Chapter Eleven #2
“I told her she was wrong. The male is a replica. Cleaved from his very essence.” The sing-song cadence of the shadow hag’s voice plays too easily in my head. Cleaved from Netharis’ very essence, indeed.
A bright flash of white light in the corner of my eye has me pulling myself to a stand. This isn’t going to be an easy conversation, admitting what I’ve done to the people I care about most. The demonic urge to lie, hide, deceive, screams hot in my veins.
An urge I crush as my heart pounds.
“Little love,” Ryc calls as he approaches, and my eyes fly to him.
Brows creased, jaw tight. He’s concerned.
I swallow hard.
Eve and Cyran flank him, both wearing matching worried expressions.
“What’s happening?” Ryc asks, taking my hands in his as he searches my face.
I glance at the sophont lying on the ground before returning to his stare.
Will this be it?
Will this be the moment he sees me for what I truly am? The selfish demon holding little care for anyone other than herself? Bracing myself for the potential catastrophic repercussions of my decisions, I shake my head.
“No,” I answer the questions circling through my head, swallowing hard again. “It’s not.” With scrounged resolution, I address the three of them. “I’ve made a mistake.”
I should be used to saying the words by now. Gods only know how many times I’ve been made to speak them.
But this isn’t the hells. I’m not being compelled. I could just stay quiet. Say nothing. All of this would go away with time.
But I can’t.
Because I care.
I care about the outcome—what my choices mean for them.
As she studies me, the harsh concern on Eve’s face softens. “What kind of mistake, Ves?” she asks, unfolding her arms.
“I’m not the only demon in the living realm,” I answer, each word feeling like a blow to my sinking stomach. “I’ve brought another with me.”
I gesture to the book.
And three faces follow.
“It’s a sophont,” I say and Ryc’s brows fly high, sending my shame plummeting into the depths of the hells. “Both you and Eve have touched it which means…” I trail off, unable to say it.
“It knows everything,” Ryc finishes, giving my hands a gentle squeeze before releasing me.
“Every detail of your life up to the point it was touched,” I say, curling my hands into fists at my sides. I lower my gaze to the book. “Every thought, feeling, memory… your history has been recorded.”
Ryc pitches at the waist, snatching the book.
“Ryc I—”
“It already knows, there’s little to be done,” Ryc says as he straightens himself. “It cannot return to the hells. We’ll have to find a means to destroy it.”
He flips the book open to a random blank page. Confusion crosses his face as he turns a few more pages.
“And if Vaelyn comes looking for it?” I ask. “He knows it exists. He’s the one who left it for me to find, and he knows I brought it with me.”
“Then we tell him it was lost the night of the eclipse,” Ryc answers, his eyes fixed upon a page.
Lost, like the bloodstone dagger.
Easy enough to believe with everything that happened that night.
I nod.
Ryc meets my stare. “What else did you bring with you?”
I blink, taken aback by the question.
How could he know?
He tilts the book toward me, revealing a sprawling, swirling script.
Yggdrasil.
The damned demon is a shit-stirring imp.
If I ever get my hands on it again, I’m going to tear its pages from its bindings and snap its spine.
“I need to see everything you’ve brought,” Ryc says, closing the book.
“Wait,” Eve says, hesitating. Ryc turns to her. “Can I… I’d like to see the book.”
“It’s not a good idea, Eve,” Ryc replies.
“Please,” she says, her stare intense. “There are a few memories I’d like to revisit.”
His jaw tightens but with a small sigh, he hands it to her. “If that’s what you’d like.” Eve gives him a soft smile. “Cyran, please remain with Eve while she has the sophont. Ward your hands before handling it if you wish to keep yourself out of its pages.”
“Understood, Your Majesty,” Cyran replies.
Ryc turns to me as Eve retreats to a nearby tree. She seats herself beneath it, opening the book as she sets it in her lap. Ryc studies me with an arched brow, waiting.
Right.
Everything, he wants to see everything else I’ve stolen.
The small reprieve from my consuming shame ends. At least everything else I’ve brought isn’t as damning.
I hope.
?????????????
Two obsidian boxes.
One book.
My little hellish hoard lies upon the center of the coffee table in Ryc’s office, taunting me. As I sink onto the couch beside him, I take a deep breath, watching the faint, pulsing glow of the soul crystal.
It’s not as bright as I remember.
“This is everything?” Ryc asks, and I give a reluctant nod, unable to bring myself to meet his gaze.
He reaches for the smaller of the obsidian boxes.
“A glamouring ring,” I say as he pulls the tiny thing from the box. “Spelled to hide its ability.”
“It looks like a simple silver ring to me,” Ryc says, turning the ring over for closer inspection.
My eyes narrow.
“You don’t see the blue-silver runes?” I ask, watching the surface of the ring flash with a quick blue sheen. “Feel the thrum of magic within it?”
He shakes his head, giving me a small smile. “No.”
“The enchantment is as plain as a ward,” I say, bewildered. “Tell me you can see wards.”
“Anyone can see a ward,” he laughs. “Those are constructed to be seen. Enchantments,” he shakes his head, “are not.”
I stare at the ring pinched in his fingers, watching the constant ebb and flow of runes across the silver. It’s so tiny, he’d never be able to wear it. I was lucky it fit my smallest finger.
“But you see and feel magic?” he asks, his own bewilderment becoming apparent.
“I’ve always been able to,” I say. “Old magic, blood magic, innate—it doesn’t matter the nature, I feel it. If it bears magic, like this ring, I see the spelled runes.”
Ylara was amazed by it as well.
I never gave it much thought.
His eyes narrow briefly. “That is not a common ability,” he says, his voice low.
“Neither is peering into the veil,” I counter with a small shrug.
He chuckles, nodding. “True.” Laying the ring in the palm of his hand he asks, “Have you worn it?”
“Yes, a few times,” I answer. “The first being the day you sent Cyran after me through the South Ward.”
Ryc laughs as he returns the ring to its box. “He wondered—I wondered how you escaped him. Cyran isn’t easy to lose.”
“If he had been, I wouldn’t have used it,” I counter, sounding much less amused.
“I didn’t account for you having things like this,” he raises the closed box for emphasis before setting it upon the table, “in your arsenal. You tarnished his pride that day. Mine too.”
I scoff, an incredulous sound. “What did you think was going to happen? You send the Captain of the Royal Guard after me and I simply go with him?”
Ryc’s smile grows into a curling grin. “I expected you to at least listen to what he had to say. Not take off through the city like a criminal.” He reaches for The Elder Mythos, passing over the larger obsidian box with the crystal. “I suppose I have Artemise to thank for that.”
He’s not wrong.
“Is this book also a sophont?” he asks, opening to a random page.
“No,” I answer, glancing at the page he’s found. “A book of fables.”
“Demonic fables?” he asks, noting the Malbolge runes on the page.
I shake my head. “No, primordial ones.”
He turns the page, revealing a beautiful inked rendering of a towering tree nestled in a mountainous valley, its canopy filled with blooming flowers beneath a night sky.
Snapping the book shut, he returns it to the table.
“Why bring these?” he asks and I shift in my seat.
That’s the crux.
The outcome isn’t nearly as nefarious as the intent.
“The hells do not function on a commerce system based on gold or money. We barter using services or time,” I say, my stare burning a hole into the floor between my feet. “Bringing them was a precautionary step. I knew I’d need to fund a life.”
“You were going to sell them,” Ryc says, his voice soft. “What stopped you?”
“I felt the ring too useful,” I answer honestly. I heave a long sigh. “Things were stolen in haste. I didn’t know what I brought until well after my arrival. The Elder Mythos is the exception. It’s the only text in the hells’ library I’ve discovered that mentions the primordials.”
He returns the book to the table.
“And you’ve no idea who this belongs to?” he asks, pulling the soul crystal by the obsidian box closer to the edge of the table.
“No,” I answer, pursing my lips. “In all my time reaping souls, I’ve never seen a gold one.”
“Soul crystals are a damning thing to possess in Eldoterra,” Ryc says, leaning forward to inspect the crystal. He keeps a healthy distance, studying it with a keen stare. “You could be accused of necromancy.”
I scoff a laugh. “Without a necromancer, I’ve no means to learn whose it is,” I say. “By the time I discovered what the obsidian contained, things were… chaotic enough.”
Ryc straightens himself, nodding. “Is this something Vaelyn would notice missing?”
I pause, my breath hitching.
I never stopped to think about that.
I stammer as my mind whirls. “No, I—I don’t think so,” I reply. “I found it in the library after I—” I stop myself from exposing yet another less than stellar facet of myself and try again. “I found it in the library where it shouldn’t have been. Anything of importance Netharis kept close.”
In his study displayed on a shelf, for example.
Like Zuriel.
“Either way, I’d rather not leave it to chance,” Ryc says. He places a hand over mine on my knee. “I’ll prepare a warded cell in the stronghold to keep these things safe and hidden.”
“Will that be enough?” I ask, my brows furrowing.
“I’ll make sure it is,” he answers with a quick kiss to my brow as he rises. He retreats toward the door. “I’ll return shortly, little love,” he says, holding my stare for a moment.
The door closes and I heave a sigh.
All things considered, this situation could have ended much worse.
I’ve been given grace I’m not sure I deserve.