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HOPEFULLY ACCEPTABLE MISCOMMUNICATION

Severath

S everath had never run so fast in his life. The speed might have helped him during his evaluation, but when Lazerath slammed open the door of the training hall and called that Ember was in trouble, Severath discovered the ability like Ajath discovering the first bronzeberry.

He sprinted away from the barracks, leaving Commander Harrox sputtering in his wake.

Down the hill and toward Aldgate Square, nothing deterred him, including demons who didn’t move fast enough.

Lazerath couldn’t keep up, but that was useful in the moment—he could do the apologizing for him.

He heard something about “bad peripherals” and “ soulbond sick,” but then his brother’s voice was lost as he sped toward the council chambers.

Business as usual brought Severath to a halt when he burst inside.

His human was in danger, and yet there were scribes simply milling about and civilian demons scribbling on parchment as if it were a normal day.

Where was the urgency, the mad scramble?

When the door thudded to a close behind him, though, no one jumped at the sound, their eyes already turned on his panting form.

“Where is she?” he growled, grabbing the nearest scribe by the collar.

The wiry, blue teen’s black eyes clouded with fear, mouth falling open.

Severath gave him a shake, but not enough to knock him senseless—or at least he thought.

“I’a’no,” the scribe squeaked nonsensically.

“Focus.” He snapped his fingers in the boy’s face, other clawed hand digging into his tunic and hauling him over the desk. “The human—where have they taken her?”

Flailing in his hold, the scribe lifted a shaking arm and pointed.

A woman walked down the central aisle of the ancient temple’s main room, and while her hair was dark and her face was set stony, she was not his human. “You must be Severath.”

Finally, someone with some fucking answers.

Severath hauled the scribe all the way over his desk and dragged him along as he marched toward the human.

It was useful sometimes to have a bureaucrat in tow, even if he wasn’t very articulate.

“What in blazes is going on?” Beside the human stood a lilac demon, chin lifted in that way nobles often held themselves, but her jaw was tight and her bottom lip was on the verge of trembling. That was not an encouraging sign.

The human woman who called herself Rosalind explained that Ember had been brought in for questioning due to Elliran’s disappearance.

Severath growled lowly at himself, annoyed he had not followed up a second time when the Horn of Finance’s scribe never returned to modify her cuff, but he hadn’t been worried about Ember sneaking off and committing any crime, heinous or otherwise.

When Rosalind told him that Ember was in the tribunal chamber already, he immediately headed for the chamber.

“They won’t let us in until they’re finished questioning her,” Rosalind called as she hurried to keep up.

“I would like to see them stop me.”

The tribunal chamber was down a wide corridor and around a corner, not a great distance, but much too far when it was keeping Severath from Ember.

If he met a locked door or a crossing rune, neither would stop him, so when Drolmoth stepped out from the corner ahead, Severath similarly did not falter.

The sword at Drolmoth’s hilt reminded Severath that he was not meant to have weapons in the council chambers unless he was on duty, yet there was a bow still strapped to his back from his evaluation.

Best get rid of that , he thought, releasing the scribe and pulling the curved wood over his shoulder as fire came to life in his hand.

The human sucked in a shocked breath. “Uh, I don’t know if this is such a good?—”

The arrow flew, and Severath let the bow clattered to the floor. Fire reflected in Drolmoth’s widened eyes just as the projectile pierced him—or rather pierced through the space between his pauldron and shoulder. Apparently Severath could still hit a target when it really mattered.

The guard was swept backward with the strike, slamming into the wall as fire spread out behind him, the cast enough to pin him there, and the surprise of the action enough to keep him from striking back. Finally, Severath’s lifetime of restraint paid off.

“You”—Severath snagged the scribe’s collar once again and drew him close—“can you count to ten?”

The blue demon nodded, a gods-damned relief.

“Then do it, put those flames out, and then take him to the infirmary.” He shoved the demon at Drolmoth, who was stubborn enough not to scream in pain but not stoic enough to keep from swinging as they passed.

Severath might be censured for that, but there wasn’t much the guard could really do to him now, and it wouldn’t be that harsh anyway since Balran’s salves and spells would mend Drolmoth completely. Unfortunate but helpful.

Rosalind hugged the wall, following quickly behind Severath. “May Mareet protect you,” the lilac demon said, sarcastically invoking the water goddess as she passed. Perhaps a noble would prove even more helpful than a bureaucrat—for entertainment, at least.

The voices in the tribunal chamber fell away the moment Severath slammed open the door.

It was easy to find Ember, sitting alone in the room’s center, three of the highest-ranking demons in Heck up on a dais as they stared down at her.

But Severath would have found her had she been shrouded in a corner on instinct alone, claws and fangs immediately called to attention.

“Sev?” Her voice broke through the furious madness in his mind, the desire to maim and kill suddenly quelled.

His second desire, to scoop her into his arms and flee, was still simmering, but he couldn’t add that transgression to the list. He had already broken into the council chamber—sort of, though, did it count if no one was blocking the door?

Probably since he had shot the guard doing the blocking.

But that was only sort of too—Drolmoth would be healed, and the bastard had it coming for years anyway.

So he did the third best thing and strode to stand directly in front of Ember and face the council himself. “Why was I not alerted about this?”

The three blinked back at him until Fineril, the Horn of Arbitration, cleared her throat. “I think you have made it abundantly clear why.”

Severath snorted, teeth gritted, fists clenched.

“This is the warden, I presume?” A rosy-hued demon lifted her pink brows, peering at him over the thin rim of her glasses. This was the Horn of Rudiments, he presumed, as he knew another fire-wielder, a noble one, was the head of Heck’s enchanted infrastructure.

“The scout squadron leader?” Tarzul, the Horn of Finance, flourished a stack of familiar parchment. Of course he was there, it was his own scribe who was missing. “Or is it former leader?”

Heat rose in his body, but not the familiar embarrassment he expected. This was fire—fire to protect his mate.

Though she couldn’t see that fire, Fineril could likely sense it, and raised her hand. “We are only asking questions, Severath.”

“Questions she can’t answer,” Tarzul added.

Severath growled again, claws digging into his palms.

“Well, why don’t we ask him too since he’s here?” The pink demon shrugged and readjusted her glasses. “Do you know the whereabouts of Elliran, scribe to the Horn of Finance?”

“No. She was meant to arrive at my dwelling the morning after the festival, but she did not.”

“You see,” Tarzul cut in. “Even the warden confirms Elliran’s disappearance.”

“Yes, it was in my notes,” he bit back.

“And yet the human has no answer for us and no alibi.”

Severath did not like the way Tarzul said human. He snorted as fire licked at his palm, trapped within his fist, but then there was another feeling—soft and a different kind of warm as it wrapped around his wrist.

Ember looked up at him from her seat, patient but worried. The silver cuff she was forced to wear pulsed with a new magic. She was pleading only with those brown eyes of hers, her own anger subdued—not gone, never gone, but safely tucked away. And she was asking him to do the same.

He took a slow breath and stepped back to stand beside her chair instead of in front of it.

The three councilors waited with much better patience, but of course they weren’t on trial.

Then again, not all nine were present—this was not a sentencing, not a true indication of a crime.

That would come later if this went poorly, and it was becoming evident that he might be pushing things in that direction.

“The human has been under my supervision at all times, contained within the bounds of my home,” he said with a calmer bend. “My assessments document every expedition, each approved by Councilor Fineril in advance.”

“Lies,” Tarzul snapped. “You were not supervising her the day of the festival.”

The Horn of Rudiments gasped, corner of her mouth ticking up as if scandalized and intrigued both.

Severath swallowed the curse he wanted to throw at them both. “We were separated shortly while I deescalated a situation, but then…” He glanced back to the door where the lilac demon was standing beside the human Rosalind, memory triggered—she was the one from that night.

“Oh, is that Azrion’s sister?” The pink councilor took her glasses off and tipped her head.

“Zaiya Zizreni,” she said in a voice that carried none of the upset she’d had in the hall.

“I was with Elliran the night of the festival. When they were separated, we found the human and returned her to the guard. Elli was—” Her words caught in her throat and her thin tail twitched.

“Elliran was with me after that until midnight.”

“That information doesn’t seem to have been passed on to us,” said Fineril as she shuffled through her papers. “Is it possible we have our timelines crossed?”