Page 61 of Bound and Tide

“What about you is there to possibly love?”

Xander swallowed, but there were no tears left to escape. “You gave me this though”—he gestured weakly to the vial with the blade—“because you knew how much I didn’t like cutting myself. I thought that meant that maybe…”

“Barely any different than shoving a tit in your mouth so you would stop wailing as an infant. That thing was a kindness you didn’t deserve but a necessity to keep you compliant, nothing more.”

And it had kept him compliant. He had filled it with his blood though he hated to cut himself, and he had never taken it off because she had told him that he couldn’t, wearing it proudly even, like a talisman.

Xander’s arm fell to his side as his head cocked. For all the names Birzuma called him and for all the horrible things she accused him of, there was one that she was right about. “Oh, gods, I am bloody stupid, aren’t I?”

If she had anything to say to that, it was silenced with a gasp as he wrapped a hand around the vial hanging from his neck and pulled the cord taut. “What are you doing?”

He brought the obsidian blade to the leather. “You can have it back.” Then with a single stroke, he severed the cord.

Panic flashed in the demon’s eyes, so strange on her face and yet so satisfying. “Don’t be hasty,” she hissed.

“Don’t you want it though? Don’t you want me to be strong and independent and to cut into myself all on my own instead of relying on this and on you and your mercy?”

“I gave you that because you needed it,” she said, voice tight, the torchlight suddenly flickering back to life behind him and casting the chamber with a warmer glow. “I wanted to protect you like any good mother would.”

“You gave me this to control me, and I’ve been a fool to not see it until now.” He sputtered out a laugh though there was hardly any joy in it. “This is what allows you to spy on me and say awful things into my mind and to hurt me. This is what ties us together.”

Birzuma the Blasphemed took a deep breath, shoulders pulling back, voice going just a hair sweeter. “Xander, listen to me, I—”

But he had already dropped the vial, and the moment the enchanted glass hit the pure noxscura, it was swallowed whole. There was only one distant scream before Birzuma’s face was gone from the rift, and then Xander was left there alone below the Temple of Osurehm, and for once the loneliness felt…good.

It was his turn to take a deep breath, and without the vial around his neck, the wounds all over his body began to heal. The pace was rapid, as if the noxscura that had been chaotically churning in his veins for moons finally knew its purpose once again and was eager to fulfill it. His body was flooded with vigor, and he inhaled new life, closing his eyes and feeling whole.

And then the ground began to shake.

“Really? Can you not hold it to-bloody-gether long enough for me to have just a little gratification?”

The old Xander Sephiran Shadowhart almost never ran—it was far too unbecoming—but he was a changed man now. And also, things were about to go all cave-in-y.

He gave the rift the most cursory of glances before he spun and sprinted for the ramp upward. The pure noxscura was eating itself, he could feel the unholy magic devouring the extraordinary arcana that had been dropped into it—a spell created by a demon to never break and to control offered up to a pit that only wanted to destroy and run amok. The two things simply could not coexist, and so they would consume one another until there was nothing left.

If he stuck around, Xander would be caught up in the mess, so running was his only option, and yet he skidded to a halt. “What am I thinking?” He darted back to the little chamber and snatched his coat because, even with the tear up the back and the stains, it was still a bloody nice coat and someone could certainly fix it with enough coin. And then Xander truly ran.

Chapter 26

THE ONLY TIME A MAN CAN BE BRAVE

“The earth is displeased,” called the elf. “There will be no coming back if you go.”

“I don’t care—just get the two of them out of here!” Evangeline was running even as the trembling floor of the temple tried to pitch her on her ass. She knew she should have never let Xander go down into the darkness all by himself. He was probably hurt and unconscious and trapped, and it would be her fault if she didn’t get to him before—

“Darling!” Xander came bursting up out of the stairwell at the corridor’s end and collided with her. His arms wrapped about her waist and the two spun in place as his mouth found her own. Evangeline was so shocked, she barely managed to kiss him back under the duress of the crumbling temple and the fact he looked like the absolute Abyss.

“What happened to you?” she breathed, hands scrambling all over his skin, slick with blood and covered in welts.

“No time, whole place is about to come down, but I promise to regale you later. Care to accompany me in fleeing?”

But they were already running hand-in-hand back the way she’d come toward the temple doors where Maia, Costa, the imps, and the elven guardian were urging them to speed it up.

A column to their right cracked, stone exploding with a deafening sound. Something behind them tumbled, and all at once the massive windows shattered. Evangeline shrieked as she pushed forward, splintering glass about to cross paths with their only escape route. But shadows beat the shrapnel, a wall of hazy blackness keeping the detritus at bay. Her lungs burned as the two sped the length of the temple unheeded, and they crossed the threshold just as the door frame gave way and collapsed on itself.

They did not meet the undead Holy Knights in the courtyard as she expected, but rather just dead ones, every body crumpled and rotting. Chaos continued to unfold outside, ironwood tree limbs groaning as they wrapped around the stone fence they’d tried so desperately to breach and crush. The black bark shook like a dog breaking the neck of its prey, scattering stone everywhere. Xander pulled her to a stop and called for the others in the courtyard’s middle, as far from the chaos as possible.

“We must leave this place,” said the elf as she attempted to remain stoic amongst trees she trusted in going feral.

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