Page 6

THE WISDOM OF THE HORN

Severath

S everath stepped out onto Heck’s streets, tipped his head to look up at the setting moon, and ran a hand through his crest of black hair.

Or, he tried to, but his claw caught on the bandage Balran had already refreshed three times.

His claws shouldn’t have even been out, but his brain dizzied when his hindered sight struggled to sharpen on the sea of stars winking to life, and everything just fucking hurt .

At least his fingers didn’t come away bloody after brushing against his covered wounds, but it was an effort to retract his claws, weariness finally settling in.

Time had been lost on him in the infirmary, but the long shadows of the Scholar’s Hall across Aldgate Square told him it had been at least a day since they’d discovered the cart.

His central concern had been his cousin’s safety, but Balran always put the injured first, dismissing every one of his warnings as she tended to that minuscule murderess.

He supposed the human did appear pathetically feeble, all limp limbed and emaciated when he’d laid her out on the cot for examination.

But the healer didn’t have his experience with the outside realm to understand the severity of the human’s brand.

“She killed someone?” Balran had asked, brows dipping in deep confusion when first presented with the unconscious woman. “Why?”

It was the first time Severath had considered the potential reason, but he had intended it to be the last as well. “We do not know, but she is a danger. Proceed with the utmost caution.”

And so Balran had toiled on as if caring for an innocent child because that was what she always did. Even when she tended to Severath’s wounds, it was with overly concerned eyes and hesitant words. “Quite severe,” she’d murmured along with something about “advanced sorcery” and “permanent damage.”

He shook his head, too preoccupied then to listen and now to recall.

The council had summoned him, and their word overruled his desire to keep watch over his cousin and the hazard in her care.

Drolmoth relieved him, a little too eager to get a glimpse of the humans, but then Severath always disliked the guard who had taken a position patrolling the city full time.

He didn’t particularly like Ozirax either, but there was probably a primal distinction between not liking someone much and actively disliking them, and he was glad one of his own stayed behind on sentry duty too.

It was a short walk past the Aldgate Scar to the council chambers, lanterns hanging from the eaves of the infirmary and city hall guiding him through the balmy haze, but he moved slowly, unsure what new information he could offer.

He’d briefed the captain as soon as they’d returned, and his squadron shared their accounts from the infirmary, barking out details as scribes took frazzled notes.

Bureaucracy followed, high ranking demons and their assistants bustling by the chamber that Severath insisted the branded human be sequestered in.

It was an official report the council wanted, he supposed, and someone to officially blame if and when it all went wrong.

An early summer storm had swept through a day prior and left Heck smelling earthy and clean like the more cordial sections of the Veilwood.

The moon flowers had bloomed aggressively overnight, dotting the scar’s fence with white stars, and indigo moss poked up through the cobblestones nearest the square’s center.

It was strange, Severath thought, to still feel so welcome in the wake of his betrayal.

Heck should have turned on him for allowing humans within its borders.

The scar, in fact, should have come to life and swallowed him whole for letting in the very creatures who had indentured his kind in this place so long ago.

But it was just as comforting now to pace the square as any time before when he had survived scouting the Dreadmoor.

Comfort was a funny thing, though, when one never felt truly at home , even if one didn’t quite know what they were missing.

He cast a glance at the road that would lead into Heck’s busier streets, the sudden urge to hunt down Lazerath and tell him everything tugging at his gut, but he squashed the juvenile impulse to be reassured by his brother’s unending idealism.

What good would it do him to search for silver linings in a situation so fraught with pending storms?

He turned instead for the council chamber in all its archaic, finialed grandeur.

It had once been a human temple to one of their shared gods, but the devotion humans had was twisted and their intentions nothing short of cruel.

He never thought much about what the building began as, but as he walked through its doors, the weight settled around his neck like a chain.

Inside was perhaps even more ostentatious than its intricate stonework facade, but Severath had never seen the council chambers so empty.

Ever-burning flames in every color lined either side of the entry.

Severath eyed the bowl of red fire and the massive stained glass window behind it depicting a flame rune.

Heat prickled in Severath’s palm—magic, at least, was not lost to him.

The door shut with a heavy thud at his back, and the single scribe working at one of the many desks beyond the antechamber stood at the sudden sound.

He was a gangly demon who, by the lilac tone of his skin, likely belonged to one of the noble families.

He opened his mouth, sweeping white hair mussed with frustration out of his eyes, then clamped it shut again.

Of course, Severath needed to announce the reason for his visit, but as he chewed on the words, I’m here because I fucked up , the scribe gestured to the inner chamber’s door and nodded hurriedly.

Severath didn’t miss how the demon’s gaze never met his own, instead fixed on the place his horn should have been.

He expected a full council of nine inside the chamber proper—there were humans in the damn city, after all—but there were only two.

He’d been preoccupied while others had run about all day, though, and certainly they’d been doing something about all this.

While the chamber was fanciful with its crescent-shaped table covered in pyrography, parchment and books were strewn on every surface beside abandoned cloaks and satchels in the wake of others coming and going.

“Severath, thank you for coming.” Councilor Fineril, the Horn of Arbitration, gestured smoothly to the chair placed in the crescent table’s void across from the two. “Have a seat.”

He preferred to stand, but there was a sharpness to the councilor’s eyes that saw everything, probably even his slight hesitation before doing as he was told, but then demons with gold flecks to their hue didn’t need to see to perceive.

Severath looked to Harrox, Horn of the Guard, and a sympathetic smile creased the elder’s face. Fuck .

“How are you feeling?” Councilor Fineril asked in her gentle, knowing tone.

Tired, unnerved, awful . “Fine.”

She made a small disbelieving sound, gaze taking him in as if she could feel his desire to roll his shoulders and work the knot of pain from his neck. Severath remained as still as a stone tower on a windless day.

“Surely this experience has been harrowing. Korinaz has made himself available, he says at any hour, simply call on him.”

Severath gave her a single nod, not allowing his gaze to wander to Harrox this time. Korinaz was a healer of sorts despite his blue-toned skin, but he focused on the mind, and Severath did not want to know what the grizzled, most seasoned guardsman thought of that offer.

“You’ve done a great service today. I wish to thank you for what you’ve endured,” the councilor went on, and Severath’s brow bent involuntarily with skepticism. “I apologize that I must make yet another request of you.”

“Anything,” he said as if the job, whatever it could possibly be, was already done.

She took a breath, threading her fingers atop the table.

There would be no questions about what happened out on the Dreadmoor, she knew all she needed to know, but Severath’s innards twisted anew—something much heavier was coming.

“I’m told you’ve kept an unwavering watch since returning, so you may not be aware that five of the humans have been individually assessed, and the council has come to a decision about them.

Most are simply in too deteriorated a state to be released, so they will be staying in Heck under close supervision for the time being. ”

Severath wasn’t surprised—they were indeed feeble and injured and of little threat in a city of five thousand demons—and yet dissent bubbled up his throat anyway.

The councilor was an expert at presenting situations simply as how they were, and yet making a decision that so many of his kind would loathe seem mundane—a decision he had unwittingly spearheaded—immediately ate at him.

“We cannot allow them to leave,” she said as if in response to the way his fingers twitched in his lap instead of scratching at the split skin around his broken horn. “They could spread word of our home or share our sacred runes. The consequences could be deadly.”

“And if they refuse?”

“That would be unfortunate,” Harrox cut in. “For them.”

Fineril took another long breath. She too was an elder but with each year grew more restrained, whereas Harrox aged into brusqueness. “Let us hope they find themselves so comfortable and satisfied with their new lives that they do not wish to leave.”

Comfortable? Satisfied? Severath would have laughed at the absurdity if the councilor wasn’t looking at him so grimly. “But their world is…so different than our ow n.” It was an understatement, and an obvious one at that, but as close as he felt comfortable to dissenting.