Page 60 of Demon Bound

“You are a tool to be used as she decrees for the spreading of darkness and despair. You are death. This is your purpose, just as a stock animal’s purpose is to feed, as a mother’s purpose is to nurture, as a wheel’s purpose is to roll. It is not a decision to make. It is already done.”

Azreth raised a fist and smashed it down into the bloodstained stone basin, crushing it to pieces and cracking the altar beneath. Raiya jumped.

“What do you know of my purpose?” he snarled again, baring sharp teeth. The air wavered visibly with his fury.

The priestess remained admirably composed. “Do you deny your goddess?”

“I care nothing for your goddess.”

There were gasps around the room.

“Blasphemy,” Gereg breathed.

Raiya took Azreth’s arm and started pulling him back down the aisle toward the exit.

“Youwillserve her,” Gereg said. “If you will not do it willingly, then we will break you. You will obey.”

On her command, half of the acolytes in the room raised weapons and chanted spells, as if they’d been prepared for this outcome. The surly acolytes they’d encountered in the hall were in the aisle behind Raiya and Azreth, blocking their escape. One of them was whispering words to a spell, her hands plucking at invisible threads of magic in the air.

“Get out of the way, or I will send you to your goddess,” Azreth said, which Raiya thought demonstrated a vast increase in self-control compared to the first time she’d seen him interact with mortals.

“Submit, demon,” snarled the one in front of them. All at once, all the mages’ voices simultaneously reached a crescendo, and there was an explosion of magic.

A wall of vibrant reddish light rose up from the floor, encircling Azreth in a column of magic.

He pressed a hand to the wall, then pounded on it, to no avail. He was trapped inside, just as he had been in Nirlan’s dungeon.

Horrified, Raiya kicked aside the long rug that spanned the aisle. Carved onto the wood just beneath where Azreth stood was a circle of runes, glowing with the power the mages had just imbued them with.

Fingers raked her sleeve as someone tried to grab her, and she jerked away. She drew her baton, spinning to point it at the cultists. “Stay back!”

The cultists surrounded her. There was not nearly enough power in the baton to stop all of them. Panicked, she turned the baton toward Azreth’s cage and shot. There was an echoing blast and a bright flash as a beam of magic passed through the barrier, but the barrier was still intact, not even scratched. Inside the barrier, Azreth shouted something she couldn’t quite hear. He pointed to the floor.

Fool,she thought.Shoot the runes, not the barrier.

She aimed the baton toward the circle of runes, but then someone grabbed her from behind, and her shot went wide, shooting a blast into the pews nearby. All at once, there were people all around her. As Azreth pounded on the barrier, a hand grabbed her wrist, and yet another grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her away from Azreth. A wall of people formed between her and him.

She stomped down hard on the foot of the cultist behind her until he let go, then swung the weighty baton, clipping one cultist’s jaw and smashing another one in the knee. Swinging thebaton in an arc to ward them off, she backed away, then pointed the baton toward the ceiling. The baton’s runes glowed brighter in her hand, and then a beam of energy shot into the roof above them. The baton’s runes went dark again, spent.

There was a shower of dust, and then a loud crack as wood splintered and stone crumbled. People shouted and scrambled for safety as the roof in the corner of the room collapsed. A cloud of dust billowed from the corner.

Raiya turned and ran. In the confusion, she managed to shove her way to the door. She paused there, glancing back at Azreth. His hands were pressed against the barrier and his eyes were on her. With a grimace, Raiya ran out the door, leaving him behind.

Chapter 19

Raiya stumbled out onto the road and blinked in the thin morning light, still coughing from the dust. The temple was still mostly intact, showing no sign that it would continue to crumble, but it would take a great deal of money and labor to patch the enormous hole in the roof.

“There!” someone shouted, drawing her attention back to the door. A group of cultists were running through the doorway after her. All of them carried knives. They did not look like they meant to take prisoners.

She spun and ran down the road past bewildered bystanders. The cultists quickly gained on her. She hiked up her robe as she sprinted, slipping and nearly falling in a puddle of mud. Normally, she might have called for a Paladin. But in this case, she didn’t trust them not to immediately turn her over to Nirlan.

Her heart was beating out of her chest as she zigzagged through narrow, winding pathways and boardwalks. She heard the cultists fall farther behind after she took several sharp turns, but then one of them appeared in front of her, having circled around to cut her off. She skidded to a stop and turned to run the other way down another side street.

A figure appeared out of thin air in front of her. She gasped, juddering to a stop. It was Madira. His brows came together as he looked her up and down, probably noting the mud and dust and blood.

“Hide me,” she begged, gasping for breath. “Please.”

Madira raised his eyebrows. But then he took Raiya’s arm. Magic ran down her body, shrouding her in darkness. Madira pulled her to the side of the alley, and they stood motionless against the wall, two shadows. Raiya pressed her sleeve to her mouth to muffle her ragged breathing.

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