Free Realm of Light by Deborah Chester

harder.
    Tightening his lips
against harsh words he did not dare utter, he turned away and looked once again
at the spokesman of the demons.
    “Legion,” he said,
“I will—”
    “Stop!” Elandra
cried. She kicked the horse and rode closer until the trembling animal balked.
Imperiously, her eyes flashing “with anger, she glared at Caelan. “You mad
fool, what are you doing? Have you lost all conscience? You cannot bargain with
darkness and—”
    “Silence!” he
yelled back at her. “This has nothing to do with you.”
    “I command you—”
    “Not here!” he snapped,
enraged at how every word she uttered destroyed more of the lie he had built
between himself and the demons. Why couldn’t she understand the need for
caution, the need for silence? Let Legion think what they wanted. Doing so was
to Caelan’s—and Elandra’s—advantage.
    Unwilling to let
her say anything else, he severed her, wrapping her in cold isolation.
He did it without thinking, pushing her partway into the void without warning
or preparation. He had never done this to a person before. He had never
realized he could, but it was necessary.
    Elandra’s eyes
widened with astonishment and her mouth opened, but she could not speak.
    It was a strain to
hold her so. For the first time since he’d swum the river, he felt beads of
perspiration pop out across his forehead.
    Feeling her mind
and emotions lash out against his control, Caelan knew he could not hold her
long. Fiercely he turned on Legion. “Tell me now,” he said harshly. “What is
your answer? Do we have a bargain, or not?”
    There were
suspicious hisses and much jostling among the demons in the back. At least
fifty or more were present now, red-eyed and semihostile. They kept staring at
Elandra, and Caelan felt increasingly uneasy.
    “Warm-blood,” the
spokesman said at last. It drew back a step from Caelan and no longer looked
reverent. “With other warm-blood, now not under spell of protection. No
warm-bloods may cross the river. She is our meat.”
    Fear stabbed
through Caelan. To hide it, he raised his sword and scowled at them. “Would you
rather feed on one woman instead of the many warm-bloods I will give you? Let
her go, and I will free you.”
    The spokesman drew
back angrily and bared its fangs. “Trick!” it cried.
    Just as it struck,
however, Caelan brought down his sword in one clean, heavy stroke. The spokesman’s
body, severed in half, went spinning in two directions.
    Blood, black and
foul-smelling, spilled from the two halves.
    From the pooling
blood emerged tiny demons, at least a dozen, hopping and furious.
    Caelan stepped
back, realizing he could not fight them the usual way.
    But there was
another way to kill them, a way he had never used before. He had always feared
the power, knowing that if he ever used it he would want it again.
    But the demons
were rocking back and forth on their haunches now, tongues flickering, tails
lashing. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” they chanted, clearly working themselves into a
frenzy while the tiny demons grew larger with every passing second.
    Caelan released
Elandra and entered severance himself, plunging deeply into its coldness
until he hardly knew himself, hardly remembered what he was or had been. Before
him crouched the demon horde, a hundred now and more coming. Their guttural
shouts and hisses filled the air, but he hardly heard the sound.
    Rushing past him,
they surrounded Elandra. Her horse reared, but the demons pulled the animal
down, ripping it apart as others swarmed Elandra. She screamed.
    Caelan could see
the threads of life, black and knotty, stretching to something hidden beyond
the mist at the edges of his vision. He wanted to see no farther, wanted to
know nothing about what the threads were connected to.
    Caelan severed the threads of life, cutting off the two demons first, then slashing in a broad
swathe at the others.
    Terrible screams
filled the air. He snapped out of severance and saw blackened,