Forged of Shadows: A Novel of the Marked Souls by Jessa Slade Page A

reluctant respect. Like all incoming talyan, she had to be confused and scared, but unlike some tyros he’d dealt with, she hadn’t collapsed in a catatonic trance, overwhelmed by the teshuva’s energies. Instead, he suspected her teshuva was going to have its hands full reining her in. Much as he himself would.
    Refusing to indulge the image of his hands full of her, he gave a deliberately casual shrug. “When you change your mind about the weapon . . .”
    “I’ll be sure to let you know.”
    He withheld a snort. She’d voluntarily admit to anything that smacked of weakness only after a snowball survived August in Chicago. Which was even less promising than its chances in hell.
    She marched out of the weapons room but paused as he closed the door. “Sera said I’d meet the rest of the crew.”
    He hesitated, picturing the predatory interest of his wayward, womanless fighters. “Later. They’re recovering from last night’s battles.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he added sharply, “You’ll be one of them soon enough.”
    From the defiant flicker of violet in her eyes—obvious in the basement gloom—he thought soon might come even sooner. Instead of stopping at the main floor, he continued up, their steps clanging on the steel treads, until they reached the roof. He shoved open the access door to a swirl of frigid March air.
    Thin clouds blanked the sun into a matte white disk that leached the dimensions from the surrounding industrial district. The gray-walled buildings looked flat as cardboard cutouts. Even the graffiti, unreadable at this distance, assuming it was ever readable, had dulled.
    The wind rattled Jilly’s blue-spiked hair but couldn’t bend it. “King of all you survey, hmm?”
    “Not even a knight,” he demurred. “I want you to see what we’re fighting for.”
    “We’ll be hailed as conquering heroes, no doubt.”
    He shook his head. This part of the test was always hard for the tyros to swallow. “No one besides us will ever know. Demons stalk the Magnificent Mile as often as the South Side, but the battleground doesn’t matter.”
    “Not so different from my day job. I did three-quarters of my work on the street anyway. And just like those horde-tenebrae, the kids are half invisible to most people. Hell, most people didn’t even see me .”
    Did she truly understand, or was this more of her bravado? Against the bleak landscape, her bright hair and warm skin tones gleamed. “They’d see plenty more hell if not for us.” He curled his fingers into fists to stop himself from reaching out to her and tilted his face to the sky. “Unfortunately, this is as close as you’ll get to heaven.”
    She pivoted to face him. The wind bit through his shirt and he knew she must be equally chilled, but she stood without shivering. Though the top of her head didn’t even reach his shoulder, she sized herself against him with a long, slow look even more deliberate than the one he’d given her. Was it his imagination, or did she linger over places a good repentant demon should make him forget?
    She breathed out a soft noise that left him no indication which way she had judged him. “This close, huh? And I haven’t even been properly damned yet.”
    She took a step forward, tilting her head as if to get another perspective.
    He tightened his hands into fists at his side, not against the cold, but against a rising heat that seemed to spark off those spiced eyes. “You will be. Soon.” Obviously some demon was at work that she would tease him so.
    “We have hours before nightfall,” she said. “Hours before I can meet your fighters. Or my demon. So let’s go. Show me something to make me believe I have a better chance if I join you.”
    And that latent demon in her apparently still had power to call to him, because he—who of all the talyan should know better than to give in to temptation—followed her.

CHAPTER 5
    Jilly tried not to feel him like a shadow at her back, dark