Page 9

Nine

S he trailed after him quietly as he hurried away from the house on the hill. He didn’t know where he was going, except that he was getting away from the house, and he was doing it quickly.

Several hills later, he could still feel Raiya’s eyes on his back. Fearing him. Despising him. Looking down on him.

He didn’t understand anything about this plane.He’d never thought the people in the house would try to fight him. It was a ridiculous, irrational thing to do. How could he have anticipated that?

Maybe it was not possible to predict what mortals would do. They were too strange to him, too different from demons.

He came to a stop and looked down at Raiya. She looked back at him, her face still and thoughts hidden.

She’d tried to stop him from going into that house. Perhaps he should have listened to her. He might not be able to trust her motives, but he could trust that she knew more about this plane than he did.

Setting down the meat he’d taken from the house, he put a hand to his side and began healing his iron-burned wound.

“Iron is poisonous to you, isn’t it?” Raiya said. “That’s why you couldn’t lift the portcullis with your hands.”

His spellcasting hand went still. He looked into her eyes, trying to see through them into her mind. She just looked at his wound, her face crinkling slightly, like she didn’t like the look of it.

“Are you all right?” she asked.Her expression was neutral, her tone soft. For once, there was no fear coming from her while she looked at him. If she were a demon, he would assume she was on the lookout for weakness. Weakness in him would be an opportunity for her to attack.

“It is a flesh wound,” he said finally. Raiya just arched an eyebrow.

When he told her to eat the meat, she refused, saying that it needed to be heated on a fire first, or she would get sick from it. At that point, he suspected she might be making things up just to toy with him, but he didn’t know enough about humans to be certain she was lying, and he couldn’t risk getting her ill. So he quietly made her a fire, feeling foolish as he did so.

After the meat was heated, she chewed dainty, steaming pieces without complaint, finally. Azreth watched her eat, and the nervous coils in the pit of his stomach slowly unfolded. They would survive another day.

“Will you explain something to me?” Raiya’s voice was cautious, but her eyes were daring. “I always thought demons came to our plane because they were mindless creatures hellbent on tormenting mortals. But you are far from mindless, and you haven’t tormented me, at least. So why do you not return to the hells? Heilune is dangerous for your kind.”

Heilune . He turned the word over in his mind. It was the name of this land, he realized, all the way from one ocean to the other, encompassing many mortal races and landscapes.

He stood up, pacing around the fire as she finished eating. “Whatever awaits me in Heilune, it is better than what I left behind.”

She leaned forward. “What is it like there? I have studied much of this world, but not much is known about yours.”

He tried to recall the last time someone had talked to him as much as she did. Even Nariel, who he’d thought was quite a social creature, didn’t ask him questions like this.

He thought of Nariel. The eldresses. The endless red dunes he’d become lost in too many times, and the skeletal trees he’d butchered to make tools and shelters. The venomous blossoms and spiked vines, the slithering beasts he’d had to keep watch for when he went to bathe in the rivers of fire, the wind storms that could blow the skin from your bones. It was all so different from the cool greenness of this plane.

What was it like? He didn’t know where to start. He didn’t know how to explain it to her.

It was an unhappy place.

Avoiding her eyes, he picked up a stick and fidgeted with the fire. “We have talked enough about the hells,” he said shortly, then gestured to her bag. “That book you have. There are runes in it.”

Her lips parted in surprise, and then she frowned. “You searched my bag?”

“Yes. To help me decide whether you pose a threat to me.”

“Oh? And am I a threat, in your estimation?”

Of course she was a threat to him. Allying with a mortal was one of the more dangerous things he’d ever done. But she knew that. She was mocking him.

“You know runes,” he said. “You read the runes in the dungeon when they tried to bind me. That’s how you knew how to break the mage’s spell so thoroughly.”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Are you a mage?”

Her frown deepened. “No. Nothing so glamorous.”

He believed her. She probably would have used magic against him by now if she were capable of it.

He glanced surreptitiously at the shimmering runes staining his palm. He needed her help again, and he had to convince her to give it willingly, because he could not force her to be truthful.

“I would like to amend our agreement,” he said carefully.

She looked suspicious. “How so?”

“I require assistance with this.” He showed her the marks on his hand, and she studied them with great interest—possibly too much interest.

“I was too late,” she said softly.

“What do they say?”

Tentatively, she reached toward his hand. Azreth stiffened as he realized she was going to touch him.

She put a slender finger to his palm. A prickle began beneath her finger and spread throughout his body, raising the hair on the back of his neck, and he resisted the urge to pull away. Raiya pointed to each of the runes one by one, explaining that they meant ominous things like “death” and “promise” and “forever,” but he couldn’t focus on anything but the odd sensation of her touch. Each soft, cool press of her fingertip sent a chill through him.

People in the hells grabbed each other, grappled, bit, and clawed, but they didn’t touch each other like this.

“What do they do?” he asked.

She looked almost sympathetic. “I think it’s a piece of a kind of soulbinding. A spell that will keep you partially bound to Nirlan.”

Memories assaulted him. The cage in the castle. The feeling of his strength draining as he starved. Helplessness. Lord Nirlan’s ugly, patronizing smile as he told Azreth what he envisioned for his future slavery.

He could not let that happen. He could not be helpless again.

“Bound in what way?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s half a spell. Since it was interrupted, I can’t know for certain what the effects are. It could mean nothing… or it could mean that something bad will happen to you if you’re away from Nirlan for too long.”

“Can they be removed?”

“I’m not sure. There may be a way.”

“Help me find one, and I will protect you from the mate you betrayed.”

She looked annoyed, offended by the reminder of her betrayal. “You’re already doing that, remember?”

He closed his hand into a fist, hiding the runes inside. He needed to convince her of his value, but he had little else to offer her. “I will protect you from any other dangers we cross,” he said firmly. “I will ensure that you are fed and sheltered and healthy. I am strong and capable, even in this unfamiliar land. If you do this for me, I will destroy anyone who crosses you. You have my word.”

She just raised her eyebrows, and Azreth feared he hadn’t impressed her.

“Do you doubt my abilities?” he snapped.

To his surprise, she said, “No.”It sounded like she was considering agreeing. It also sounded like she was thinking about something she wasn’t saying aloud.

“You must uphold your end of the agreement,” he reminded her. “Betray me, and I?—”

“You will destroy me. Yes. I know.” It had only been a day, and already she’d started mocking him when he tried to intimidate her. Maybe he’d been too gentle with her and she’d decided he was weak.

“You cannot outwit me,” he said. “Plot against me, attempt to deceive me, and I will know.”

To his dismay, she continued to ignore him, reaching into her bag to retrieve her book of runes and a writing stick. She began making notes, perfectly calm and composed. “I would have helped you regardless of our agreement. I don’t need anything extra in exchange. No one deserves to be enslaved.”

He stared at her. If it was a lie, it was a bold one, but he didn’t think it could be the truth, either. Maybe she was making a joke he didn’t understand.

“But if you want my help, there are a few other conditions you must agree to,” she said.

Azreth frowned. “You said you didn’t need anything.”

“These things are not for me.” She put the book away and looked up at him, reproachful. “You can’t barge into places where you’re not welcome. If you don’t want to end up on the end of a Paladin’s sword, you must listen to me.”

He scoffed. “I will not lie down for those who bear weapons against me.”

“Then don’t break into their houses and steal from them.” Her tone made it sound like she’d barely restrained herself from adding, “You imbecile,” at the end of the sentence. “I won’t help you if it means bullying people weaker than you. I’ve spent too much time around bullies of late.”

Azreth thought about that word, bully . The demon gift of language let him understand its meaning, but he could think of no analogous word in the demonic language.

Did mortals believe it was wrong to use your strength to your advantage? Did they not love power and abhor weakness the way his kind did, then?

That was why she’d protected the family in the house, he realized. There had been no other benefit for her. She simply believed it was wrong to hurt them.

“I have no desire to hurt the weak,” he said honestly.

Raiya paused, studying him. “Well… Good.”

She took a circle of silver out of her bag—a bracelet. “I was going to use this when I left Nirlan, but you should probably take it. It’s a simple glamour. It will help you blend in with mortals. It won’t make you invisible, but it should be able to alter your appearance enough to keep people from attacking you on sight.”

It was a bright, shiny metal. If there was any iron in it, it was not enough for him to sense it, but it was covered in tiny, dark runes.

“It needs to be charged with magic first,” Raiya added. “I’ve never actually used it before.”

“I can charge it.”

She looked down, uncomfortable. “Enchantments require quite a lot of magic.”

She clearly knew what came next. Azreth felt a pang of regret at her discomfort. “Then I will need to feed,” he said.

“Is there something that will give you more power than what I did before?” she asked. “Something that I’d actually be willing to do, I mean?”

“Stronger emotions are better. The easiest avenues to power are pain and sex. In the hells, demons often torture each other for it.”

She gave a nervous smile. “That wouldn’t be my first choice.”

“It is not anyone’s first choice.”

“Then sex is easiest?”

“Yes. The effect would be greater if I touched you this time.”

Something subtle scented the air between them. Raiya was feeling an anticipatory emotion he couldn’t quite identify, but her face remained closed off. “Touch me how?”

“It doesn’t matter. But being in close proximity to you will make the magic stronger. Even better if I am touching your skin.”

She nodded once. “Then… let’s do that.”