Chapter 25 #4
Crimson scales bordered his face. A few wisps of crimson rose from him. He couldn’t be more than five, and yet he would need to contend with smoke and scales far before any of his peers received their smoke and first scales at sixteen. Owu would be the first of his kind to live.
“Your body will continue to heal,” I told him. “Soon all of your pain will disappear.”
The pearly children watching sobbed into their hands and the shoulders of their neighbors.
They were haunted by their lives, but now one of them would survive, and so there was no reason why all demons of two colors could not live.
One by one, they smiled and tipped their faces in the direction of the sky before departing.
Peace.
The red clutched Owu’s mother to him.
She was alive. Barely.
But that meant she would live.
“Mother!” Owu threw off the blankets and collapsed in a heap beside them. He placed his hands on her.
“Owu,” I said sharply. “You’re too strong to heal your mother.”
“Guess that’s where I step in,” came the dry reply from the yellow behind me.
He edged between the bed and the wall to crouch beside Owu’s mother. The yellow started to push his power into her, and only then did the distraught red look at his son.
His eyes widened. “A crimson. My son is a crimson.”
Not just a crimson, a fucking powerful crimson. “Your son’s destiny cannot be left to the likes of your parents, but he also must remain… hidden for the time being. The demon king cannot know that he exists.”
The red paled. “He is a threat to the throne.”
I nodded. “Not yet, and not really. But that is not how the king will see matters.”
My gut was working overtime to nudge me in the right direction. I was about to do something that would be outrageous if not for the neon sign my divination magic was practically waving in my face.
I glanced at Owu, who lifted his chin and made it very clear that he would hear whatever it was that I intended to whisper to his father.
Okay, then. “I hid for a number of years, as you must know. There is a place where Owu can remain safe. Far safer than he will be surrounded by so many demons. His life there will be much freer than he can be here, with the scales and smoke he carries so young. But the hiding place comes with conditions.”
“Which are?” his father croaked.
I sighed. “The output of my power today will not have been missed by the demons in the area. Not all of them will mind their business, and if they sell the information to Carmine’s informants, then the demon king will send others to investigate.
You must move from this place immediately until I can make arrangements at the hiding point. ”
“We have nowhere to go,” said the red.
The yellow looked up. “You can have my hut. I won’t need it anymore, and it’s closer to the outer realms. Fewer neighbors.”
My heart sank, but my divination magic was undeniable. “Your mate and son will remain there until Tiers is done, and then I will move Owu to the hideout myself.”
“Owu and my mate,” the red said immediately.
I felt the full weight of what I was about to say.
“If she and Owu disappear, then Carmine will order trackers to hunt them down. Simply because I have been involved. You and Owu, to the knowledge of everyone in the realm barring us, will die in a few days’ time.
Your mate will go on working in her grief, and she will remain in the realm to continue the ruse. ”
His gaze fell to his mate. “They will lose me, and then they will lose each other.”
Owu’s eyes filled with tears. “I’ll be alone?”
I gripped his shoulder. He wouldn’t be alone.
And neither would my son. Because there was a reason that I was here and healing Owu, and that was because his destiny was tied with Adeuto’s.
“You and your mother must part for a time, but you will spend far, far longer together in life. You believed your pain was endless, Owu, but that came to an end, and so will the distance from your mother. This is what keeps you safe, and what keeps her safe. You must do this to live.”
Owu sniffed, and tears rolled down his cheeks, but he nodded.
“I must go,” I said.
Hours had passed. Adeuto would be asleep by now. Though I was about to deliver his best friend in a week, and that was a great gift indeed.
The yellow looked up. “I’ll show them to my place. Can you still portal?”
The red stared at his wife and son, deep in a state of shock, but he managed to stammer, “Th-thank you, Mate-Intended. Thank you for saving my son. What you did was… impossible.”
He had the impossible task of convincing Owu’s mother to follow our plan.
But nothing came for free in this realm, certainly not magic like we’d poured out. “I must speak to Carmine about how to manage your parents. Will they continue to hound your mate after Tiers, even if Owu is believed gone too?”
He pressed his lips together. “Yes.”
I had a particular dislike for people, demon or otherwise, who misused their power. “I’ll handle them. Enjoy what time remains to you, demon. I’ll see you in Tiers.”
Regrettably.
I didn’t want to kill these demons. I really didn’t.
But I would because of who I protected.
This realm was a ruthless fucking place.