Page 75 of The Malevolent Eight

‘A date.’

‘Adate?’

I pointed to the bustling street, where lanterns were being lit against the falling dusk. ‘That’s likely the only civilised settlement for miles around. We’re both hungry and exhausted. Instead of fighting over who gets to eat at which restaurant, why don’t we share a meal and pretend to be civilised, just for one evening?’

‘You’re also filthy and you smell terrible,’ she pointed out.

‘Right. A bath is definitely in order.’

She placed her hands on her hips, though I noted one was now cocked fetchingly. ‘And do you propose we also share the bath?’

‘Only if you don’t hog the tub. Also, I might need you to scrub my back.’

That last part earned me an actual laugh. If only because the whole idea was utterly preposterous, she eventually conceded that a single evening of civilised socialising wasn’t likely to alter anyone’s destiny. However. . .

‘The first rule,’ she said now, speaking more quickly because neither of us wanted our food to get cold, ‘is that there can be no obligations on either side.’

I considered that a moment. The term ‘obligation’ can carry a lot of different meanings. ‘So, you’re saying you won’t marry me after even if you get me pregnant?’

Oh, Celestines and Devilish take me. Wrong joke. Wrong joke!

I guess a pretty rough ten years since a confused young initiate mage had accidentally found herself on this plane of reality, lost and not yet aware she was pregnant and about to be hunted, tortured and then accidentally attuned to devastating magical forces had inured her to tasteless humour.

‘Even if I get you pregnant with twins,’ she said with just enough of a flicker of amusement to let me know I was off the hook. ‘Whatever happens tonight, it won’t affect our fates. The decisions you’ve made to this point have collapsed your destinies down to a single doom.’ She reached out and took my hand briefly. ‘It’s not a good one, Cade.’

I had a number of short, pithy speeches for moments like this, about how wonderists face death every time they use their abilities, or that I’d been hunted by Glorian Justiciars and demoniacs galore and they’d all failed, or about that time I had sex with the Celestine of Rationality. I didn’t bother with any of them, however.

‘What’s rule number two?’

‘No questions.’

‘I thought we were discussing the rules?’

‘No, I mean, from now until we part in the morning, no matter what else happens between us, you can’t ask me questions about your doom. What’s going to be is going to be and nothing you try to do will change it. Tonight will be the last time we see each other before the end. I. . . It never occurred to me that two people in our position could ever have. . . could ever pretend things were different. I’m glad you suggested this “date” of yours, but it’s nothing but a momentary aberration of our destinies. It really is just pretend, so you have to promise not to ask me any questions about what comes next.’

‘No problem.’

‘Really?’

‘No obligations, no questions. Anything else?’

She didn’t answer at first; I guessed she was wrestling with the situation. I figured for sure she was going to back out. No matter what anyone tells you about fate or inevitability, human entanglements have a way of screwing with destiny. So I was surprised when she stood up, grabbed me by the collar and pulled me upright, then kissed me like the entire world was on fire. ‘Rule three,’ she said, her voice barely more than a breath. ‘We get the food to go.’

And that, friends, is the story of how I faced off against the Lords Celestine, the Lords Devilish, got kidnapped by a cult of weirdo mages, was beaten and tortured only to finally get over my secret obsession with the Celestine of Rationality by spending the night with the most amazing woman I’d ever met just in time for the world to end.

Chapter 42

Rude Awakenings

Eliva’ren turned out to be correct that it wouldn’t be until morning before my crew found me. She had, however, left out three key facts.

The first was that she’d failed to specify exactly how early in the morning they’d arrive, or mention that between Galass’ blood magic and Aradeus’ rodent scouts, they’d come rushing up the stairs of the inn where we’d bedded down for the night and that Corrigan would smash through the oak door with a spell he quite unselfconsciously refers to as his ‘thunderfist’.

So after several days of horrific torture followed by a harrowing escape and an unexpected– if admittedly pleasant– evening out, I woke to a sudden explosion and shards of wood spearing the wall about three inches above my head.

‘Drop to the floor, you vile pricks! No one tortures my best friend while thunder beats within the breast of Corrigan Blight!’

Three days he’d been on the road to get here, all that time practising the lines he’d deliver on finding me, and that was the best he could come up with?

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