Page 23

Twenty-Three

A zreth and Raiya left Ontag-ul with the Roamer caravan, eager to put the cultists and the dead vythian behind them.

The Roamers celebrated every night, drinking and playing games and laughing late into the evening. Raiya, wearing a cheeky smile, had given Azreth a cup of bitter liquor to drink, and then another, and then another. No matter how much he drank, he did not feel the same dizzy pleasure from it that Raiya and the others did.

There was nothing to celebrate that night, or any other night—it was just what the Roamers did. Raiya told him this was normal for humans.

“Why not?” she said with a shrug. “We’re mortal. Every day might be our last. I think we should make the most of it.”

He puzzled at that. Demons lived every day like it might be their last, too, but in a different way.“Does that frighten you?” he asked.

She thought for a long moment, then looked up at him.“Everyone fears death. You do, too, don’t you?”

“Yes. But my death is… not so inevitable.” Demons had such fraught lives that they rarely survived long. But under the right circumstances, Azreth could have lived for eternity. Raiya would never have that option, even if she were cautious. Thinking about it made him hurt.

“Believe me, we are very aware of the inevitability of our deaths,” Raiya said with dark amusement. “Especially humans. We’re the shortest-lived race in Heilune, and everyone else makes certain we don’t forget it.”

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say.It was the one thing he couldn’t protect her from.

“I didn’t mean you should be sorry. Everything ends eventually. But just because it ends doesn’t mean it never happened. Dying doesn’t mean that we didn’t live. It can’t take away our memory, or the marks we’ve left on the world.”

She’d put into words what he’d already begun to understand about mortals: their mortality was why they spent years raising children, spent decades perfecting their crafts, and spent generations building great cities. Demons lived merely to live, but mortals lived to leave their mark before their end.

* * *

Later that night, in their tent, he lay beneath her on his back—a submissive, vulnerable position that somehow didn’t feel submissive at all with her. She was checking his bandages. The wounds he’d sustained from his battle with the vythian had mostly healed already, but she touched him with utmost care anyway, as if afraid of hurting him. He could have told her that he was fine and she needn’t have worried, but he didn’t.

She peeled back the bandage over his shoulder, where the worst injury was, and she winced as if the wound were her own. Azreth liked watching her as her hands explored him. His heart, in a permanent state of tension these days, clenched as she dipped her fingers in a salve and smoothed it over his skin.

After the vythian attack, he thought about Raiya’s mortality more and more often.When she had charged toward the beast with only a broken broom handle in her hands, he’d been certain she was about to die.

She was young by mortal standards. She had plenty of time left. But he found it difficult not to think about it.

“How do you want to die?” he asked.

She raised her eyebrows, bemused. “Are you plotting something I should know about, Azreth?”

“No.” He reached out to touch her face, holding her gaze on him. “You must have thought about it before.”

She pulled out of his grip and focused on his shoulder, her expression solemn. She was afraid after all, then. She disliked thinking about it as much as he did. He took comfort from that, because it meant she realized the gravity of her situation. A part of him had wondered if mortals simply lived in denial to preserve their sanity.

“What about you?” she asked. “Have you thought about how you’ll die?”

“I always thought I would die fighting another of my kind sooner or later. It’s how most of us die. But now I’m not sure. Maybe a Paladin will kill me, instead.”

“Or maybe no one will.”

“I would want to do it myself, if I were mortal.”

She squinted at him. “Do you mean… you would want to kill yourself? You’d want to die by suicide?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head, grimacing. “You are so strange.”

He didn’t understand what was strange about it. “I would not want to be surprised by it, if I had the choice. I would not want it to be out of my control.”

She pushed the lid back onto the jar of salve and began wrapping new bandages around him. “Most mortals don’t want to end their own lives,” she said. “Most of us hope to die naturally when we’re very old, surrounded by people we love.”

“Surrounded? Why?”

“So we don’t have to be alone when we go. Dying is not an easy thing. It would be scary and sad to do it alone.”

He waited for her to finish wrapping the bandage. She tucked the edge of it into itself to secure it. Azreth sat up.

“I want to be with you when you die,” he said.

She didn’t speak for a long moment, and Azreth wondered if it had been an inappropriate thing to say.

“It’s not easy to watch someone die, you know,” she said.

“I’m not a fool, Raiya. I know.”

“Sorry. I know you’re not.”

He reached out to take her hand. “If you let me, I will help you. I want to be one of the people surrounding you.” He wanted to hold on to every last moment with her. But would that be enough for her? Could a demon offer the comfort a mortal needed to die peacefully?

“Do you think you’ll still be here by then?” she asked. “Won’t you have grown tired of me?”

He didn’t know quite how to address such a silly question, so he just said, “No.”

A warm, sweet-smelling emotion emanated from Raiya. She interlaced her fingers with his and squeezed his hand.

* * *

The vythian was not the last creature from the hells they saw. They heard rumors of more in other parts of Uulantaava, too. As they traveled north with the caravan, they saw it for themselves. People fleeing Frosthaven told them that the creatures were coming from the lord’s castle—from Nirlan.

The more Azreth thought about him, the more disgusted he became.

There were other people who had made him suffer more than Nirlan had, but no one else had been as pointlessly cruel. He could not understand what would embitter a mortal man so much that he would reach into the hells to bring violence to this peaceful place. People like Lord Han-gal and Priestess Gereg had no need for more power, but they were greedy for it anyway.

With Nirlan’s creatures already attacking, they did not have the time to fix Azreth’s botched binding first.

He and Raiya were in agreement that her ex-husband had to be dealt with now, but the binding wouldn’t let Azreth kill him. Raiya would have to do it. He wasn’t certain she was ready for it.

A permanent line had appeared between her eyebrows since the vythian attack. The scents of anger and worry came off her like steam.When she thought about Nirlan—which was often, now, he sensed—she became withdrawn.

She was so similar and yet so different from the woman he’d first met in Nirlan’s castle.She had been just as brave and defiant when she’d first freed him, but she hadn’t had the self-assurance she had now. She had her enchanted baton at her hip—a weapon she’d made for herself, which gave her the power to choose the course of her life instead of having it chosen for her.But each time she used it, he saw a conflicted look in her eyes, because she was still gentle at heart.

“You’ve changed, too, you know,” Raiya told him.

“How so?”

“You’re not always on edge, the way you were when we first left the castle. You were so angry and afraid. You’re more at peace now.”

Azreth thought back. Had he been on edge? Afraid?

Yes, he supposed he had. The fact that Raiya seemed to know more about his emotions that he did was as humbling as ever, but it didn’t surprise him anymore.

The mortal plane was no longer a strange and terrifying place to him. When he was with Raiya, it felt almost like a home—a home he wanted to defend.

“We’re both stronger than we were,” she said. “We’re stronger together. I’m glad you’re here, Azreth. Some things are easier when you’re not alone.”

He had realized that, too.

With each hour that passed, the desire to confess his enthrallment to her grew more difficult to resist. He wanted to submit to her fully. He wanted to be hers. It was grotesque. This was truly madness.

He thought of Basmeth and Atara often, lately. Back then, he hadn’t understood why Atara would put herself in that position. The intensity of her feelings had frightened him.

He wondered how often Basmeth regretted what she’d done. Knowing what he knew now, he suspected that she thought of it every day.

He understood Atara, now. He needed Raiya to know how much he cared for her, even if she disapproved.

One night, Raiya laid him down beneath her in their tent, gently took him in hand, and coaxed him to completion, simply because she wanted to give him joy. There was no pain or regret in his mind as she touched him. He felt no humiliation, no weakness. He only felt love for her. That was when he decided he couldn’t hold this secret any longer.

“There is something I must confess,” he whispered as she ran her hand through his hair.

“What’s that?”

He forced himself to look her in the eye. “In the hells, there is an illness of the mind—a rare and deadly kind of madness that befalls some of us. I have felt the change coming over me for some time. I am not myself. I can no longer think properly. I can no longer reason. I care only for one thing. It occupies my mind every waking second. I have tried, and I cannot escape it. The obsession consumes me.”

Raiya was watching him closely, perfectly still. “What are you talking about?” she asked, but she knew.

“I have let myself become addicted to you,” he said, watching her eyes sharpen. “I think of you always. I crave the feel of your skin and the sound of your voice constantly. Every moment I am away from you feels empty. Where I once would have cared only for myself, I now care for you. It’s torture, and bliss. In the hells, the people who fall victim to this curse are called enthralled. Once the madness takes hold, it rarely lets go.”

It was disturbingly easy to tell her everything. He often found himself unsure of what to say, but not now. The words came naturally. They were words he’d said in his mind many times already.

“Are you describing love, Azreth?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. This is what mortals call it.”

She looked at him for a long moment, her emotions a confused jumble. She looked wary. Worried. He didn’t want that.

He reached for her, taking her arms. He was almost afraid she would run now that he’d confessed this sin, and he couldn’t stand to think of her leaving him.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “This means I’m yours. Your servant. Your slave. Be anything but afraid.”

She took his face in her hands, pulling him closer. “There is a difference between the devotion of love and the devotion of a servant, Azreth. Love isn’t about power and submission and fear. When you’re with someone who loves you back, like I do—” A swell of emotion interrupted her for a moment. She swallowed hard. “When you’re with someone who loves you back, it’s about mutual affection and trust and selflessness. It’s the greatest thing in the world. People live for that kind of love. People kill and die for it.”

“It scares me.”

She slid her hands around the back of his head and put her lips close to his. “If you are mine, then I’m yours, too.”

Azreth felt faint. Raiya’s mouth touched his.

I’m yours, too.

His arms encircled her. He was a whirl of feeling as they fell to the floor and removed clothing. He had no coherent thought except for wanting to be closer to her, to be one with her.

Pure need flowed from her as she wrapped her legs around him.Soon she was trembling, her hips lifting and her core flexing as she took him inside her over and over. That line between her eyebrows was more prominent than ever as her face tensed with concentration. He watched her press her lip between her teeth and then release it.

“Bite me,” she said.

The world seemed to shake. He pulled back a fraction. “What?”

“I know who you are,” she said breathlessly. “What you are. I want all of you. The sweet parts, and the vicious ones.”

For a moment, he was ashamed. She thought he was vicious.

But she was right. He was vicious. And she accepted him that way. She wanted him that way.

He wanted to be as gentle as she was, but he also wanted to taste her blood. There was a part of him that always craved violence; the thought of it made his blood run hotter. Violence was power and control and excitement. But inviting violence was a show of trust, and that thrilled him.

He bent closer to her, breathing in her warm, human scent. “I would never hurt you.”

“I know,” she replied, her eyes heavy-lidded with lust.

“I am yours.”

“I know.”

Cradling her, he tipped her head back to bare her neck. He had never thought that a bite could feel like an act of worship, but as he sank his teeth into her, that was what it felt like. Like he was praying at her altar.

Her body jolted. Her climax came like a crashing wave. Her fingers clenched on him and her body writhed. A rush of delicious, heady passion washed over him, mixing with the metallic taste of her blood. He pressed inside her and held her hips flush with his, so deep that they were like one body undulating in unison.

Maybe enthrallment wasn’t madness, after all. Maybe it was the rest of demonkind who were mad.

He would be her willing slave—but he didn’t need to be. They would belong to each other. Equals.

As Raiya slept in his arms that night, he looked down at his marked palm, watching the way the runes shimmered persistently in the light. It was the only part of him that still needed fixing.

* * *

It began to snow as they reached Frosthaven, which seemed appropriate given the town’s name.

Azreth was surprised to discover that snow was not merely frozen raindrops. They were not hard and painful, but light and fluffy, like little feathers. They floated on the breeze and gathered on roofs and in doorways like sand. It was soft and beautiful, like so many other parts of the mortal world.

Raiya ignored it except to pull her hood over her head. Her thoughts were elsewhere.

The four of them—himself, Raiya, Jai, and Madira—were alone on the town streets. Azreth began to think the entire place had been abandoned until he spotted a few sets of eyes peering out from behind curtains in dark windows.Even through the walls of the houses, Azreth could occasionally feel a beat of fear from within.The townspeople had all retreated behind closed doors—not that it would do them any good if more monsters came.

Jai was gazing around the empty, snowy streets. “This is your home?” she asked Raiya.

“It was.”

“Not anymore?”

Raiya took a moment to think about it. Her eyes had a dull, regretful look. “I’m not sure.”

“Home is where your friends are,” Jai said. “A real home is wherever you choose to make it.”

“That’s not true,” Madira said. “Kuda Varai will always be our home, no matter how long we spend away from it.”

“Well, maybe Raiya doesn’t want this to be her home anymore,” Jai pointed out. “The place where you were born isn’t always the place that feels like home. Especially not when you’re no longer safe or welcome there.”

Azreth watched Raiya, following the exchange carefully. She looked up at him as she answered them. “You’re both right,” she said, giving him a look that he couldn’t quite interpret.

The signs of the demonic presence in the town grew more obvious as they went. Raiya led them up the streets past groups of velravens and the occasional mortal corpse.Azreth stiffened when a familiar scent hit his nose. It was hot and herbal, like dust and old magic and death.

It smelled like home. The fourth hell.

He looked up toward the source of the scent. On a hill just outside of town was the castle. It was different now. Even from this distance, he could sense the hell’s mark on the place. It teemed with magic, and with that familiar dry scrubland scent. It was the last place a mortal should have dared approach.

“What do you want to bet that’s where they’re coming from?” Raiya said dryly, leading them toward it.

There were no other mortals until they came upon a group of Paladins who had come to fight the beasts from the hells. Azreth was somehow not surprised to see that Paladin Adamus was among them, because Adamus seemed to have a knack for ending up wherever they were. Nor was he particularly surprised when Raiya accepted his offer to accompany them to the castle, because she was far more trusting than she had any right to be.

That was all right, though. He trusted her, even if he didn’t trust Adamus.

As they passed the castle’s outer wall, he took Raiya’s hand. It was something he never would have done when he was in the hells. The open display of affection would signal a weak point to anyone who saw. But it was worth it for the little burst of warmth and sweetness he caught in her scent when he touched her.

“Are you afraid?” he asked her.

“Of course,” she said, giving him a rueful smile. “Are you?”

He thought about it, and he was surprised to realize that he no longer felt a sense of growing panic when he looked at the castle.

Enthrallment was supposed to be a disease of emotions, wasn’t it? So why did his emotions feel more in balance now than they had during all his time in the hells?

“No,” he replied finally.

“I wouldn’t judge you if you were.”

“I know.”

She smiled up at him, but the expression didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“We will succeed,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

“Are you so certain?”

“I am certain that I will do whatever it takes to keep you from harm.”

She squeezed his hand, her small fingers lacing through his. “I’ll do the same for you.”

They stopped in front of the castle’s front doors. They were shut tight, a circle of glowing runes emblazoned on the dark wood. Adamus and the elves tried the doors and found them locked. Fortunately, Azreth had prior experience dealing with locked doors.

Without further ado, he kicked the doors down.