Stormbringer’s primal fury, and thus those from the sort of heaven Jihan’s father ruled.
Or thus, at any rate, Tempus understood it. The god in him understood something different-something of passion inbound and lust unreleased.
There was a something in there all right, the god was telling him: something very hungry and very angry.
Whatever it was-Nisibisi witch, a ravening ghost thereof, a demon entrapped, a shard of Nisi power globe-it hadn’t survived in there since winter’s end on stored foodstuffs and the occasional mouse.
If it was Roxane, behind Ischade’s iron wards that not even the rip in magic’s fabric could weaken, then the Unbinding would have to be carefully done. If it was Something Else, Tempus was prepared to give it battle-he’d once fought
Jihan’s own storm-cold father to a draw over matters he had less stake in.
Snapper Jo scuttled up to the Tros horse by which Tempus stood, the fiend’s knuckles nearly dragging on the ground, its snaggle teeth gleaming in the torchlight: “Sire,” it grunted, “see her? Snapper can’t tell.” The fiend, in its distress, ramped like a bear-side to side, side to side. “Mistress won’t like, won’t like… Snapper go now?”
“Did you place the stone. Snapper?” The stone’in question was a bluish gem, crazed and fractured, Ischade had given Crit. For what payment, when the stone would help release her enemy and perhaps release Straton, too, for duty to the east, Tempus hadn’t asked.
And Crit never made excuses. But there’d been no soldierly cursing, no banter between the Stepsons here this evening. When Randal had come by briefly, to say