Chapter 5 — The Contract
The Slyth moved first.
Of course he did. Twenty feet of demon monarch, a thousand years of being obeyed, and some runt exile had just stolen his vessel in front of him — the sky itself flinched as he reared, and the flame came up his throat like sunrise in reverse.
"THEN PERISH TOGETHER—"
"TOO SLOW, OLD MAN!"
Spark moved.
And here is the thing about the weakest demon in the black plain: you don't survive a thousand years of being weakest by being slow.
The little white rabbit blurred. One instant he was on the ground; the next he was on Kael's shoulder, claws digging in, and Kael got a single heartbeat to register the weight of him — warm, real, faintly vibrating, like a purring engine the size of a loaf of bread.
"Hold still, meat-sack," Spark said, in a voice that had gone suddenly, intensely serious. "This is going to feel weird."
"What is going to feel—"
The Slyth's fire filled the world.
Kael saw it coming — a horizon of crimson flame, the whole red sky collapsing toward him — and every one of his eighteen years screamed at him to run, and there was nowhere to run, so instead he did the thing he did best, the only thing he had ever been good at.
He froze completely.
And Spark dissolved.
One heartbeat the rabbit was on his shoulder. The next, he was smoke — white smoke shot through with violet sparks — and the smoke poured into the brand on Kael's shoulder like water down a drain, and the brand went incandescent, black lines blazing violet-white, and the pain—
'Oh,' Kael thought, in the tiny clear space at the centre of it. 'So THIS is what the warning was for.'
It felt like being rewritten. Every cell annotated. Every nerve re-inked. Something vast and new unfolded inside his skull — not a thought, not a voice, a ROOM. A space in his soul that had always been there, that he had never once noticed, and into that space poured a presence that crackled and snapped and smelled, impossibly, like a summer storm.
The Slyth's fire struck.
And died.
It broke against the blazing brand like a wave against a sea wall — crimson flame splitting around a point of violet light, washing past him on both sides, close enough to curl his hair, close enough to smell, and not touching him, not able to touch him, because you cannot burn what is already, technically, on fire from the inside.
The flame guttered out.
The silence afterward was enormous.
Kael stood in the smoking crater of the moment, untouched, his shoulder blazing violet-white, and inside his brand-new soul-room, a familiar voice stretched out like a cat in a sunbeam and said:
"Oh, this is nice. Bit dusty. Smells like fear and unwashed laundry. We'll redecorate."
'Spark?' Kael thought.
"You get used to the head-voice," said the head-voice. "Or you go mad. Honestly, six of one."
'You bound with me.'
"You said the rabbit seemed nice. Those were literally your words. A contract sealed on 'the rabbit seems nice.' The other summoners get sacred oaths, ancient vows, blood on altars. I get 'seems nice.'" A pause, smug enough to curdle milk. "I'll treasure it forever."
Above them, the Slyth had not moved.
He stood at his full twenty feet, bone wings spread against the red sky, four furnace-eyes fixed on the boy and the blazing brand, and when he spoke again, the rage was gone from his voice.
What replaced it was worse. It was calm.
"A Devil-Viper Bunny," the Slyth said. "The contract of a monarch, carried by the least beast of my realm. A soul I have waited a thousand years to claim... bonded to a parasite." The vast head lowered, slow as a glacier, until the four eyes filled Kael's world. "Hear me, Kael Vance. The binding is done and cannot be undone — but the binding is NOT the end of my claim. You carry my brand. That brand is a door into your soul, and doors, little vessel, can be opened from either side."
The bone wings fanned wider. The red sky darkened.
"I will not kill you today. Killing you now would break the contract my brand has made, and I am bound by older laws than you can imagine. But you cannot stay in my realm forever — and you cannot hide in yours." The furnace-throat glowed, soft and patient and eternal. "Grow strong, little soul. Grow so very strong. I will be waiting at the door. And when it opens—"
"BLAH BLAH BLAH," said Spark, from inside Kael's skull, at a volume that somehow, impossibly, carried. "You said all this four hundred years ago to the last guy, didn't you? I bet you practised in a puddle."
The Slyth's eye twitched.
It was, Kael would learn later, the single most satisfying facial expression in the recorded history of two worlds.
"Gatewardens!" Spark shouted — and Kael felt the brand on his shoulder flare in answer, the contract humming, the thin silver thread of the Rite pulling taut between two worlds. "He's contracted! He's alive! PULL HIM OUT BEFORE THE LIZARD WRITES ANOTHER SPEECH—"
The red sky folded.
The Slyth's roar chased him down the silver thread — not words, just fury, pure and ancient and loud enough to shake the bones of worlds.
And then Kael Vance slammed back into his body on the stone platform, gasping, kneeling, alive —
— with white hair falling into his eyes, and a pair of blood-red pupils staring out of his reflection in the first Gatewarden's wide, wet-newspaper eyes.
The two Gloomy Guses stared at him.
"...He survived," whispered Kyle.
"He survived," whispered Lucas.
And from inside Kael's skull, smug and exhausted and pleased beyond all reason:
"WE," said Spark, "survived."