Page 8

MEET CRUDE

Severath

S everath never cleaned with such animosity.

His third scrub of the basin was his last, stopping before he wore a groove in the copper.

Sleep had come fitfully in the early hours of the morning when the loons began to call, but the single dream he slipped into was a hazy memory of screaming and blood.

He hoped if the others needed Korinaz they would take him up on his offer.

Beyond Severath’s kitchen window, his garden sprawled, beams of moonlight breaking through the misty buckthorn to dapple over his private corner of Heck.

He’d built in Hushed Hollow, close enough to the barracks for easy access but far enough away to “have a life” as Lazerath insisted.

He didn’t really know what his brother meant—he had a life, obviously, and he risked it daily for the city—but he put in the garden that Laz suggested anyway because that was apparently part of life-having too.

The stone fence that ran the perimeter of his plot was at least good for privacy, but now it would serve as a prison, and Severath suddenly loathed it.

And so the list grew.

Councilor Fineril hadn’t offered anymore insight into why she believed the small dark-haired human was worthy of a more thoughtful assessment, just that she distrusted the judgment passed down in Ankerick.

On that, Severath could potentially agree—humans were simple and cruel, as his father always said, though his father had gotten a lot wrong too—but pondering the unknown whys hadn’t let him sleep for long, so he tidied in anticipation of the criminal’s arrival.

If wood could sparkle, the counters certainly would have under the afternoon moonlight that flooded the chamber, nothing left to do. Except…knives.

Severath pulled the two kitchen blades from their block and groused at his own obliviousness.

He strode to the trunk in the entryway and slipped an extended claw into the groove of the locking rune.

Four quick swipes and a pulse of magic unlatched the top to reveal a host of weapons inside: longbows, daggers, swords, a slingshot, all three fire-pokers, a length of rope, and a book on arrow crafting that was so thick it could stun if flung skillfully enough at a temple.

Most of the humans didn’t appear to have the upper body strength needed for that, but one could never be too cautious.

So much for summer stew , he thought, and placed the kitchen knives inside along with his penchant for yellow squash.

A knock came only feet away from where Severath stood staring down at the crate. He hadn’t thought his muscles could tense further, but that had done it, winding him so tight that his next steps were excruciating.

Not as excruciating as the next month will be. He rolled his shoulders to no relief, put on the most welcoming grimace he could muster, and opened the door.

“Happy retirement!”

And then he slammed the door back shut.

“Aww, come on!” Lazerath’s chipper tone was muzzled and muffled both.

The door opened just as Severath stomped up the entry hall and into the kitchen once again, his brother predictably on his tail.

“How do you lock out a demon carrying cookies? Frosted cookies, even!”

“Apparently I don’t, seeing as you’re now inside.” Severath reached the kitchen’s end and found himself boxed in by counters. Wonderful, not only had his vision failed, but his mind for strategy was on its way out too.

Lazerath only grinned wide and toothy, offering up a brown-wrapped parcel that smelled of toasted nuts and honey.

But Severath refused to allow his grim disposition be tainted, especially not by sweets, and only frowned deeper. “Does everyone in the fucking city know?”

“I’m better at discerning gossip than most.” Which wasn’t an answer, but he shrugged and quickly deflected. “These taste best warm.”

“We’re thirty-three, nowhere close to retirement.” He gestured between himself and his twin, though a career in baking would likely last much longer than one in scouting. “They’re reassessing me soon—just a formality, I’m sure—and then I’ll be back in the field.”

Lazerath nodded, taking a dreaded step closer, and the counter’s edge dug into Severath’s back. Black brows arched inward as his brother’s mouth twisted in that too-concerned way. “Balran said?—”

“I know what she said.”

“I went to the infirmary to see you, but they wouldn’t let anybody inside because of the… surprise . Balran came out to talk to me though. She didn’t mention your horn.” His hand lifted like he wanted to touch the place where the spiral once jutted upward but stopped short. “At least they grow?—”

Severath shook his head and felt the imbalance more prominently. “Sorcery destroyed the bud.”

Lazerath swallowed then broke into another grin, shoving the parcel into Severath’s hands. “You can have mine!”

“And do what with it?”

His brother grabbed his own horn and pulled as if it could just pop right out of his skull. “Wear it obviously. Help me crack it off—mine will grow back in a few years.”

“Stop that.” Severath yanked his twin by the other horn to knock him off-balance. “You’re not even working at the right one anyway. Imagine having two spiral in the same direction? Would look utterly bizarre.”

Lazerath laughed in his careless way, stepping back out of reach as his tail swished to keep him upright. “Fine, but if you ask, know it’s yours. Who knows, I might just lose one to Dav next time I scare him jumping out from behind the hearth.”

A stab at Severath’s chest made him focus on the floor between their boots both for the kindness of that offer and the mention of their childhood friend. “Thanks,” he mumbled, glad to have avoided an embrace. And then more urgently blurted, “You have to go.”

Lazerath clicked his tongue and sighed, both noises that were filled with as much playful mockery as they were truth. “Always cutting our best chats short.”

“Danger is on its way. You won’t be able to just stop by any time once it’s here.” He straightened and dropped a hand on his brother’s shoulder, guiding him with a gentle force back the way they came.

“Huh?” Laz was especially easy to direct when he was confused.

“I’ll be playing host to a criminal.” Sometimes blunt truth was best. “A depraved soul who’s committed an unknown number of atrocities.” And sometimes embellishing that truth was even better, especially when it was extra bewildering.

“ Huh? ” his brother repeated, bewildered-er.

But they were already at the door, and Severath was pushing him over the threshold. “Didn’t pick up that bit of gossip about the surprise , did you? It might be a while, but I’ll come to you.”

Lazerath was as tall and almost as broad chested as his twin, but that tone was all it took—the same one Severath had been using since they were young to get his twin to do what was best for the both of them. “Oh…okay?”

He nodded to the carriage that was just arriving. “Go home where it’s safe.”

Lazerath’s black eyes went wide, but he hurried off diagonally across the yard with only one worried look at the guards and cloaked figure climbing out of the carriage.

Severath took a deep breath, retracting his claws before they pierced the doorframe.

He would send a drayk to his brother in a week or so with a reassuring message but nothing too casual lest Laz take it as an unspoken invitation.

His brother was just too curious, and keeping him safe from all the humans was probably in everyone’s best interests.

At the road, Drolmoth and Garion flanked the significantly smaller human, a hood pulled down over her head.

She was practically drowning in the cloak, but Severath was glad she was hidden when he spied Elder Zaretha standing under the light of her porch across the way.

The old demon shamelessly craned her neck to watch as Severath silently willed them to get on with it and get inside, a thing he was not expecting to be eager for.

The qapian that pulled the carriage unloaded its bowels then, because of fucking course it did, and Elder Zaretha cackled.

A scribe that Severath might have recognized ducked out of the carriage behind the others but didn’t follow.

Instead, she went to the stone fence and opened a book.

When magic sparked at her fingertips, Severath remembered what he’d been told: all of the humans would be contained to the city by way of runes, but for added safety, his charge would be contained to his tract in the Hushed Hollow.

When that charge fell behind as the guards took their long strides, Drolmoth halted and flashed his sword hilt.

She caught up with a limping run, and Severath squinted at the odd way she moved.

She would have fallen in the infirmary if he’d not caught her, but her injuries had been extensive then.

He supposed even an extra day under Balran’s care was not enough for the fragility of a human.

Don’t touch me , echoed in his mind in her voice, and just like when she’d screamed at him, he couldn’t quite discern exactly what he had seen in her eyes. Human eyes were odd, though, so disgust and hatred surely looked different in them.

Severath realized he was holding out the package of warm baked goods from his brother as if in offering when the three arrived at the door. He quickly dropped it onto the locked crate of weapons and stepped out of the entryway.

The parlor was already a small chamber, but it was made even smaller with three hulking demons who insisted on standing with their chests puffed out and a human squashed between them all.

Drolmoth took one condescending look at the hearth crackling with a red ever-burning flame and thwacked his tail on the sofa.