Chapter 8
When they were a safe distance away from the scene of their crime, Azreth turned his attention to his wound, which he’d been doing an admirable job of ignoring. There was discolored flesh around the hole where the poker had stabbed him, almost like a burn.
“Iron is poisonous to you, isn’t it?” Raiya said. “That’s why you couldn’t lift the portcullis with your hands.”
He gave her a steady, warning look. Don’t get any ideas, the look said.
The wound looked painful, even if he was good at hiding it. “Are you all right?” she asked.
He gave her another look, thinking before he spoke. She was coming to realize that he was very cautious, always suspicious, rarely acting or speaking without careful consideration.
“It is a flesh wound,” he said. She couldn’t tell whether he was telling the truth.
“Those swords the guards used in the castle were steel, and they did nothing to you. Steel is made with iron.”
“Steel is mortal-made. It is not pure enough. It is not of the earth.” He placed his hand over the wound, and a pale glow bloomed around his fingers. A healing spell. When he moved his hand away, the wound was a little smaller, but not much. Maybe he needed more magic. More energy.
Nervous, she waited for the command—arouse yourself.
Instead, he offered her the deer leg. When she informed him that she wouldn’t eat raw meat, he made a fire, setting a pile of twigs aflame with a wave of his hand before tearing the meat into pieces. Raiya set the small chunks onto a stone beside the flames to cook, and Azreth lifted the rest of the leg to his mouth and bit into it, raw. She watched him with morbid fascination.
“Do you need to eat?” she asked, since he had not seemed averse to answering her questions so far. “Or do you just enjoy it?”
“My body does not require as much care as yours,” he said. “But I must eat on occasion, or I will grow weak and die.” He took another slow bite, ripping the wet, bloody flesh.
Raiya looked down, feeling bile creeping up her throat. She kept thinking about what might have happened to the farmers if she hadn’t been able to calm him.
And yet, she had.
“Human,” he said.
“Yes?”
He scanned the empty plain around them, his knees bending slightly as if preparing for a fight. “What is that sound?” he asked quietly.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She couldn’t hear anything. “What sound?” she whispered.
He crouched beside her, watching the tall grass gently wave in the breeze. He was silent, not even breathing, and the muscles in his shoulders and thighs were taut, ready to spring. A natural predator. From this close, she could smell him again, hot and dry and somehow intoxicating.
“There,” he murmured. And Raiya realized there was indeed a sound nearby—something she’d ignored.
“You mean… the bird?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
The chirping song came again. “That,” Azreth said. “What is it?”
Raiya laughed, releasing nervous tension. “It’s just a little bird.” She searched their surroundings until she spotted it—a tiny warbler perched on a long blade of grass. She pointed to it as it flew off. Azreth stared after it, perplexed.
“Do you not have birds where you’re from?” she asked.
“In the hells, small animals stay silent and hidden. They would be killed by larger animals, otherwise.”
He was less prepared for the mortal plane than she’d guessed. There was so much he didn’t know about Heilune. Even the simple things. She wondered how long he could survive here on his own.
There were people here who hunted demons. Paladins, bounty hunters, soldiers and even city guards. This world was against him. Even with all his power, he could not stand up to it forever.
“Will you explain something to me?” she asked tentatively. “I always thought demons came to our plane because they were mindless creatures hellbent on tormenting mortals. But you are far from mindless, and you haven’t tormented me, at least. So why do you not return to the hells? Heilune is dangerous for your kind.”
He stood up, brushing dirt from his knees. “Whatever awaits me in Heilune, it is better than what I left behind.”
Raiya raised her eyebrows. Did even demons consider the hells to be, well, hellish? Or was Azreth’s situation unique? “What is it like there? I have studied much of this world, but not much is known about yours.”
“We have talked enough about the hells,” he said abruptly. “That book you have. There are runes in it.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “You searched my bag?” She realized he must have done it while she was sleeping in his arms. Not that she’d ever trusted him, but it felt like a violation of trust anyway.
“Yes,” he said, unapologetic. “To help me decide whether you pose a threat to me.”
“Oh?” She crossed her arms, amused by the idea that she could be a threat to him. “And am I a threat, in your estimation?”
He didn’t answer the question. “You know runes. You read the runes in the dungeon when they tried to bind me. That’s how you knew how to break the mage’s spell so thoroughly.”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Are you a mage?”
That was a bit of a knife to the heart. “No. Nothing so glamorous.”
She wasn’t sure whether he was pleased or disappointed, but hearing this information made him stop to contemplate something. She waited.
“I would like to amend our agreement,” he said.
She furrowed her brow. Their agreement was precarious enough as it was. “How so?”
“I require assistance with this.” He held out his hand. On his palm was a silvery, glinting square of runes. The ink had washed away, but the runes remained branded faintly into his skin. She had thought they’d broken the enchantment before the runes had a chance to become permanent.It appeared she was wrong.
“I was too late,” she murmured.
Azreth’s lips twitched downward. “What do they say?”
Raiya hesitated. She could lie if she wanted to. He would have no way of knowing. She could tell him that they would kill him if he didn’t return to his own plane, perhaps.
She glanced up at him. For a moment, she caught a flicker of something vulnerable in his expression.
He was alone here. Except for her.
Giving him a wary look, she put her finger to his palm. His skin was hot beneath the pad of her fingertip. Touching him felt like a sin.
“This one says ‘death,’ or ‘final,’” she said. “This part stipulates a promise. And this one means ‘lifelong,’ or ‘forever.’”
“What do they do?”
“I think it’s a piece of a kind of soulbinding. A spell that will keep you partially bound to Nirlan.”
“Bound in what way?”
“I’m not sure. It’s half a spell. Since it was interrupted, I can’t know for certain what the effects are. It could mean nothing… or it could mean that something bad will happen to you if you’re away from Nirlan for too long.”
There was a sudden heaviness to the air between them—Azreth’s quiet anger. “Can they be removed?”
“I’m not sure. There may be a way.”
“Help me find one, and I will protect you from the mate you betrayed.”
She bristled, but didn’t bother to defend herself. She had a hard time explaining why she had married a man she had come to hate. People always took Nirlan’s side. “You’re already doing that, remember?”
He straightened, his eyes intense. “I will protect you from any other dangers we cross. I will ensure that you are fed and sheltered and healthy. I am strong and capable, even in this unfamiliar land. If you do this for me, I will destroy anyone who crosses you. You have my word.”
Raiya stared at him, eyebrows rising.
“Do you doubt my abilities?” he asked.
“No.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You must uphold your end of the agreement. Betray me, and I—”
“You will destroy me. Yes. I know.”
“You cannot outwit me. Plot against me, attempt to deceive me, and I will know.”
She dug in her bag and, for the first time in months, opened her old journal. There was a certain excitement to it all, she had to admit. Despite the dire circumstances, it was a thrill to have a mystery to unravel. She began copying down the runes on Azreth’s hand onto the paper. “I would have helped you regardless of our agreement. I don’t need anything extra in exchange. No one deserves to be enslaved.”
He frowned. He looked like he didn’t understand and was trying to decide whether she was lying. She supposed she should have expected that.
“But if you want my help, there are a few other conditions you must agree to,” she said.
“You said you didn’t need anything.”
“These things are not for me,” she said, closing her book and placing it back in the bag. “You can’t barge into places where you’re not welcome. If you don’t want to end up on the end of a Paladin’s sword, you must listen to me.”
“I will not lie down for those who bear weapons against me.”
“Then don’t break into their houses and steal from them,” she said sharply. “I won’t help you if it means bullying people weaker than you. I’ve spent too much time around bullies of late.”
She realized her temper had gotten the best of her. She’d raised her voice.
Azreth didn’t react. He thought for a moment. “I have no desire to hurt the weak.”
She raised her eyebrows. He seemed earnest. “Well… Good.”
He gave her a long, interested look, his expression difficult to read. She felt like she was being studied. Which was fair enough, because she was studying him back.
Finally, he looked down, raising his flesh-and-blood palm and pointing at the runes with his magically conjured fingers. She’d never seen a spell like that, a replacement for an entire body part. She wondered if he’d invented it himself after he’d lost his arm.
“What must I do to get rid of these marks?” he asked.
He was asking her to decide what they should do next. It was jarring, being asked for advice. No one had ever looked to her for her expertise before. And certainly no one had ever looked to her for leadership.
She had been living passively for so long now that she wasn’t sure whether she remembered how to do anything else.
She ran her hand over her braid. “It will not be easy,” she said slowly. “I have no experience with enchanting or disenchanting living things. We will need help. I think we should start by making sure we live long enough to look for a cure.” She pulled a silver bracelet out of her bag. It was a simple, solid ring of metal, tarnished from lack of maintenance, with an opening on one side so it could be slipped onto the wrist. Tiny, dull runes lined the band. “I was going to use this when I left Nirlan, but you should probably take it. It’s a simple glamour. It will help you blend in with mortals. It won’t make you invisible, but it should be able to alter your appearance enough to keep people from attacking you on sight.”
He took the bracelet from her, eyeing it as though he expected it to bite him. It looked tiny and delicate in his hand.
“It needs to be charged with magic first,” she said. “I’ve never actually used it before.”
“I can charge it.”
She hesitated, glancing down. “Enchantments require quite a lot of magic.”
“Then I will need to feed.”
“Is there something that will give you more power than what I did before?” she asked, blushing faintly at the memory. “Something that I’d actually be willing to do, I mean?”
“Stronger emotions are better,” he said. “The easiest avenues to power are pain and sex. In the hells, demons often torture each other for it.”
“That wouldn’t be my first choice.”
“It is not anyone’s first choice.”
She was beginning to understand why he wasn’t keen on going back there, if losing a fight meant being subjected to that. “Then sex is easiest?”
“Yes. The effect would be greater if I touched you this time.”
Raiya’s heart rate jumped. She saw his eyes flare in response. He already sensed it. “Touch me how?”
“It doesn’t matter. But being in close proximity to you will make the magic stronger. Even better if I am touching your skin.” It was hard to tell if he was excited by the prospect. As usual, his expression was wooden. She wasn’t sure if that made her feel more comfortable, or less.
“Then… let’s do that,” she decided.
He needed no further encouragement.