Chapter 29
While he seemed more than happy to demonstrate the discovery himself, Gluttony succumbed to Greed’s naysaying, who convinced his twin to let Saer lead.
Coercing Saer to go first proved another feat entirely.
Yet somehow, with a skeptical glare and quiet growl, he placed his hands in Arek’s palms. Every cord in Saer’s strained with anticipation. Voices and music surrounded the trio, the crowd around them ever moving, laughing, dancing.
Giving up strength was not a simple ask.
Neyu did it, he kept reminding himself. She trusted the Twins.
But should he? Did they do this as a ploy after hearing Errshek’s side of the story? Had they even seen Errshek? What did they know—or not know?
Even weak as a kitten, he’d have seniority over them. He could take back the power at a moment’s notice, command them with their true names, invoke the power of the hierarchy.
Let it go.
He forced his eyes shut. “To Hells with it.”
Saer dug his fingertips into Arek’s hands and pushed outward, directing the heat down his shoulders and corded forearms.
“Whoa.” Arek’s grip tightened as the power surged into him. “Hells, it’s like…eating lightning…”
The transfer lasted seconds—seconds that strained into millennia.
Saer followed instructions to the letter, releasing his grip when he felt well enough to stand and walk, though not much beyond.
He steadied himself on the tall table at his hip, sluggish rather than sharp.
His usually keen eyes opened with a lackadaisical blink, and his head craned to take in Gluttony and Greed.
Clenching and unclenching his fists, an urgent hum vibrated in Arek’s throat. “This has to be why you’re so touchy all the time.”
Before Saer could regret his decision, Alus pulled up next to him and extended the clay cup in offering. “Down the hatch, Princess.”
Saer took the mug without a word. The receptacle weighed somehow heavier to his weakened grip. Tilting his head back, he drank it down in a long series of quaffs.
He sighed and lowered the cup, wiping the back of his hand over his lips. The fluid burned, different but not entirely separate from flames. It sloshed in his stomach, alien and uncomfortable, though not debilitating.
He otherwise felt no different.
A considering expression on his face, Pride glanced at the Twins and shrugged.
The knowing half-smile on Alus’s face should have tipped him off. Without preamble, Gluttony slid the remaining two full glasses his way. “You’re big for both a human and a Daemoenic. Here.”
Saer smirked and took both servings of spirits. “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”
“Did he just make a joke?”
“I don’t think he’s capable.”
Saer huffed. “You’re both impossible.” Lifting the alcohol to his lips, he downed the second mug.
He drank the third with further leisure, pausing between each gulp to let the fluid settle.
At the end, he released an undignified belch and checked the bottom of the glass to ascertain he’d finished it.
He stared.
He forgot why he stared. So he stared longer.
“Did we break him?” Alus asked.
“Hrm?” Nose wrinkling, Saer tried to jerk his head up to the Twins.
His eyesight lagged behind the movement of his skull.
Saer blinked and nearly tipped over, catching himself on the edge of the table at the last minute. Greed reached forward to offer a steadying hold on his elbow. Alus’s warm laughter stole into his ears before calling for more drinks in the background.
“It hits hardest the first time. Ride with it.” Arek bent his head down and met Saer’s eyes. “How do you feel?”
Pride stared at Greed longer than he meant to—so long, even Arek fought back a laugh.
“How’m I supposed to feel?” Saer asked, going for a salty tone, but his lips fumbled around the distinct syllables.
His brow furrowed. “Why do humans do this?” The ground didn’t feel solid under his feet.
With each passing heartbeat, his skull grew heavier on his neck.
He moved his head back and forth, a slow swing left, then right, then left again. “Hellsfire.”
With a rare grin, Arek glanced over at an equally beaming Alus. “Never thought I’d see this day.”
“Think we can convince him to dance?”
“Dance?” Saer shouted.
Arek scoffed. Just then, their next set of drinks arrived, and the twin distributed them amongst the three. Lifting one clay mug, he raised a toast. “To remembering. To Neyu.”
The other two brothers lifted their own drinks. Even Alus, who almost never used anyone’s proper name, repeated the phrase with reverence, “To Neyu.”
The familiar squeeze in Saer’s throat and chest became somehow easier to bear with the drink riding him. He growled only loud enough to be heard over the crowd, “To Neyu.”
As one, they drank.
Two and a half full tankards later, the Twins convinced Saer to step onto the middle of a crowded, makeshift dance floor.
He wouldn’t have gone if it weren’t for a human female with bronzed skin, jutting cheekbones, and shining raven locks pulling his stumbling form forward by the wrist. In his right mind, Pride would have growled and refused—but in a state of drunken delirium, he laughed.
The sound came full-throated, rich, and freeing, enough to make Alus take notice with appreciation glinting in his eyes.
Saer’s skin slicked with sweat in the absence of his Hellsfire burning inside. The dust he and his companions kicked up mid-dance stuck to his flesh. He tasted salt at the corner of his mouth and washed it down with more spirits.
Alus seemed created for the dance floor, moving with the persistent beating of the drums, utilizing improvisation as his weapon of choice.
The opposite twin swayed with no less grace, boasting more control and precision.
They worked through partner after partner, and Saer caught small snippets of their conversations here and there.
“…dedicate yourself to us…”
“…ours, and this party doesn’t have to end…”
This was how they harvested, by preying upon and encouraging the overindulgent. They certainly pushed and pulled on gluttony and greed, though Saer couldn’t feel it.
The two were a sight to behold.
Saer had no inclination as to how he moved, but found himself spurred on by the surrounding humans, picking up—albeit slowly—guidance from the young woman who dragged him to the gyrating crowd.
At one point, she fell against him, and Saer wrapped his arms around her, head swimming. She smelled like lilacs and alcohol and sweat.
Soft lips kissed his perspiration-slicked neck, whispering things against Saer’s flesh he didn’t understand but held unmistakable meaning.
Her lust pulsed against his dulled senses, splashed on the back of his tongue, and Saer indulged the curiosity at the forefront of his consciousness, rather than instinctual repulsion.
Saer’s nose grazed the nameless beauty’s cheek. A smile painted her lips, her deep brown eyes half-lidded. The bass of the drums resonated in his chest and abdomen as Pride tilted his head.
I miss you, Dearest.
He met the female’s eager mouth with his own. Parting his lips, he touched the tip of his tongue to hers at the same time he tugged on her innate lust, bringing it to the surface.
The flavor washed over the back of his throat, choking and euphoric.
The woman gasped, then moaned as her spine bowed, clinging with carnal urgency. She whispered something against Saer’s mouth.
“Eldest.”
A distant echo. Someone calling him.
Saer slid his hand up along the woman’s slender back, curling it at the nape of her neck and deepened the kiss. He pulled at her lust again, reckless. The female whimpered and ground her hips into his.
Neyu…
“Saer.” A hand tapped his numbed shoulder with enough force that Saer reared back from the female’s lips and snarled in response.
Even so, a growing sense of apathy settled in his body, overpowering him as Arek assisted in unfurling his arms from the woman.
Alus appeared and took her hand, twirling her with a gentle smile.
She collapsed in Gluttony’s arms with a groan, and the twin danced away with her.
Saer watched the two, still trying to decide if he cared or not. It seemed he should mind, but the notion also sounded exhausting.
“Tonight is for remembering. Not forgetting,” Arek’s reasonable voice murmured in his ear.
“I thought I was,” Saer whispered.
Alus danced with the woman, her slick black hair swaying to the play of the music. Saer named what he wished for at that moment, heedless of Arek being able to hear him—something he’d said earlier that same day. “I want her back.”
“Neyu would feel the same, were your positions reversed,” Arek answered.
Grief crashed against Saer’s meticulously crafted emotional walls, threatening to decimate them. Again, the wild notion to go to Lucifer and plead for It to pull her essence from his flesh and bones, to recreate her, rose to the surface. “If I had another chance to keep her safe...”
Greed sighed and put an arm around Saer’s shoulders, guiding his unsteady feet back to a nearby bench alongside an empty table.
Saer flopped on the seat with a heavy thud while Arek descended gracefully next to him. Together, the pair watched the sea of dancers. The woman Alus coaxed from Saer swayed in his arms, kissing him with abandonment.
Alus humored her.
As the minutes passed, Arek crossed his arms and leaned against the bench back. “We didn’t get to pair ourselves with Neyu as often as you, but when we did, she told us about her feelings.”
Saer blinked and craned his neck to concentrate on Greed’s profile.
“I think she was asking us for permission to act upon it and seek you out,” he went on, “yet she must have known what our answers would be, given what we are.”
“You knew,” Saer breathed.
“We did.”
Saer’s aforementioned stomach had a hard time holding much other than alcohol, yet he found himself digesting the news and implications thereof. “You didn’t tell our maker. You must have known for…” He trailed off, unable to quantify.
The same sad smile of before crossed Arek’s lips. “Correct. On both counts.”
So, Kalia knew from observation, though had no proof. The Twins knew because Neyu trusted them. Errshek knew…
How did Errshek know?
“Neyu always wanted more than what she was. Being Daemoenic wasn’t enough, not in terms of power, but feeling,” Arek said.
His brow furrowed, his violet eyes losing focus.
“She tried to explain to us once, asked Alus and I to imagine if the other didn’t exist, yet knowing they should.
She urged us to envision that emptiness and what it would mean to have it fulfilled.
” Greed turned his head to meet Saer’s gaze.
“Neyu thought she sensed the same in you, but she didn’t know how to help you embrace and learn humanity as she did.
She asked us for advice.” The irony of the statement glittered in Arek’s gaze.
Saer untied his tongue. “What did you tell her?”
Greed’s lips pursed in amusement. “I didn’t say anything.”
Stone-faced, Saer reframed his inquiry. “What did Alus say?”
Again, the wry smirk. “Go for it.”
“Go—?” Saer asked, cutting himself off upon seeing the delight in Arek’s eyes. Pride burst into laughter, the image of Alus advising Neyu in such a cavalier manner striking him in an unexpected way.
It went so long that his abdomen started to ache, dying down only when he heard Alus join them.
The jocose twin’s elbows draped around the backs of each of their necks as he leaned in from behind.
“You two chuckleheads about ready to dive back in? I need to show this egomaniac how to do that feet thing he asked about.”
“Soon.” Arek patted Alus’s hand over his shoulder. “I was telling him about the very sage advice we gave Neyu in days gone by.”
“Ah, yes.” Alus caught on immediately. “Transcendent.”
“That’s a word for it.”
“There’s beauty in simplicity.”
Half-smiling, Arek leaned towards Saer. “My point, Eldest, is not only was she shaped by her experiences, but you shaped one another in your discovery together.”
Pride opened his mouth to argue, and Arek dared to hold up an open palm, silently asking to speak without interruption. If Saer weren’t deep into his cups, it might not have worked, but Arek was ever practiced in reading emotions and situations, arguably more than any of the Seven.
“We all miss her.” Arek’s tone had lowered, yet Saer fixated on every syllable.
“But if we asked Father to recreate her, to bring what’s left of her out of you, she wouldn’t be able to experience anything the same.
There’s no way she could be the Neyu we all miss, not only because she’s different, but because you are. We all are. Because of her.”
The words sank in with tortuous finality, like a razored knife between ribs.
Neyu taught him the value of patience, even if he didn’t practice it at every turn. She’d shown him the value of laughter. Convinced him to love her. That, and so much more.
“What did she say when you ‘advised’ her on what to do?” Saer asked.
The Twins locked eyes, sharing the memory with two different but identical smiles. “That laugh you just had?” Arek asked.
Saer’s brow knit, but he nodded.
“We couldn’t have directed you to replicate her response better. It’s like she was here.”
‘Pieces of her live in you.’ Saer remembered Alus’s reflection from earlier in the evening. ‘They’re easy to see for those of us who knew her.’
Caught between wanting to laugh and swallow back tears, Saer opted for distraction instead. He cleared his throat and lifted his chin to the dance floor. “Before this wears off entirely, show me how to do that feet thing.”