"Why?"
"She'll be able to break the spell."
The wind roared in my ears, smelling of wet earth and watered sage. We were outside Verweald's limits now, dipping into the county of Los Angeles. The trees were green and grew tall around the freeway, but the rocky hills were brown, only dusted with the vaguest touch of life after such a prolonged drought. The grey haze of smog crawled across the sky, emanating from the city farther to the south.
"I know of a coven that probably escaped the mages." I noted how Saule's voice hitched on the word probably. I took that to mean she wasn't sure. "We can go there—."
"We're going to Itheria," I stated, hands tightening on the wheel again. "We're not stopping."
"But I-I have to get to an alchemist!"
"That's not my problem." I had to get to Itheria. I couldn't afford distractions and wouldn't suffer detours. The witch would have to manage until we were forced to rest.
Saule groaned and kicked at the dash in frustration. The digital clock set in the console waned and flickered, the mechanism controlling it damaged by the mage assault. "Why?" the witch demanded, her face lined with pain. "Why won't you listen?"
I said nothing. Onward the road wound through the sprawling county, its borders clustered with so many different cities. They flashed by on road signs, their size signified only by the number of exits provided for them and the number of suburbs encumbering the hills.
I had little experience with extensive driving, but I'd reviewed numerous maps while hunting the Exordium and the Baal's weapon, and the tenacious nature of my memory remembered the turns and highways that would lead me eastward. Currently on the southbound interstate, I would need to double-back and head north-east, cross the basin, find a pass through the mountains, and traverse the desert.
It would take days to reach the eastern seaboard.
I spotted a connecting highway that swung northward toward my desired passage and went to turn onto it—when the witch suddenly grabbed the wheel, throwing the car from the exit. Horns blared and tires squealed, but we somehow managed to avoid a collision.
"I should fling you from the nearest cliff!" I snapped as I took control of the vehicle again, snatching her cramped hand from the wheel. "Best pray the fall kills you, because if I got my hands on you twice—!"
"Why?" Saule's voice was firmer than I'd thought possible with her egregious trembling. "You're dead-set on going to Itheria, but I would bet my best cauldron you don't give two figs about the Mistress! You don't care about anyone but yourself! So why go to Itheria? What's there for you, demon?"
"Does it matter?" I shifted in my seat, discomfited by her proximity with that infectious lightning burning in her veins. "I only wish to get there, and your presence is convenient. The moment it stops being convenient, I will dump you at the next fuel station and be done with this farce!"
The witch was silent, but only for a moment, her outburst building like pressure waiting to snap a bone. I kept my attention on the road but could sense the general shifting of her calculated thoughts. The witch came off as flighty and dimwitted, what with her off-kilter jargon and her aggravating habit of stuttering when scared or confused, but behind that unreliable façade was a crafty, perceptive priestess who saw and understood more than she let on.
"Sara would be disappointed in you."
Her blow struck true, riling my ire like nothing else could. "Don't you dare think to use her against me!"
"It's the truth!" she shouted in reply, throwing herself back against the door when I whipped around to face her. I would rip her bloody head off! "Coven-clad truth! She w-would have thought you're a jackass!"
"I don't care what Sara would have thought! Sara is dead!"
The words rung through my ears and seem to cut through the wind itself, hanging above my head like a talisman, as if saying so had made it true. I wanted to take the words back, to rip them from the air and devour each syllable, to swallow the poison I had unintentionally spewed. Sara is dead! Yes, Sara was dead, but I refused to let her remain so. That infuriating creature had much to answer for.
By the Pit, I'd never been so conflicted before. I craved simplicity. I wanted to kill something, someone, and to feel with certainty the difference between life and death, to touch the tactile flutter of a waning pulse and to know I had control over it.
What a twisted thing I was.
I struck the steering wheel once, twice, and then a third time, savoring the answering pain that swept through my reddened palms. "Where," I fumed, the word more a statement than a question. "Where."
The witch deflated, her breath leaving her in a tired wail as her spine curled in like a withered leaf. "They live just two hours or so west of Phoenix. I-it's not too far out of the way."
I almost snapped the indicator from its stem when I used it to change lanes. The freeway parted, and the car turned from the swelling sight of Los Angeles behind its morning smog and headed instead toward the eastern mountains and their doddering foothills.
"Thank you," the witch muttered, cringing when fresh sparks lifted from her afflicted limb. "And I'm sorry. That was a cheap shot. I promise I won't use her against you again, alright?"
I watched the road, the white lines blurring to single stripes beneath the car's tires as my fervor evaporated and the cold weight of nothingness replaced it. The chill clawed its way through me until it found my voice and stole all heat for my tone. I spoke with utter assurance and knew my threat was genuine.
"If you do, I will kill you."
Saule didn't speak again.
He stood upon the precipice and stared down from the great height. It was a far ways to fall.
The precipice was both literal and figurative. He was perched at the roof's edge, wings flared to catch the roving gusts that soared so high above the ground below. The city of Verweald spiraled outward from the tower's base like ripples on a still pond, the metal and glass mirroring the brilliance of the sunlight. His nose was filled with the scents of smoke and dust, the hallmarks of wanton destruction.
The figurative precipice the Absolian Aurelius balanced upon was far more daunting than the one before him now. If he were to go much farther in his quest, Aurelius knew there would be no going back. An event horizon of magnificent proportions awaited him, and the Absolian wished to fling himself fully into it. He would not teeter like a clumsy child unsure of his actions.
Aurelius was sure. His conviction was unshakable.
The noonday sun was a white medallion in a sea of unreachable blue, its heat and encompassing embrace better than the ambrosia he would have been sampling had he remained in Iadlim's Aromont. He had almost forgotten what such vivid sunlight felt like.
It was wasted upon this realm.
Aurelius stripped himself of his glamour as to not taint the light's purity. Bone-white talons clicked over his gold buttons as the Absolian stroked a hand across his chest. The long tails of his jacket flapped in the wind while his dark wings remained open, bathing in the welcomed warmth of the sun.
The mortals were shrieking below. He could hear them with ease, despite the howl of the air and the plaintive wail of their sirens. Aurelius did not know why the humans called them sirens, as he had heard the true thing before and did not liken the electronic blaring to the sultry melody of the sea nymphs' call.
In truth, Aurelius understood little of humans. They scurried in such wayward patterns, always lost even when their destination was clear in their minds. Some Absolians wanted to come here to watch the humans, to observe them and their clever ways, while others wanted to take some and keep them as pets. Such things didn't interest Aurelius. This realm was little, as were its people.
The face of the man who'd looked so like his brother flickered behind the Absolian's jaded eyes. He frowned and gnashed his pointed teeth.
Such a thing was not possible. The man had been a mortal, of that Aurelius was certain. Had Darius survived the Rending, he would have been a Sin—but that man wasn't a Sin. He was a human.
Aurelius' talons clicked over his buttons once more.
It wasn't possible. Darius was long dead, his body not but crumbling dust upon the fallow fields of the Pit's dark abyss.
"I am blinded by you," the Absolian admonished as he tilted his head toward the glorious sun. "Oh, the phantoms you conjure before my eyes!"
Even so, the phenomenon warranted investigation on Aurelius' part. Such a curiosity.
Perhaps he would gut the man, as he'd always wished he done with Darius.
For now, the Absolian had bigger aspirations. He rose from his concrete perch and his wings spread wide, invigorated by the light and eager to soar once more above the ravaged landscape. Aurelius had more chaos to unfold, lest his invitation go unheeded by its intended recipient.
He tipped from that precipice and didn't stop himself from falling. His wings pulled him upward, and the Absolian Aurelius soared across the sky.
"Do not keep me waiting...Veleph."