Starborn. Katie MacAlister
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of the Unseen Shadow, the Master of the Dark.”
“I have not heard of this,” Deo said, frowning. He disliked it when people had knowledge that they withheld from him. “Who is this master?”
Nezu, the chaos magic whispered in his mind.
The name told him nothing. He was about to ask Racin who Nezu was when the captain did something he hadn’t done since the last time Deo had taunted him. He stepped into the cell. Just one foot crossed the threshold, but it was enough.
The magic roared to life within Deo; the runes etched into the harness across his chest and bound on silver bands around his wrists and ankles lit up with a pale golden light. Rage boiled inside him that quickly narrowed into one bright, glittering intention: destruction of all things.
Kill, the magic said, and with that one word, power flowed through his blood, making him burn from the inside. Kill the Speaker. Kill them all. Destroy this place, and become stronger, become what you are meant to be.
The fire in his veins grew until it felt as if he was going to explode into a million white-hot embers.
Embrace it. Use it. Kill the Speaker. Kill the unworthy. Cleanse the world and take your rightful place as master of it all.
With a snarl of pain, Deo fought to control the urge that almost maddened him…and that threatened to consume him body and soul.
The stone walls around him began to smoke and tremble, and Deo, desperate to avoid a repetition of the destruction of twenty-seven innocent Shadowborn, spun around and allowed the chaos power to burst out of him, blowing out the wall of the cell with a percussive blast that momentarily deafened him.
The power in him rejoiced, flooding every iota of his being with a delirious sense of invincibility.
As the noise of the crumbled wall and cries of people outside the wall faded, the air shifted behind him, and before Deo could leash the magic that claimed him, he was at the door, Racin’s throat in his hand. His fingers dug deep into the red flesh, but he felt no satisfaction. Rather than showing fear, Racin laughed, and slammed a red wave of pain into Deo, sending him flying backward into the rubble of what had once been a foot-thick wall.
“Do you think to try your puny powers on me, savior of the Fourth Age?” Racin asked, his voice as rough as the sharp mortar and stone that pierced Deo’s back. “I am the Speaker of the Unseen. I walk in shadows, with death at my side. There is nothing you can do to me, as by now I would have thought you would know. This attempt proves once again that you are an insignificant insect, as worthless as the dirt beneath my feet.”
Deo snarled an oath. He hated it when people referred to him by the savior title. Moving with care in order to determine how badly he was injured, he got to his feet, his movements slowed by the tendrils of red chaos power that all but shackled his arms and legs.
End this now, the power said to him, filling him again with the heat of a thousand suns.
“I will,” he ground out, but rather than directing the power outward, he lifted his head and held Racin’s gaze while he allowed the power to slip just enough to encase him in a pale golden-red glow. It burned through the chaos bonds, then faded, the murderous rage once again controlled by the runes bound upon him. He made a mental note to add a few more, since he hadn’t liked how close he’d come to giving in to the voice in his mind.
Always you fight me. And we could be so successful together…
The smirk that curled Racin’s lips slipped as he beheld Deo marching toward him, free of the bondage of red chaos. He went so far as to step back, wariness tinging his black eyes when Deo brushed past him, heading to the cell across the narrow passageway.
Deo looked around the cell. It had a view that looked out onto a valley in the distance. He nodded twice and said in a voice filled with the arrogance natural to him, “This will do. Have a servant fetch my things.”
Racin spat out an invective, and before Deo registered that the larger man had moved, was confronted by his captor, chaos snapping in waves down Racin’s body. “You think to dictate to me?” he roared, making Deo’s ears ring.
Pain laced his body, flaying him as no whip ever could, the magic that Racin poured over Deo cutting through flesh and muscle until it threatened to break his very bones.
His own version of that magic, sensing the threat, came to life a second time, and gratefully, Deo pulled on it to buffer him from the worst of the assault.
One corner of his mind absently wondered how and why his chaos had changed into something unique, but Deo had little patience for pondering the unknown, preferring instead to deal with whatever was in front of him.
He ignored the chanting voice in his head urging him to do the most heinous acts, added another prayer to Kiriah and Bellias that his mastery over the power wouldn’t fade in the face of Racin’s attack, and gritted his teeth, bowing his head as he focused.
Dimly he heard a voice calling his name; then Racin and the waves of red, pulsing pain were gone.
“Stop! You will bring the whole temple down upon us. Already the rocks at the base of the temple are cracking. Deo, control yourself. My lord Racin, there are surely more important matters claiming your time than chastising my son.” Dasa’s words, spoken with a lightness that was belied by the anger in her eyes, did their work nonetheless, for Racin gave in to the restraining hand on his arm, and took a step back.
“Your whelp thought to challenge me,” Racin snarled, his eyes narrowing on her. “Again.”
“He does it simply because he knows it bothers you,” Dasa told him, her gaze locked on the monster.
Deo, who once again had control of himself, felt his lip curl with disgust. The fact that his mother, the greatest warrior of the third age, and queen of the Starborn, could consort with such an abomination as Racin turned his stomach.
“He goes too far.” Racin all but spat the words at Dasa.
She didn’t react. Deo had to give her credit for that, although it bespoke a familiarity that did nothing to calm his unhappy belly. He wondered for a moment what his father would do when he heard of the queen’s perfidy and decided that he wanted to be there when Israel Langton was told.
“I will speak to him,” Dasa said, her voice weary with exasperation. She urged Racin from the cell. “My time will not be wasted as yours would be should you wish to lesson him. Again.”
Deo smiled. The only other time Racin had thought to teach him his place in Eris, Deo had destroyed not just the citadel within which he’d been imprisoned, but half the mountaintop city as well.
With that act came the deaths of innocents, though. His smiled faded at that memory.
The magic within him stirred, but remained quiet.
Racin continued protesting, throwing threats at Deo, but at last the queen had him out of the temple and on his way back to Skystead. Deo stood gazing out of the small window, his eyes on the valley spread out below him.
“Did you have to do that?”
Deo stiffened at the censure in his mother’s voice, then forced himself to relax. “As a matter of fact, I kept myself from killing him. Do you not wish to thank me for that?”
“Thank you?” Dasa strode into the small cell, grabbed his arm and spun him around to confront her ire. “For almost ruining everything we’ve worked for? I ought to smite you where you stand. It would cause me considerably less aggravation than trying to teach you to heed the common sense that you were evidently born without.”
“You would know,” he said, allowing an ironic little smile to play about his lips.
She looked as if she wanted to strike him, but managed to get her temper under control. “The issue of your upbringing under your father’s care aside, what did you hope to gain by challenging Racin? You know full well you can’t destroy him on your own. Are you as mad as the