Page 4 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

I saw more than just grief on his face, but I wasn’t sure what. He rubbed his beard, dried blood on his hands.

“How’d he die?” I asked. My voice, quiet, echoed in my chest.

Mal stared at the ground as if his eyes could bore through the levels beneath. “I think that’s the Red Demon down there, killing people.” He looked at Iden.

“The Chaeten-sa? We saw her,” Iden said. “Did she kill Oren?”

Mal stared off into the dark.

“Mal?” I tried again.

I’d never seen Mal wear that look before. Distant, broken. “Most of them just died—dropped like hail. Not us. Oren was shaken up, but the Chaeten-sa didn’t get him.”

“So how’d he die?” Iden growled.

Mal shifted back on the desk, his eyes latched on Iden. “I killed him.” His whisper cut the air between us.

“No.” I refused to understand. I could see the guilt in Mal. Maybe he watched Oren die. Maybe Mal just felt guilty that he couldn’t save him. “No,” I repeated, uncertain, when nothing in Mal’s expression so much as flickered.

Iden shook his head, kept shaking it. “Keep it together, Mal.” He reached a hand to Mal, who just stared at it. “If he’s dead, we’ll get out of here, and we’ll figure the rest out.”

Mal hoisted himself to a stand. “I killed Oren with my knife.” He motioned to a stain on his thigh, a slash through the clothing. “He tried to kill me first. That’s all he got in on me.” He shuddered, collapsing back down into a chair.

“Why?” I whispered. All my memories of Oren had smile lines: the only dark-haired one among us. He’d be sitting across the table at dinner laughing, or letting me ride on his shoulders through the forest.

The metallic screech rent the air again, closer this time, shuddering through the floorboards and shaking the stone walls.

My heart beat wild as shelves clattered to the ground, mugs shattered and tables toppled. Raw panic spurred us into a run.

Iden’s lantern wove swaying shadows in the dust-thickened air. We reached the office door then scanned the hallway: clear. The glass in the front windows shattered on the floor.

“What is happening?” I yelled at Mal, but I’m not sure he heard. That rasp in my throat was nothing compared to the rhythmic clang that pained my ears, or the groan of twisted metal as it shredded the structural beams, collapsing the office floor behind us.

“The rigs!” Iden yelled over the noise.

We ran past the truck bay. The floor beneath us shuddered, but we kept our feet, dust raining down from the ceiling. It made little sense. The machines wouldn’t do this unless— unless someone programmed them to.

Fuck.

Fear pulled air from my lungs. Our drill rigs were tearing this place down beam by beam. The ceiling at the other end of the hall caved in, and the ground beneath me shuddered. I coughed through a cloud of dust.

The sounds of grinding metal echoed louder through the stone floor, but stone wouldn’t stop machines that could carve a meter a minute through solid granite and crack through imperfections much faster.

We sprinted toward the fading light of the mine entrance.

Iden stooped to grab my bag from the front; his was long gone in the collapsed office.

We burst into waning twilight. Mal, a few long strides ahead of us, stumbled on the bone-shaking ground.

“Mal, get up!” I knelt down, lifting him to his feet before chasing after Iden.

I slowed my steps on the quaking, icy road. Whirling around, I expected to find Mal there. He was at least twenty paces behind now, limping. My gaze shifted to the broad mine entrance, billowing dust.

A figure leaped out into the twilight, her bright red hair streaming behind her. The Red Demon charged in her begrimed leather armor, hands on the hilts of both her swords.

“Jesse! Mal!”

I faltered.

“Run!” Iden yelled.

My feet planted to a stop, my instincts warring between escape and going back for Mal.

The Red Demon had swords, prime engineering in her code, and I had nothing to defend my brother.

My hunting knife lay buried in mine rubble.

I moved my traitorous feet like Iden told me to: ten more paces, twenty.

When I turned again, trees leaned uprooted on the dented hills above the mine entrance, their angry branches clawing the red winter sky.

My heart stuttered when I found Mal—standing, knife out, too far away.

A flash of silver, a burst of crimson. My blood turned as cold as the void, an icy vacuum stealing my breath.

I was close enough to see the Red Demon’s impassive face when she killed my brother.

I was close enough to see the maze of little scars, like old Asri art, on her muscled arms. And I was close enough to see the spray of blood as she cut Mal down like a sapling on her path.

It replays in my nightmares to this day: one swipe across his chest, one thrust between his ribs.

A kick to his chest to remove her blades.

His knees buckled as he fell with a hollow gasp, the light in his eyes fading. He reached for me. His eyes found mine.

My mind stilled, hollow. I stared at the Red Demon glittering with my brother’s blood, trying to understand.

For a moment, I got the sense that I did; that nothing was real but her and me.

Maybe that’s the same thing that smaller animals feel when they face down a predator and stop running.

They make it all make sense; get high on their own hormones before they die.

The Red Demon didn’t charge. She didn’t look like she wanted to, standing tall and cocking her head at me.

She was terrifying, enchanting, and other words that sprang to mind that shame me even now.

My brother was dead at her feet, his blood still coming in gushes, and my traitorous brain chose that moment to find her beautiful.

Time slowed, the clang of the rising rigs scarcely registered.

One long exhale escaped me, then my breaths came fast and shallow.

Iden screamed beside me, a hoarse roar that overcame the sheer impossibility of it all.

The snow drifted down around us. Iden pulled my arm, his face desperate and pleading.

When we ran, the Red Demon followed, but she didn’t outpace us.

She could have.

We kept catching glimpses of movement behind us, so we kept on running.

When Iden lagged behind, he let me shoulder the pack instead.

We walked a few paces for the exchange, and ran again along the rocks and deer path, sliding down hills and angling up them to avoid slipping on the ice.

About an hour later, Iden was wheezing and slouched, and I coughed with my sides throbbing.

Below the mist of our breath arced a rippling stream.

We stopped there, standing alone under the stars.

I put my arms around Iden as the flurries of snow stilled. He leaned in, his head on my shoulder. When he shuddered against me, I gripped tighter, pulling the cold sweat of his forehead to mine. We stayed like that for a moment, keeping ourselves warm through shared breaths, holding each other up.

I looked back at our footprints in the snow, to the trail that would tell the Red Demon exactly where to find us.