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“I am with you.”

Ingram’s purple sight flashed bright pink in answer, mimicking his kindred’s normal orb colouring.“I know.”

Warmth flared in his chest, knowing his kindred was with him always, but it was suffocated by the snarls and gurgles that drew closer.

They were faster than their foes, but they were growing in number by the hour. They came from everywhere, calling to each other – as though it had been planned.

A snarl reverberated off the wall of trees they sped past.The Demon King.

They couldn’t see the castle, but Ingram still sensed the foreboding structure that loomed in the back of his mind.

The Demon King was nowhere to be seen. He had not come to attack them, but they knew without a doubt this was his doing. The Demons had never banded together like this. It was like anarmyhad been called to destroy them.

This had only begun after they were offered a chance to join the Demon King’s army, and they both had laughed their way through the forest. Laughed and laughed, as they heard his threat in the distance behind them.

A misguided thought from many, many full moons ago.

“Do you think Merikh has anything to do with this?”Ingram asked.

His kindred shook his bat-skulled head.“I do not know.”

Annoyance lifted the spikes going down his back. Why didn’t Aleron know? Why did he never have any of the answers to his questions?

It never registered that Ingram couldn’t answer Aleron’s either – or that they experienced everything at the same time, growing knowledge and humanity simultaneously.

“The Demons began attacking us more forcefully since his disappearance,”Ingram pushed.

Merikh and the pretty Elven creature they’d met had disappeared from his cave almost five full moons ago. They had liked her; she was nice to them. They’d never had anyone outside of Mavka be kind to them.

Ingram had liked the stars in her eyes, and Aleron had liked the smell of her coily white hair.

“Do you think he joined Jabez?”

“I do not know. Would he want us destroyed?”

“Maybe?”Then Aleron thought better of it and answered,“No.”

“No,”Ingram repeated.“He would let us rest in his home.”

“He named us. He always leaves.”

This is true.

Merikh always left his home, unknowing that they would rest there regularly whenever he was gone. It was their safe place – even when he was there and would try to half-heartedly shoo them away.

“Then why is this– Above!”Aleron roared, a moment too late.

A serpent Demon, who had been using the cover of leaves, fell on top of Ingram. Sap was smeared over her, as though the serpent had covered herself in it to hide her scent.

She coiled around him and reared back to sink her fangs into the back of his shoulder. Aleron darted forward and took her venom instead.

She didn’t get the chance to give much, as Ingram twisted his neck one hundred and eighty degrees and launched his maw forward. In just one peck of his raven beak, he took out her throat, and Aleron pried her upper jaw backwards.

Her coiling tail loosened, giving him room to crawl out from underneath her. Aleron dug his claws into the wound Ingram had made, likely ensuring she was dead, but that didn’t stop Ingram from darting forward so he could rip his claws into her spine.

They both pulled, and his claws tore down her body until he found a pair of hip bones. He crushed them as he tore them from her dying body, and part of her spine with it – just as Aleron twisted and removed her head.

She didn’t even have a chance to scream in agony.