Page 39 of Once Upon a Demon’s Heart

Chapter Twenty-Five

KALEL

thirty years ago

My feet are blistered from walking for hours in circles. I swear I’ve walked in one direction, but the trees are tricking me. Seeming to move almost, always bringing me back to the same location.

Exhausted, I finally sit down and lean against the largest pine. The bark is covered in moss and glowing toadstools.

I know magic is less common in the holy lands, but I can’t help but feel like the Florum forest spirits are trying to tell me that this is where I should be.

Why else would I keep ending up here? My mom always said that it’s good to listen to the spirits when they are loud.

It could be a god playing a trick or an important slight of fate.

Perhaps they are helping my uncles find me.

Hours pass, and my hope starts to dwindle. My uncles will find me soon, I tell myself. It’s going to be fine. It has to be.

A branch snaps, drawing my attention up. I’m expecting to see Dakre or Collik, but instead, there is only a small demigod girl. Her hair is long and kissed with moonlight. Lavender eyes that seem to glow just as the toadstools in this grim forest do.

I’m stricken with her ethereal appearance. She looks only a few years younger than I am. Yet there are eons of time locked within her gaze.

My mom told me never to trust a demigod. She said to run if I ever spotted one, especially when our kingdoms are this close to war, but I don’t see anything wrong with this godling.

The girl studies me in the same way I study her. Her brows pinch together distrustfully before she takes in my weary state. Her eyes lower to my blistered, bleeding feet. Sympathy replaces her hesitation.

“Are you okay?” she asks, approaching me and lowering to get a closer look at my face.

My cheeks warm. “I’m fine,” I lie. Tears are already building in my eyes. When I try to blink them away, a few fall. I’m embarrassed and don’t want her to think I’m crying because I’m scared. It’s because I’m no longer alone.

“It’s okay. I’ll take care of you.” She sets her coat over my shoulders before wrapping her arms around me and hugging me tightly.

My eyes widen, and my heart lurches. A demigod embracing a demon?

She treats me like an equal. Slowly, my arms wrap around her in return.

Warmth fills my chest, and I soak in the comfort she gives.

“I got separated from my uncles.” I rub the last of the tears from my eyes.

She sits back and frowns. “Lost? Oh, no.” Her brows wrinkle together, and she thinks for a moment before her eyes light up with an idea. “You can come back to my home with me, and we’ll get help. The house mother always knows what to do.” She stands confidently. I smile and nod hopefully.

We start the long walk together toward Alzhor. She holds my hand like she’ll never let me go, and I find myself hoping that she won’t.

“What is a house mother ?” I ask, thinking that it’s weird she would refer to her mom in that way. But we know so little about the demigods, maybe that’s normal for them.

The girl just shrugs. “Most of us are orphans in Alzhor. The gods have no interest in us, and mortal parents leave their half-god children at the steps of our kingdom to be raised with our own.”

I cast her a sidelong glance. “Seriously?”

She nods, quirking a brow at me. “Is it not the same for demon-folk?” She seems genuinely curious, and I can’t help but grin.

“No. Most of us have families.” My voice is filled with melancholy. I’m one of the only ones in Thornhall who doesn’t have a father. Mom refuses to say who he is or what happened to him.

The girl weaves her hand with mine. The motion makes me flinch, and my eyes snap down to hers. She gives me an understanding look, not bringing any attention to the truth of what lies between my words. I grip her hand tighter.

We walk for a long time, but the time goes quickly.

She never tells me her name and nor do I, but she tells me many other things.

How she likes to sneak out from the orphanage to get away from the other kids.

She dreams of becoming a dressmaker someday.

She tells me of a bright future she sees for herself.

The longer I listen, the more I realize that we aren’t so different. Demons. Demigods. Even the mortals. What would it take for us to get along?

I know my mom doesn’t think I listen in on her conversations, but I hear her talking to my uncles almost every night, fearing the start of a war between Devicit and Alzhor. There’s tension between the territories, but I don’t feel any of the hatred that the adults seem to have for one another.

I don’t understand it.

But it doesn’t take long to grasp.

It doesn’t take long for me to understand what hatred does to a soul. It consumes your organs, twists them into coals and sets your heart on fire.

The little godling’s house mother is a cruel woman. She’s already lashing out at the girl for being out late before she notices me. Then chaos spills. “A demon! A demon within the gates!” They shout.

I see the way they push the silver-haired godling to the ground like she’s nothing. As they drag me away, I hear her scream and cry. She doesn’t understand why they are doing this either. Why they hate and fear me so much when I have done nothing wrong.

The demigods beat me senseless before tying me up and bringing me back to the forest. They throw me to the rubble with my hands slashed—my blood seeps into the moss of the Florum’s forest floor.

I let out a harrowing cry as pain ebbs into me.

I curse them and beg. “Why are you doing this? We are just looking for the Griffon’s flower, I swear!

Why are you doing this?” I scream, thrashing as hard as I can against their bindings.

“Shut up, you filthy demon. We’re going to kill you out here and leave your bones for the forest to consume,” one knight says, malice rolling from his ebony armor. Words so cold that I feel them impale my heart.

Why. Why? What did I do?

They kick my chest and send me face-first to the ground.

My cheeks burns with cuts and bruises from their fists.

My heart races, beating faster and harder than it ever has before.

“Dakre! Collik!” I scream, stumbling and trying desperately to get away from the half-gods lifting their swords to kill me. “ Help me !”

The ground trembles as power rattles through the woods.

Collik is bent at my side in the next moment.

His ruby eyes are wild and filled with fear, yet when he speaks, he forces a calm voice.

“Kalel, we need you to run. Run and don’t look back, no matter what you hear.

Go home and don’t wait for us. Do you understand me? ” he orders sternly.

My eyes are focused on Dakre behind him, who’s fighting off the four demigods alone.

We were out here to collect flowers, not fight.

We have no armor. No swords. Dakre’s head swings our way; his blond hair smeared in his blood.

Yet he still grants me a warm, reassuring smile.

He can’t fool me like he did when I was younger.

We don’t have a chance against them.

“ Kalel. ” My eyes are forced back to Collik at his chilling tone. His expression is grave, and sadness looms in his eyes. He cuts my bindings, hoists me to my feet, and shoves my back. “Run!”

I run. I run like the hounds of Mortem are chasing after me. No matter how much my feet sting and bleed and the branches whip at my cheeks, I run as fast as I can.

I don’t stop.

Not when I hear the fighting stop.

Nor when I hear the demigods chasing after me.

I look back for a split second when I hear them right at my heels. Tears fall from my eyes as I take in the four half-gods covered in my uncles’ blood. The one closest to me swings his sword at my heel and cuts it.

I let out a blood curdling scream as my body crashes to the ground.

I roll a few times before trying to get back up and continue running.

But another demigod has his blade drawn and swings it at my face.

I dodge only in the nick of time. The blade cuts open my left cheek.

My heart is racing so fast that I hardly feel it; I just know that it’s bad, blood gushes from my face and my lips won’t close properly.

Another sword impales my heart, jerking my body back and pinning me to the earth. My sight trembles on the thick metal that pierces my chest. I don’t feel pain, I only feel warmth spreading across my back and a heavy sleep trying to pull me under.

I’m going to die. My eyes trace the dark leaves of Florum’s canopy, watching as small orbs of light shift through the branches, whispering almost. Tears trickle down my cheeks, and my breaths slow until it’s too burdensome to sip in even one more ounce of air.

Then everything crawls to a stop.

The knights linger around me, staring at my body. Murmuring about me being dead. I’m not dead. Am I?

A wall of shadow lifts from the ground before me, expelling a deity from nothing more than black smoke and embers. His form is entirely concealed in a dark robe with the hood pulled up.

The demigods gasp. “God of the Underworld?” one says with horror.

The god lifts his hand and waves it once over the four knights. Their eyes go from frightened to dull in a matter of seconds. As if this cloaked deity has stolen their very souls with the simple motion of his hand.

He turns and glances over his shoulder at me, revealing eyes the color of pomegranates. For a moment, I worry he might take my soul too, but he only stares at me for a handful of moments, expressionless.

“Whether or not you wake is not decided by either of us. But fear not, a prayer is all it takes.” His voice is cold like water over stone.

The god extends his hand to me and brushes his thumb over the cut across my cheek and does the same over my heart before looking away and disappearing altogether. My eyes grow weary and flutter closed.