Which was a fat lot of help. I frowned, and tried sending calming thoughts her way. Her hissing only increased, and it felt oddly like she was telling me to get fucked. It would be just my luck to get a sword with attitude.
So I did the next best thing—I mentally promised her plenty of blood in the near future. She made several hissy, grumbling-type sounds, then quietened. A glance over my shoulder revealed that the flames were similarly calming.
Now all I had to do was hope I could keep the promise.
"Given that this attack was probably little more than a first foray," Azriel said grimly, "I have no doubt that you will."
We came out on Southbank Promenade and turned toward the underground parking at the arts center. He finally released his grip on my hand, but the warmth of his touch lingered.
"Who the hell would be sending Ania against us?" I glanced around to see if anyone was watching, then hitched up my dress and squeezed as much water from it as I could.
"They weren't sent against us," he said grimly. "They were sent to retrieve you."
"That's not what I asked." I smoothed the dress back down, but it continued to drip.
Azriel acknowledged my point with a slight nod. He hadn't put Valdis away yet, and the sword still glowed with angry-looking blue fire. I very much suspected it was a reaction to his emotions rather than any sense of lurking danger.
"It could be your father, it could be the Raziq, it could even be whoever stole the first key." He shrugged and finally sheathed Valdis.
"My father has so far preferred to do his own dirty work, and the Raziq have always sent their Razan." Razan were basically the long-lived human slaves of the Raziq, the secret group of Aedh priests who were apparently dedicated to finding a way to permanently close the portals between this world and the next. And, in the process, possibly destroy us all.
After all, if no souls could move on, then no souls could be reborn. And if there was no soul, then there could be no spark of life. The thought of babies being little more than lumps of meat, without inner life or any sort of hope, made me shudder.
It was the Raziq who had developed the keys, but my father had arranged for them to be stolen before the Raziq could put their plan into action—but whatever he'd intended had also gone awry, because the people who'd stolen the keys had died before they could tell anyone the exact location of them.
Why, exactly, my father had the keys stolen when he showed as little consideration for humanity as the Raziq did was something I'd yet to figure out. Especially when he kept saying he wanted me to find and destroy the keys, and yet had gotten dangerously annoyed when I'd suggested that leaving the damn things hidden was probably safer for everyone.
"I did mind-read one of the Ania during the attack," Azriel said. "The creature did not know who summoned it."