9. Syrus
Syrus
“Of all the humans you could’ve dragged back from the Mire…”
“Careful now, Viz,” I say, setting down the letter I’ve been scanning as my chamberlain rustles through papers on the other side of my desk. “I might get the idea you disapprove of my choices.”
He throws me a glower. He and I both know that disapproving of my choices would be his full-time job if I hadn’t already saddled him with one.
“She’s totally unsuitable,” he says as he lines up two pieces of paper side by side, studying them.
My office is as much his as it is mine. It’s why I let him keep it in the disarray he does.
As long as he always knows which city ordinance we should be consulting or has the latest reports from the border, I’ll happily submit to his chaos.
Me paying an ounce of attention to his long list of complaints, however, is less of a guarantee.
“I doubt you could tell that just by looking at her,” I say.
“Do you know what Liege Damein means here?” Vizmodeus turns a piece of paper toward me and taps a mysterious line.
I briefly look it over. “‘The mere adder in the long grass’? They’re talking about Vyle’s northern river.”
Viz scrunches up his face. “Really?”
“Yes,” I say with a smirk. “But don’t be too hard on yourself for not figuring that out. Liege Damein always talks in riddles.”
“That’s what happens when you’re pushing six hundred—your brain starts to melt.
It’s a known medical fact.” He snatches the paper back.
“And the human’s appearance has nothing to do with it—even if I could get a good look at her when she was covered in all that blood,” he says, giving me a reproachful tilt of his head.
He thinks I was excessive on that front.
But I have no regrets. Not when I’m so rarely let out to play.
“She’s a scavenger, Syrus,” Viz says.
I make a dismissive snort. “I doubt that. Did you hear her accent? That’s a rich man’s daughter if ever I heard one.”
“She told me herself.”
“Did it ever occur to you she could have been lying?” It’s my automatic response, but when I pause to think about it, I remember her request for gold. A woman with a moneyed family wouldn’t have gambled her life to make that bargain. Most poor women wouldn’t either, but that’s beside the point.
“Yes, she could’ve lied,” Viz argues. “But if she has even a shred of intelligence, she would realize that lie won’t win her any favors here. Which means you’ve gotten yourself bound to one of those parasites that picks over corpses left on the battlefield.”
I fold up the letter I was reading and set it down, giving Viz a warning glare. A few hours ago, I was in one of my elusive good moods. I felt I’d actually achieved something, and now he’s doing his utmost to puncture that pride with his pointed, bony fingers.
“The Concord council got my response, by the way,” I say, changing the subject.
“And?” Viz asks, eyes flicking down to the letter.
“And they politely agreed to my proposal that I do whatever I damn well please in my own domain while they go hang themselves.” I smile grimly.
He nods, expecting nothing less. “And the snare?”
“Oh, they’ll get their pound of flesh,” I say, leaning back. “But I’ll take it on my terms.” If there’s Malicite blood to be spilled, I’m the demon for the job, after all. I watch Viz write something down and find myself coming back to the subject of the scavenger anyway.
“I’m afraid there wasn’t much opportunity for chitchat, what with me arriving just as those sorcerers were about to start carving her up,” I say casually. “Besides, at least we know she’s got some backbone. She isn’t going to wilt at the first sign of ephilium trouble.”
“You think so?” Viz says, glancing up skeptically. “I wouldn’t say there’s anything brave about desecrating the bodies of fallen soldiers.”
“This is a strangely patriotic sentiment coming from you. What did you say about the war last week? That it was a ‘futile exercise in inter-realm dick swinging’?”
The pencil that was busy dancing across the parchment in front of him stops moving. “That doesn’t mean I don’t care about the people we lose out there,” he replies quietly.
“Of course not,” I say, sitting up straighter to make it clear I hear him. “But whatever you think about her background, she’s not a coward.”
He raises his eyebrows, so pale they’re barely visible against his ivory skin. “I doubt you could tell that just by looking at her,” he tosses my words back at me. I give him a sarcastic smile as a reward.
“I’ve been inside her head, remember?”
I could feel her will, even if I couldn’t hear every thought shooting through her mind.
An inner strength was there, steely and defiant.
It surprised me precisely because she looked so pitiful when I first saw her lying on that altar.
Resigned, almost, like she’d given up. But when I possessed her, there’d been a spark of something—a resistance I knew I could build on. And then on the mountain…
She’d stared over that precipice and decided she could negotiate with me. Was that bravery or stupidity? Maybe both. I suppose time will tell.
“It doesn’t really matter whether you believe me or not, Viz.” I don’t need to waste time defending her to him. I’m not sure why the urge struck me in the first place. “This is an experiment. You just focus on doing your part, and then you can gloat as gleefully as you want if it fails.”
“Watch out,” Viz says. “I think you underestimate my capability for glee. It far outstrips yours.”
I smirk; the bar is low there. “Oh, believe me, I expect disgusting levels of the stuff.”
“Sickening amounts.” He grins.
His word choice makes me think of that moment in the courtyard when the woman’s nausea hit me. She looked down at her bloody robes and a coil of horror whipped out from her, lashing across my awareness. It loosened its grip when I pulled away, but I was surprised by how intense it was.
When we were in Strata, I deliberately shut as much of her out as I could.
Directing someone else’s body isn’t easy in the beginning, and I needed to concentrate.
Blocking her out was simple at the time, like plunging her consciousness underwater as I did what I had to.
When I felt that wave of nausea, however, I wondered what I’d missed in those moments in the chamber.
I told Viz I had no regrets about the origins of that blood, but maybe I have a few after all.
Leah
I fully expect Infernum’s soap to leave a rash. I mean, it’s demon soap—there’s got to be something wrong with it, right? Some terrible curse that comes with rubbing it around your nether regions?
But I’m so desperate to wash the blood away that I’ll risk a full-body breakout. Anything.
And for what it’s worth, it doesn’t smell cursed—instead, it has a bright, herbal scent I don’t recognize.
It’s perfect actually, not just because its freshness helps clear my mind but because it makes me feel extra clean.
I scrub my skin until it tingles, working hard and fast to wash the smears off my arms, the red crust from under my fingernails, and the runes drawn all over my body.
As I work, the pressure on my skin releases something in me, like I’m massaging the awfulness of the last few hours out of my pores until it all comes bubbling out and rinses away.
I sob as I look in the mirror to wash away the runes sketched on my forehead and cheeks.
The tears are brought on by more than being snatched from bed and cut into and held over a cliff edge.
They fall because of the circumstances that put me in that bed in the first place and those that trapped me here in this strange, dangerous land.
I was so close to being free, and now I’m further from that freedom than ever before.
Once the last rune is washed away and my face is as pink from scrubbing as from crying, I tell myself it’s enough.
I dry my eyes on the linen towel hung up in the corner, then wrap it around myself.
Then, after a brief inspection, I decide my skin might be safe from peeling off or developing scales for now.
I can’t face putting my stained nightgown or the robe back on though, so I move to the door, wondering if the wardrobe has anything in it I can wear.
I’ve set one foot back inside the bedroom when I spot a demon lounging on the futon.
“So it’s true,” she says, sitting up abruptly with large, interested eyes. “Quill told me we had a human in here.”
She leans forward to prop an elbow up on the end of the bed, resting her hand in her palm.
She’s small, I doubt she’d come up to my shoulders, and yet perfectly proportioned, with a delicate set of wings folded neatly behind her.
Like many demons I’ve seen on the plains, her skin is purple.
It shines in the lamplight, complimented by her sapphire dress, which is a series of artfully draped pieces of fabric rather than an actual item of clothing.
“I wouldn’t have believed him if it wasn’t Quill,” she says, tilting her head to display the long, elegant ears that sweep back from her head, ending in a point. “He never jokes. He has the sense of humor of a sick basilisk. Are you thirsty?”
She tugs a dark green bottle from down beside the futon, waving it at me, and I don’t need to be from Infernum to recognize it’s liquor.
Tempting. Incredibly tempting, because if ever a situation justified having a drink…But no, I need to keep a clear head and my wits about me. I still have to find a way out of this, somehow. And then I will drink until I black out.
“No, thank you,” I say. I risk flicking a gaze toward the wardrobe, wishing I’d thought to look in it before I abandoned my clothes in the washroom.
She shrugs and uncorks the bottle, taking a swig.
“Excuse me,” I say. “But who are you?”
“Your welcome party.” She holds out a hand. “Asterim.”
I’m not really in a position to offend strange demons lurking in my room, so I shuffle forward and briefly squeeze her hand.
“Rose Radley.”