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Fifteen

I t was not until they were on the road to Ontag-ul again that, after far too many days of abstaining, Azreth finally worked up the courage to sleep.

No, that wasn’t accurate. He never really gained the courage—just the desperation. Even demons couldn’t go without rest forever.

So many horrible things could be done to an unconscious person. He feared sleeping more than almost any other task in life. But he didn’t fear Raiya. Or at least, he feared her less than he feared anyone else, mortal or demon. Was he a fool to feel that way?

He dreamed of brown eyes, tawny skin, and expressive black brows.In the dream, he felt happy. Had he ever felt happy before?

He couldn’t recall the woman’s name, but he knew they were companions, and he was glad she was with him. They were together on the ground in his cave in the fourth hell, resting in the warm, dark earth. She was smiling at him.Their hands touched. She rolled closer, leaning into him, entwining their bodies. He held her close, pressing his face close to hers.

And then, to his horror, he felt his teeth sinking into her flesh. He tried to stop, but his jaw would not unclench. He held her down and bit clean through her neck, ignoring her struggles. Her warm, fragrant blood burst from the wound, spilling over both of them. She was going to die.

He pulled back, agonized. Why had he done this?Why hadn’t he just stopped?

And then, pain cut across his throat. Looking down, he found an iron dagger in the woman’s hand. Each of them had secretly plotted against the other.

She raised the dagger and stabbed again and again with strength that only seemed to increase as she neared death. Her head was at a grotesque angle, mostly separated from her body, but her expression was cold and calculating. Pain came in bursts where the blade hit him. He didn’t try to stop her.

Azreth awoke suddenly. The dark blue sky, dotted with stars and turning lavender on the horizon, stretched above him. Cool, watery air filled his lungs. His heart was pounding.

Raiya was sitting beside him, legs stretched out casually in front of her, her baton on her lap. She gave him an easy smile. “Good morning.”

He stared at her dumbly, which seemed to amuse her.

“Do you feel better?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

He glanced down at his hand, checking the runes. She would have had time to paint new ones on him while he slept, if she’d wanted. Maybe she could even have found a way to channel magic into them and activate them, to curse him in some new way that would serve her. But even before he looked, he’d known that nothing in his body had changed. No new magics had attached themselves to him, and no part of him was injured.

She hadn’t touched him. She’d sat beside him, protecting him. And she casually said good morning, like it was nothing.

In retrospect, that may have been the moment when he’d begun to fall in love with her.

Raiya checked his hand, as she did each morning. She said she wanted to make sure the enchantment was not changing. He had begun to feel a strange, nervous anticipation for the examination each morning. He was not afraid, but his heart raced and his nerves lit up when she came toward him.

She held his hand in both of hers, her thumbs pressing down on the edges of his palm. He felt hyperaware of her touch: the temperature of her fingers, the texture of her skin, and the tiny movements of muscles and tendons in her hands. Her hands were cold from the early morning air, and her fingers were thin but dexterous and precise in their movements.

“It looks much the same,” she said thoughtfully. “Unfortunate.”

He watched the top of her head as she tilted his hand to let the faint runes catch the light. “Why is that unfortunate?”

She shrugged, releasing his hand. “I had hoped it might start to fade. The enchantment wasn’t completed, after all, so it was possible it wouldn’t hold. But it looks like the gods haven’t favored us.”

“Have the gods ever favored us?” he asked dryly.

She laughed. Another odd, nervous feeling went through him at the sound.“No, I think not.”

He didn’t realize until afterward that he’d called them us. He had never been part of an us before.

* * *

It was night when they finally arrived in the city of Ontag-ul, and water was falling from the sky.

He first noticed it when something tapped against one of his horns. He reached up to brush it away, thinking it was an insect, and his hand came away wet. When he looked up, he realized there were tiny drops of liquid pelting the ground around him. He reached for Raiya’s arm.

“It’s rain,” she said, having already guessed the reason for his alarm. “Another thing you don’t have in the hells?”

He looked up, trying to find the origin of the water. The open, cloudy sky sprawled above them.“Is it a magical anomaly?” he asked, thinking of the bursts of dangerous, chaotic magic that occasionally appeared in the hells.

Raiya smiled. She never tired of his questions about her plane. She was what mortals called an academic: a person devoted to study. At first, he’d thought she would look down on him for his ignorance. But after a while, he’d realized that she seemed to like people who asked questions more than people who didn’t. “No. It’s a gift from Astra from when she created the world. We’d die without it.”

“Then it’s not dangerous?”

“Not if you don’t get stuck in it for too long.”

Ontag-ul was even more populated than the Roamer camp had been, but with more space, and more alcoves and pathways to take refuge in. It was darker and quieter, and he could go unnoticed more easily, observing its inhabitants from a safe distance. He liked it better here.

When he said as much, Raiya replied, “Or maybe you’ve just become accustomed to being around mortals. We don’t frighten you anymore.”

“I was never frightened,” he said evenly.

“Perhaps you’re just starting to like our plane, then.”

“No.”

She just hummed noncommittally.

He had to admit that he found the city fascinating. Their buildings were made of tree matter, bundled grasses, and clay tiles. Stone paths snaked through tight outdoor corridors lit by hanging lanterns and torches. It smelled wet and green and alive. Dark green trees and vines crowded around the buildings, as if the city had sprouted from a garden. Maybe it had? He had no idea how mortal cities came to be.

The place was filled with wild plants, colorful draping fabric and tooled leather, and stones with inlaid bits of metal. It reminded him of the Roamers’ tents and carpets and clothing, all made with a huge variety of patterns of color and texture.

It all made him feel mildly frustrated in the same way the Roamer camp had frustrated him. “This city is not very defensible, aside from the wall,” he commented.

“I think it’s very pretty,” Raiya replied.

“Pretty?”

She gestured around them. “The architecture. The plants. Do you have artists in the hells?”

The word floated in his mind, lacking form. He understood it, but not really. “What is an artist?”

Raiya’s face pinched ever so slightly. She pitied him. She often looked at him like this, though she tried to hide it.

“It’s a person who makes beautiful things for a living,” she explained. She pointed to the intricate wooden lattice that covered the window of the building beside them. “These details serve no defensive purpose. They exist just to be beautiful. Because they’re nice to look at, and they make you feel at home. Things like that are made by artists and artisans.”

Azreth reached out and touched the latticework. He had crafted tools from wood and stone before, but nothing like this, which must have required such skill and time and imagination. It was a complex array of wood, lovingly shaped into organic patterns resembling flowers and leaves and animals, arranged so perfectly that it looked as if their goddess Astra might have made the wood grow that way.

Rain water was dripping through a crack in the roof, down the lattice, and a damp, green trail had grown there. The water would erode the wood and eventually it would decay into nothing, but it would still outlast the mortal who’d carved it. Perhaps that person was already gone.

Azreth looked at it for a long time. And he realized maybe Raiya was right to pity him.

Mortals didn’t waste their lives fighting each other like the kin did. They spent their time creating instead of destroying, building things that were pretty and comfortable and thoughtful instead of merely strong. There was more to their lives than just survival.

He felt deep sorrow as he contemplated that. He felt a sense of loss.

“Demons don’t think about the beauty of things.” His voice sounded remote, even to himself.

“What about you?” Raiya asked. “Do you think about beauty?”

He looked down at her. One of her smooth, dark, beautiful brows was arched at him. Knowing. Almost accusing. Waiting for him to acknowledge what was obvious.

He supposed he did think about beauty sometimes, after all.

* * *

Just when he’d started to fear he liked this city, they entered an inn.

It was busy and loud and filled with people carrying weapons and people who eyed them too long—or, in the case of the owner, insulted them to their faces. He was relieved when Raiya told him to wait in their rented room while she went to retrieve food.

But once she left, he began thinking of all the people crowding the main room of the inn. People with weapons. Men who had looked at him with envy. Men who had made her shrink with worry.

He sat on the bed and waited a short while, and then he got to his feet again, glamouring himself as he went out the door.

He half expected to run into her on the other side of the door, but the hallway was empty. Nor was she in the main room of the inn.

She would say he was overreacting, and that there was no danger. There was rarely danger in the mortal world, it seemed. Mortals were mostly kind to each other. She had probably just gone outside, and any moment now she would come back in and laugh at him for worrying.

But then he imagined someone dragging her away while she struggled. He recalled Nirlan shoving her into his cage, and the Paladin who’d nearly crushed the life out of her.

He weaved through the crowded room and exited onto the dark street.

He stood very still, listening. A stream of rainwater flowed from the corner of the eaves and pattered against the muddy ground. People chattered as they darted along the street, pulling hoods over their heads to keep out the rain. Everything was calm.

Then he heard a burst of something magical in the distance. Over the tops of the tiled roofs across the street, there was a faint flash of blue light.

Raiya’s baton.

His heart sped to a buzz. Raising his hands, he gathered magic.

Sparkling fractals of magic energy crackled at his fingertips as he wove them into a spell. He felt magic tingling at his scapulae, and then the magic solidified into the shape of draconic wings made of magenta light.

The people on the street stopped and stared. Azreth stretched the wings, adjusting to the unfamiliar sensation of straining muscles in his back and the resistance of air beneath him, and then he launched into the sky.

He almost fell from the air on the second flap of the wings. It had been months since he’d used them. Demons of the fourth hell were not born with wings. He’d first summoned them as an experiment based on the spell he’d designed to replace his arm, and he’d had to learn to fly on his own. But it was by far the fastest way for him to get from one place to another.

It didn’t take him long to regain his balance. He rose above the buildings, then landed on a rooftop where he could see more of the city. His gaze was drawn to a tangle of movement on the next street. A group of men in Paladin’s armor were jostling below.

A shock went through him when he spotted Raiya—though he barely recognized her. The Paladins were holding her while she struggled. Her face was a mess of angry tears. He was too far away to feel her emotions, but somehow he felt them anyway, and her rage became his own.

He dove from the rooftop.

They saw him coming just before he landed. The Paladin he was aiming for looked up, and Azreth crashed into him, pinning him to the ground before putting a fist through his chest.He resisted the urge to punch him again and again—the man was already dead.

He spun toward Raiya. The Paladin who’d been holding her was backing away, drawing an iron sword. Azreth strode forward and grabbed him by the arm. There was a click as the man’s arm dislocated from his shoulder, and he flew like a rag doll when Azreth threw him across the road.

Rapid footsteps hit the muddy ground behind him, and he twisted to avoid the end of an iron-tipped spear. At the same time, he heard the snap of a bowstring releasing.

The spear wielder’s momentum carried him in front of Azreth, and Azreth picked him up by the back of his cuirass. With a flap of his wings to pull him out of the path of the archer’s arrow, he hurled the spear wielder across the street, into the archer. Both of them hit the ground in a metallic heap.

Bystanders screamed and ran. The remaining Paladins retreated with them.

Azreth turned to Raiya, breathless. He scanned her, head to toe, checking for injuries, and saw none. Her face softened as she looked at him, rain mixing with the tear tracks on her face. As everyone else ran from him, she started toward him.

Azreth began to go to her, then stopped. He sensed the human lord before he saw him, somehow—not through any magical means, but some other unconscious animal awareness. He’d only ever seen one person make Raiya this furious and sad before; maybe that was how he knew.

When he turned around, he found Nirlan Han-gal standing a dozen steps behind him.

Azreth stiffened. A strange sense of dread filled him, rooting his feet to the ground. For a moment, he was back in his cage in the castle’s dungeon; trapped, chained, starving, bound.

He shouldn’t have felt fear, but he did. He wanted to flee. It was absurd. Shameful. He was a demon. This was a mortal, a mere man. A man he despised, who had hurt himself and Raiya both. There was no magical barrier between them now. He could destroy him with a single strike.

Hunger for violence still pounded through his body. He suspected it was that hunger, more than courage, that drove him to move toward Nirlan.

The man went pale as he approached. The scent of his fear was heavy, caressing Azreth like bloodied velvet. His death would be delicious.

Nirlan drew a knife and swung it in front of him, but it was mere steel. Azreth didn’t even bother to block the attack. The blade scratched against his skin, denting the metal. As Nirlan waved the knife ineffectually, he slipped in the mud and fell, nearly stabbing himself in the process.

He was a ridiculous, pathetic man. And yet he possessed an enormous castle, a perfect wife, and a bevy of armed servants and mages to do his bidding. It appeared that you didn’t have to be strong or clever or skilled to succeed in the mortal realm. Maybe you only needed to be cutthroat.

“Raiya! Help me!” Nirlan demanded. Without his servants, he had no power, no will to fight, no strength.

Azreth looked over at Raiya, and he was pleased to see her looking at Nirlan with as much disgust as himself.

“For the love of Astra, call him off!” Nirlan cried.Raiya gave him a look that was pure hatred. Azreth could feel it radiating from her. It was a beautiful feeling.

She looked at Azreth and nodded her approval, her eyes grim and furious. Azreth could still faintly see the redness in her eyes from when she’d cried.

He reached toward Nirlan’s throat, and he was trying to decide whether it would be more agonizing to be strangled to death or to bleed out slowly, when his vision suddenly shattered.

A thread of pain between his hand and his neck lit up, blinding, propelling him backward. For a moment, the world was gone, and only agony existed.

When his vision returned, he was kneeling on the ground, rain rippling the puddles around him. It smelled of blood and earth. Raiya was speaking. He could feel her hand on his arm.

Azreth swayed, stunned. The moment he’d touched Nirlan, he’d been repelled. His neck felt like it had been cut, though the skin was unbroken, and his palm burned like it had been struck with iron. When he lifted his hand, he was startled to see the runes glowing and steaming like a fresh brand.

The half-binding had protected Nirlan. It had burned Azreth in the same place he’d tried to grab him, reflecting the injury back before he could do any damage.

Azreth was nauseated. He couldn’t hurt Nirlan. These cursed runes were a shackle on him, and he was trapped in his own enchanted body.

Yet again, Nirlan—this mere mortal—had defeated him.

Raiya’s hand tightened on his cloak. “Azreth.” When he looked up, Nirlan was coming toward them, an iron sword in his hand.

Azreth pulled Raiya against his chest, then flapped his wings and leapt into the air. They shot above the street, above the buildings, into the sky.

Raiya’s arms clamped around his neck. Her face was buried in the crook of his shoulder, her breath hot against him. He clutched her a little tighter. Below, the Paladins were regrouping with Nirlan, and they were chasing him.

Azreth didn’t know where to go next. He was lightheaded, and each flap of his wings was difficult. Summoning the wings in the first place had drained him more than he’d anticipated, and whatever Nirlan’s enchantment had done to him had drained him further.

He flew to a tall building at the edge of the town. A slender tower rose from one side of it, and he landed in its shadow on the tiled roof, swooning a little. He carefully set Raiya on her feet beside him. She held onto him, probably just trying not to slip off the sloping roof, but he could pretend it was because she needed his touch.

Then he smelled blood. He looked down sharply. Her hand was bleeding. She must have been hit with a blade during the fighting.

Without thinking, he lifted her wound to his mouth to clean the blood away, and he didn’t even know why he would do such a thing—an instinct left over from a more primitive era? It was certainly not out of hunger or violent urges toward her—but it felt like the right thing to do, until he saw her face. She looked at him with vague confusion, her mouth slightly ajar. He stopped, wondering if she’d be upset, like when he’d tried to snake his hand beneath her trousers.

But she did not look offended. She didn’t move away from him. In fact, she stayed very close, holding onto him.

“Thank you,” she said. “Again.”

He stared at her, loving the way she looked at him.

He felt something, then. A deep, unfulfilled desire taking root deep within him. Something like… longing.

A frisson of fear went through him.

He took a step back, snapped out of whatever madness had begun to take him. He should not have had these feelings. He should not have worried for her. He should not have been thinking of her as someone to be held and cared for, or as someone who would hold and protect him in return. She was his ally—which merely meant that she was temporarily not his enemy. They were not companions. Demons did not have companions.

Raiya just looked at him. Her hand was still bleeding, and she was shivering. The rain had made the cold sink into her.

He healed the cut on her hand with a spell, which drained the last of his magic. His wings and his arm both disappeared, and he staggered. When Raiya put her small hands around his shoulders in a vain but valiant attempt to steady him, he felt another stab of something powerful and dangerous in his heart.

He would not say the word—not even to himself, in his mind. He couldn’t think it, couldn’t make it real.

“Are you all right?” Raiya asked.

“I am still strong,” he said faintly.

The Paladins were racing around the streets below, searching for them. They’d spot him eventually. And they were stuck on the roof with no way down. He hadn’t thought this through.

“Hello there!” someone said in a harsh whisper, very close.

He spun to face the voice. An old woman was peering out from an open window on the roof that he hadn’t seen before. Her face was white as sun-bleached bones, but the color was smeared around the edges of her hair, like she’d painted it on. Black paint circled her eyes, and she was smiling, which made her face resemble a skull.

“The lady of darkness welcomes you,” she said. “You are being pursued by the Paladins, yes? Come inside the temple. Hurry.”

Azreth glanced at Raiya for an explanation. Looking at her expression, he couldn’t tell whether she felt comforted or threatened by this woman.

“Moratha cultists. Like Eunaios,” Raiya told him under her breath.

Eunaios—the mage who’d kept him caged in Nirlan’s dungeon. Azreth was suddenly imagining burning the temple down.

Raiya gave him a sympathetic smile. She took his hand. “Come on.”

He folded his fingers around hers. Against his better judgment, he let her pull him toward the window.