Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Little Songbird
Erevos
This little mortal amused Erevos, and he was pleased.
He had thought her bones too soft, her mind too delicate, her prayers too beautiful when they reached the deep where he dwelled.
And yet she had reached him. She had called, and when she did, she offered something most mortals no longer knew how to give—devotion.
So raw, it was so beautiful to him. And now, she stood within the space he had created, gasping when the walls remembered her shape, when the air curved itself to feel like home.
That pleased him.
He had studied her world long before he ever touched it.
He had slipped through the floorboards and the folds of her dreams. He had memorized the slight wear on the stool she perched on when she thought no one was watching, the faint oil stain on her dresser left by accident, the imperfect seam in the curtain she had sewn herself, the shallow dent in the bed frame from the press of her heel while she read.
He knew how her fingers lingered on wood, how she smoothed the edges of fabric when her thoughts wandered, how her breath changed just before she turned a page.
So he had recreated them.
Not as illusions, but as offerings for this little human.
He wove her room from shadow and memory, and sculpted it detail by detail until the darkness bent itself to resemble what she had once known.
When she woke, he had not wanted her to be lost. Her world had betrayed her; he would not.
He would become what was familiar, and then, in time, he would become more.
But structure alone would never be enough.
She must be kept.
He could still feel the hum of fear in her head, though she tried to mask it with a lowered gaze. Her skin—he could sense it—longed for warmth and comfort.
A bath, he thought, the idea blooming in his mind. Her body would respond to heat, to steam curling across skin. Yes, he would give her that. A bath, first. A beginning.
And then food.
Something that would not startle her, something warm that tasted of honey and safety. Something that invited trust.
She had loved books.
He remembered how she turned pages in silence, her lips moving as she read, her whole world narrowed to the shape of language.
Words had power in her life, like companions.
She carried them gently, like friends she could rely on.
He would bring her books even if he had to tear them from the false temples of gods who were never real.
She must feel welcomed. No, not welcomed. She must feel chosen.
Because she had been, and though her voice had trembled, and her eyes had filled with tears, she had chosen him back.
Erevos looked upon his little human and thought she resembled a songbird from the world of humans, like the ones he had seen inside cages they carried: feathered things with bright eyes and trembling hearts, trapped within bars.
It reminded him of her. Of little Lyssena, who had always been a pretty songbird in a pretty cage.
Cared for, but never free; fed, but never truly full; loved, but never unconditionally.
If her name hadn’t been Lyssena, he thought he might have named her songbird, and that notion, absurd and tender all at once, filled him with something warm and soft, something close to joy.
When his little songbird finally settled into the chair, Erevos decided she had finished exploring the space he had made for her, and so he began to wonder how to ask what came next. But he hesitated.
Should he ask whether she would prefer a bath first, then food after? Or perhaps she would want nourishment now, and something else later?
In his studies of her routines, he had observed that she bathed at varied times.
Sometimes upon waking, sometimes just before slipping into sleep, and occasionally after returning from her tasks, when her arms ached from carrying baskets full of goods.
There was no fixed pattern he could rely on, and it left him uncertain.
Humans, after all, were so very bound by rules.
Rules about when to eat, when to sleep, when to speak, when to mourn, when to smile. So many, layered atop one another, and he had never cared enough to count them.
“Would you like to bathe?” he finally asked.
She looked up, just a little, and then shook her head. Not a refusal born of fear, he thought, as he didn’t feel any, but perhaps the simple need for something else.
“Then tell me,” he said gently, “what do you want?”
“I would want some food, please.”
There it was, so simple and honest. Creatures like himself did not often comprehend the constant mortal need for nourishment. He was not flesh, he did not wither or tire. Erevos was a demon born of shadow. He fed on devotion and the fractured souls of those who had been left behind.
And yet, after following his little songbird through her days, he had begun to understand just how different they were.
Where he consumed belief like fire consumes air, she needed warmth, sustenance, and repetition.
She needed meals not for hunger alone, but also for the comfort they carried.
For the way steam rises from a fine bowl or the scent of honey on fresh bread.
He had seen humans enjoy the bread without honey, too, so adding this new flavor was at first confusing.
And now, after so many years of watching, he knew.
Erevos did not move yet, though he would go soon. He would shape her a meal with his own shadows, that would not frighten her—a comfort offering, perhaps spiced with honey or cinnamon. But before he left, he wished to give her something to hold her until he returned.
From his palm, he drew forth a piece of shadow, pliable and smooth, dark as ink before it touches parchment. He held it out to her, and the shape hovered above his hand, not quite alive, but not inert either.
“For you,” he said. “It will bend to your fingers. Twist it, shape it, fold it until it becomes something that matters to you. It will not break unless you ask it to.”
She reached out hesitantly, and as her fingers curled around it, the shadow moved in answer. Erevos nearly groaned from the pleasure of her touching him, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to frighten her.
“A distraction,” he added. “Because silence, when left alone, becomes too loud.”
And he watched her cradle the gift, watched her stare at it as it shifted in her palms, already beginning to become something else—what, he did not know.
But it was hers now, and it was a part of him.
And that, too, pleased him dearly.