Silver-white filigree sprang into glowing life within the circle. A multitude of Mzatal’s sigils and . . .
I scrambled to my feet for a better vantage. Barely discernible contours of a human figure spread-eagled like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man—except with the curves of a woman. The interweave of a different sigil defined her subtle shape. As I took it in, her sigils shimmered brighter. Her sigils. My sigil. I honed in on one, followed its lines with my eyes, felt it resonate with my essence.
Laughter. Mine.
I stepped into the circle, lay on my back, aligned with the figure. Arms stretched out to my sides, hands at the level of my crown. Legs straight, feet wide apart.
The starry canopy of the night sky swam above, and the nexus floated me in its lustrous glow. The weariness of the day slipped away. The vibration in my bones eased to a soft hum. Rhyzkahl’s scar at the top of my sternum cooled. A tingle rose from below, surged through me, and the world burst into colors too vivid to be real. Potency flows like rivers of subtle light. Energy that flickered through the treetops and swirled in the air.
Sitting up, I stared in wonder as every plant, every insect, every creature—everything shone with its own signature of potency.
Rhyzkahl cursed in demon. I grinned and called potency to my hand, gathered it into a searing ball on my palm. I understood the first layer of what Mzatal had wrought. On the nexus, the arcane was mine. And more than othersight—lordsight. A lord’s powers, with Rhyzkahl as my battery. An ingenious ritual tethered him to me, and I laughed in delight as I took in the whole of it. Rhyzkahl had insisted on connecting with his sigil scar while in dreamspace, and now he was bound to that very sigil.
Mzatal had more use for him. I could feeeeel it, but the reason evaded me. Revenge with purpose.
Rhyzkahl stood in his orbit, posture rigid, and wearing his best pissed-off face. I spun the potency in my hand and smiled at him. “It must kill you that Mzatal outwitted you to this extent.”
He drew breath to respond, but I raised a barrier of potency between us and cut him off. My own brand of privacy fence. I dissipated the charge in my hand into a thousand iridescent sparks, then eased onto my back again and gazed up at the night sky. It didn’t bother me one bit that I had the arcane only on the nexus. I’d take it as the precious gift it was.
And, off the nexus, I’d kick ass in all other ways. Kara Gillian style.
The moon skimmed the trees, full save for a slim crescent of shadow. To the north, stars shimmered through the muggy night in defiance of the moon’s intrusion. Lightning flashed to the south and rumbled the promise of a coming storm. My gaze drifted between stars and moon, to the potency that danced through the atmosphere, and I reveled in the moment.
A meteor speared across the sky and vaporized in a flash above me. In the shadow of its absence, a trick of light and imagination floated for a heartbeat—a dragon black as the void, with wings outstretched and eyes of silver starlight.