Chapter 30
Once Saer’d endured his fill of revelry, Arek returned the surplus of his Hellsfire vitality.
The Twins took advantage of the newly sobered Pride and dragged him to nearby tables where small game pieces shook around in clay cups, then spilled onto a small rectangular playing field.
Discordant cries of victory and defeat punctuated each toss, and coins exchanged hands.
Arek procured some playing tokens and declared their own space with practiced ease.
“By my reckoning, it’s probably been decades, if not centuries, since you played an honest-to-goodness game for fun.
” Greed emphasized the last word pointedly, his wry tone unrelenting.
He inspected each of the playing pieces between his thumb and forefinger.
“Humans love to win and take currency or precious objects from one another. The greater the risk, the better.” With an elusive smirk, Arek placed the game bits back in their cup and gave it an experimental shake.
The tokens clanked within. “Neyu played many games with us, Hellsbent on outwitting Alus or I.” An eyebrow cocked.
“She even managed to do it a time or two.”
There was no mistaking the challenge in Greed’s voice.
The familiar nudge of pride swirled in Saer’s chest as he eyed the Twins. And yet... “Coin is meaningless to me. What do we play for?”
Arek looked like the wicked cat who ate the canary. “Truths, Brother.”
“Truths.”
Arek gave a single, no-nonsense nod.
Saer knew he shouldn’t. Gambling with the primordial Greed and Gluttony? A fool’s errand.
Yet, it might be the only chance he had to obtain meaningful information about Errshek without the true-name power of the hierarchy—a tactic he still refused to use lest he give Errshek more ammunition against him.
He could outplay them.
He had to.
Pride.
Saer set his jaw. “Show me.”
“With pleasure.”
Each cubed game piece had been procured from the knucklebone of a hoofed animal, and every face was carved with a different pattern on the six sides. One depicted a star, another blank. The remaining four edges showed a number of divots, anywhere between two and five.
Arek tossed a pair of dice towards his twin, who caught and fiddled with them. “We’re going to play Dragons and Demons,” Arek said.
“‘Demons?’” Saer arched a brow.
Alus rolled the dice between his fingers. “Have you ever tried to teach a human how to properly pronounce Daemoenica?” He let the rhetorical question hang, then shook his head with an off-kilter smile.
“So ‘demon’ was the best you could come up with?”
“And you would suggest what in its place, Captain Eloquence?”
Saer shot Gluttony a cynical look, but otherwise let it go. Instead, he made a ‘go on’ gesture to Arek.
“The object is to read your opponent accurately. There are two players: the Roller” —Arek held up the cup of dice and shook it gently to emphasize—“and the Guesser. The Roller rolls.” To demonstrate, Arek swirled the cup once more, then turned it upside down and peeked under the edge of the mug, not allowing anyone else to see the results before he covered the dice again.
“Then, the Roller makes a statement as to what the dice reveal. For example, in this instance, I will say the result is less than three …”
“To which, as your Guesser, I say you are full of shit,” Alus interjected. “There’s no way you have less than three points on five dice. You’re a demon.”
Arek smiled and lifted the cup to reveal the game pieces.
Only three of the five showed, because Alus held a pair between his fingers. Those remaining, indeed, showed fewer than three points as Arek declared.
Alus stared for a heartbeat, glanced at his own hand holding the other two playing pieces, then burst out laughing. “Prick.” He tossed the missing dice at Arek, who caught them with ease and refilled the cup with all five knucklebones.
Arek went on, self-satisfied. “Point to me. Alus would have to give up a truth in this case, and our roles would remain the same.”
“So you call him ‘demon’ if you think he’s lying, and ‘dragon’...?”
Gluttony nodded to Saer’s question. “‘Dragon’ for truth. If the Guesser is ever wrong, the point goes to the Roller.”
“And if the Guesser is right?”
Arek took back over. “If I’m telling the truth and guessed as ‘dragon,’ or truth-teller, no points are given out, but our roles are reversed.
The Guesser becomes the Roller, and vice versa.
However.” Holding the cup, Arek gripped it with his lower three fingers and thumb while pointing as he explained.
“If I’m being deceitful and guessed correctly as ‘demon,’ or liar, point still goes to the Guesser.
But I remain the Roller. Because demons are controlling bastards.
At least, that’s what Neyu said when she came up with that rule. ”
An amused huff left Saer at Arek’s conclusion. “When does the game end?’
The twin brothers shrugged in sync and answered at the same time. “When it’s done.” “When we want.”
Glancing between their hungry faces, Saer drew out his two-word response, “I see.”
Alus snagged the mug from Arek’s hand with a grin. “You and me, Captain. You ready?”
“Who goes firs—”
Gluttony rolled the dice and turned the cup over, peeked underneath, then locked eyes with Saer. “Two stars and twelve points.”
Saer blinked. Arek nudged him. “Dragon or demon?”
“I...demon?”
Alus grinned and peeled back the mug, revealing nothing at all like he’d described. “You got me. Ask your truth.”
Saer still hadn’t caught up. He threw out the first thing he could think of, what had been on his mind since he first came to the shoreline. “Where is Errshek?”
“No idea!” Alus immediately rolled and turned the cup over once more, spying under with a rapid glance. “Zero blank faces.”
Saer barely heard Gluttony declare his roll. Teeth clenched, he forced a word out. “Dragon.”
“Wrong!” The mug lifted, showing exactly three blank dice sides. Alus paused enough for a smile and glanced sidewise at Arek. “What truth shall we ask, Handsome?”
The Twins both tipped their head in an eerily similar fashion. Saer’s brows lowered in barely contained exasperation.
“I’ve got one.” Arek reached over and took the mug from Alus. The Twins were going against Saer as a team; it shouldn’t have taken him by surprise. “Why don’t you ask Father where Errshek is?”
Saer ground his teeth together.
While he pondered his answer, Arek shook the knucklebones and flipped the mug over, but kept his palm over the base, waiting for Saer’s response.
Saer’s voice came gravelly and stilted, but he spoke the truth. “I can do this on my own. I don’t need our maker’s help.”
Pride. Always pride.
Arek considered the answer for so long that Alus nudged him. “Well?”
“He’s telling the truth,” Arek answered, voice quiet.
Umbrage washed through Saer. “Of course I’m telling the truth.”
Arek shrugged and peeked under the cup. Alus, to Saer’s irritation, smiled wider.
“Four dice.”
“What?”
Arek lifted his eyebrows in an unamused expression. “Did I stutter?”
“De—” Saer stopped himself and growled softly, eyes squinting. “Dragon.”
Arek lifted the cup. “Bravo.” Greed raised his other hand and showed one die in his palm, which he’d squirreled away amidst Saer’s frustration. Scooping up the game pieces, he poured them all into the cup and held it towards him.
Saer stared at the clay container until Arek shook it again. “You’re the Roller now, Eldest. Take your prize.”
Ah, yes.
Plucking away the cup, Saer made the show of shaking, peeking, and stating his claim. “One star and nine points.”
“Demon,” Arek answered without missing a beat.
Greed was correct, but Gluttony asked the question this time. “Are you having fun?”
“What?”
Alus grinned. “For my next inquiry, I’m going to ask if your hearing is going, old man.”
Saer fought the compulsion, but ended up laughing despite himself and realizing at the same time, even with the annoyance of feeling thrown off balance…
“Yes. Surprisingly, yes.”
“Good,” Alus said. “Your go again.”
Saer rolled for his turn. “One die landed on top of two others.”
“Ooohhh, I think he’s starting to get it, Bro.” Alus elbowed Arek, who had the grace to look moderately impressed.
Still, Greed only had one word to say. “Demon.”
“Damn it!” How was he supposed to win when Arek had an uncanny ability to discern truth from fallacy?
The chill in Arek’s tone cut through the mirth of the game. “Do you know how many threats Father’s made against you? Against us because of you?”
“Rek, c’mon—” Alus said.
“No, Alustar,” Arek said. “His focus has been on one thing since he got here without any true interest in you, me, or anyone else. So I’ll ask you again, Saer, Eldest—do you have any idea the impact your absence is having on the rest of us? Do you care?”
Energy hummed between the two oldest brothers as they locked eyes, an uneasy roiling turning over in Saer’s stomach. He’d suffered at Lucifer’s hands. Deserved it and expected it to a degree. To think of the Twins, or any of his other kin at the receiving end of such ire…
“It hasn’t been my intention to disrupt the rest of the family—”
“But it has,” Arek interrupted. “He’s gone through periods of screaming and isolation, obsessed with where you are, what you’re doing, why you haven’t come back. He swears to destroy you one moment, then takes the rage out on whichever of us is nearest.”
Saer’s breath caught.
“The next instant, He says you don’t matter and pretends as though the lapse never took place.”
The horror of what Arek described dripped like melting ice down Saer’s back. “I didn’t know—”
“You deserve to,” Arek hissed, all the lines of his neck taut. “Because you were never going to ask.”
“What do you want me to do about that, Areknar?” He kept his voice low, despite the growing urge to yell.
“I want you to be aware of it! I want you to consider others beyond yourself.”
That’s exactly what I did! Saer fought the sudden fluttering of his heart with even breaths.
Silence stretched across the table until Alus broke it with a hand on Arek’s forearm. “We can take care of ourselves, Boss. So can Lady Terror. Our youngest brother may not have your regard, but...would you consider Dollface, every now and again?”
Kalia.
With his truancy and Neyu’s demise, Arek and Alus were next in the hierarchy. Saer saw, in that moment, how very much the Twins valued not only one another, but their whole family. How they yearned to protect the lot. Even from their maker.
Just like he did.
Once again, the confession danced on the tip of his tongue, that Lucifer would have unmade them all if he hadn’t taken Neyu.
None of it would have happened if Errshek hadn’t said anything. The rage boiled back up, and Saer swallowed it down.
After a pause long enough to absorb Arek’s revelation and the cascade of emotions it evoked, Saer nodded.
Alus let out a breath and turned to Arek. “Ask him a real question this time?”
The more cynical of the Twins considered while drumming his fingers on the table, allowing the tension to seep out of the moment, the pendulum to swing in the other direction. “What’s your favorite memory of Neyu?”
Saer had been rolling the dice in the cup again, but came to a stop as he frowned in thought. “Hrm.” To give himself more time, he turned over the cup but left his hand on it, staring at the back of his palm.
At last Pride spoke, the tone in his voice warmer despite himself.
“Picking one is a challenge.” A ghost of a smile curved at the edges of his mouth, bittersweet.
“She always pushed. Tested boundaries. If I had a certain way of doing things, she’d find something wrong with it, point it out to me, needle at me to the breaking point, until I roared at her.
The first time it happened…” Saer huffed under his breath.
“Neyu bared her teeth at me, and she screamed, ‘If I weren’t in love with you, I’d be scraping your face out of my fingernails right now.
’” Expression softening but tinged with sorrow, he lowered his voice further.
“That was how she first revealed the depth of her feelings. In the middle of a pissing contest.” He lifted his gaze back to the brothers. “It ended the fight at any rate.”
Gluttony and Greed each held a mixture of amusement and nostalgia on their faces. “Our Quondam Queen always had a way with you,” Alus said.
Saer nodded. “She had a way with everyone.” Running his tongue over his teeth, he allowed the memory to live for a few beats more, then with the remnants of the smile it left, checked under the cup. “One star.” Holding up a finger before Arek could speak, Saer pointed at Alus. “You guess.”
Arek simpered. “He’s onto us, Brother.”
“I thought it would take him longer. Dragon.”
“Hah!” Saer exclaimed. “Wrong,” Arek said, at the same time.
More prepared this time around, Saer leaned forward. “What do you know about Errshek’s plans after he found the two of you?” He was making assumptions, but also hoping it would save him another question down the line.
Arek sighed and leveled Saer with his gaze, disappointment swimming in his lavender eyes.
Even so, he held to the rules and answered, if reluctantly.
“Errshek realized we didn’t want to get in the middle of your conflict with him.
He thinks some sort of buffer is needed, and therefore took his leave to seek out—what he lamented as—his final chance at obtaining a reinforcement. ”
“Kalia.”
Arek opened his hands in a subtle but telling gesture and allowed the assumption to stand.
Saer drew his fingers through his hair, then rested them on the nape of his neck. “Frenzied Hellsfire, he’s going to make me track down everyone.”
“But if you didn’t, think about all the great times you’d be missing out on,” Alus said, even if it lacked his earlier enthusiasm.
Saer met Gluttony’s winning gaze, then shifted over to Arek. “It is unexpected, how good it is to see the two of you.”
Greed rolled his eyes while Alus replied, “The feeling is mutual, you miserable, complicated bastard.”