Chapter 33
The monks’ footsteps echoed away from the closed door of the abbey’s warming room.
Saer nearly dropped the pretense to sit up and would have done so if Kalia hadn’t started muttering to herself with her usual sardonic edge.
“Has to be a way to automate this.” Grumbling, the sound of her hands rubbing together shuffled to his ears.
“One at a time is ridiculous. Large groups, too much work.” Her steps neared, slippered feet padding on a stone floor.
“Can’t someone make a way for me to talk to the world?
From one spot? Too much to ask? What do you think, chap?
” Her toe tapped Saer’s boot which he allowed to bobble, limp.
Sloth took in a deep breath to sigh. “Didn’t think s—oh frenzied Hellsfire you reek. ”
“I’m aware.”
To say Kalia shrieked would be kind.
The sound escaped with such intensity that Saer winced and covered his nearest ear while it reverberated in the hot, square room. Kalia stumbled backwards, almost falling over and barely catching her balance on the back of a sturdy, wooden chair. “Saer? What in the Hells?”
A fist pounded on the calefactory door—one of the brothers responding to the disturbance. “Miss Kalia, are you alright!”
Shock transitioned to wrinkle-nosed annoyance, and Kalia snarled at the door, “I’m praying!”
A pause.
“...Yes, Miss Kalia. Apologies for the disturbance.”
No one could roll their eyes quite like Sloth, and she hissed more to herself than Saer. “They’re so damned helpful.”
With a frown creasing her soft features, the demoness put her hands on her generous hips. She dressed in a simple, long woolen dress with her honey brown hair in a braid over her shoulder.
Saer propped himself on his elbows while Kalia scrutinized him with her brown gaze. “Quite the cloak-and-dagger show to get in here.”
Pride pushed the stinking hood off his head. “I’m not carrying a weapon.”
“It’s an expression.” When Saer’s face twisted with more perplexity, Kalia sighed dramatically and made an abrupt ‘shooing’ gesture. “Never mind. Get up. You can’t stay here.”
Saer opened his mouth to respond, but stopped and fought the faintest of smiles.
The would-be smirk had her raising her voice to a new level of incredulity. “What?”
Saer allowed the smile to take over then. “I’m not used to you having a backbone with me.”
“I...you…!” Kalia sputtered, grasping for words.
“Yes?”
“You scared me!”
Saer assessed her. No doubt he’d startled her, but a new confidence had grown in Kalia since last he saw her. In the years of Neyu’s absence, it occurred to him that Kalia must have learned to walk taller rather than smaller.
How his beloved’s unmaking shaped them all.
The thought carried through to his gaze about the room.
It boasted a roaring fireplace that took up half of the outside wall.
The ceilings were held aloft by a series of distinguished, intersecting arches originating from four broad stone pillars dotted evenly throughout the square space.
Intricate brickwork decorated portions of the wall with geographic designs meant to draw the eye.
A two-person table flanked by a pair of wooden chairs as well as a low-framed bed stood as the only furnishings.
Warmth and homeliness existed in the room despite the amount of cold, unfeeling material used to construct it—thanks in large part to the various bits and bobs Kalia scattered throughout.
A dress here, a plate and mug with eating utensils there.
Another pair of shoes lay under the table with a duo of stockings.
Multiple handwritten books, both closed and open, splayed across the table, stacked tall on one of the chairs.
Even more rested next to the bed. While Saer’s eyes took in the room, he observed with some judgment, “This is an interesting choice of venue.”
When Sloth frowned, it had a hard time not coming off as a pout.
“I don’t need your approval. You’ve not teamed up with any of us since—” She cut herself off with a breathless noise before turning away.
At a loss for anything else to fiddle with, she started closing the books on her table, stacking them into wayward piles.
“You need to leave. The brothers won’t appreciate a fully functioning male visitor in my room. ”
Saer raised his eyebrows. “So I learned before arriving. Hence the—what did you call it?—cloak-and-dagger?”
“Surprising to think you’d consider the consequences of your actions at all.” It came out as a bitter mutter before Kalia could stop herself, back still turned on him.
“Pardon?” The first hint of a warning growl entered Saer’s tone.
Slamming the last book shut on the desk, Kalia released a harsh breath. Uneasy silence stretched until she broke it with a question of her own, just above a whisper. “Have you come here to kill me too?”
“Wh—?” Bewilderment tied his tongue. “No. Why would you—?”
There came another knock at the door, and the demoness punched her fist on the book she’d just shut. “How many times must I make myself clear?”
“Miss Kalia, it’s me.” The voice sounded calm, despite her hostility.
The ‘me’ on the other end of the door obviously meant something to her.
Cursing low and viciously, a new intensity rushed through Kalia as she whirled around and rushed to Saer, quicker than he was used to witnessing from Sloth herself.
She shoved at Pride, forcing him back on his shoulders.
“Lie down. Look dead,” she hissed. A beat of consideration. “Almost dead.”
While Saer gaped at her, she grasped the rim of his hood, yanking it back over most of his face at the same time she knelt at his side with one last rasping complaint. “What in the Hells did you roll this in.” She raised her voice to the human outside her door. “Come in, Abbot Maurice!”
The door creaked open, and Saer saw Kalia wipe her hand on her dress from his sliver of vision that remained. Male feet clad in pontifical sandals came into his field of view, stopping next to his kneeling kin.
“I heard about the commotion at the front. Brother Marcus said this one looks close to the end and was requesting to see you.”
“Yes, I think so, Abbot.”
“He is of the faith?”
“Astoundingly devout with what little I could get out of him.” Kalia couldn’t quite keep the cynicism out of her reply.
“Hrm.” The sound from the abbot came as a trusting assent. He also knelt. “He’s lucky he’s here this day.”
Saer fought to keep his face neutral while Kalia’s tone slid upwards with a twinge of escalating anxiety. “Today? Can’t be.”
Unable to see his kind smile, Pride could still hear it in the abbot’s voice. “Our calendars aren’t perfect, nor is the timing precise, but your gift has been fairly consistent, Miss Kalia. I would imagine within the next day or three.”
Saer could only guess what they talked about, and why the monk sounded so calm, but Kalia seemed on edge.
“Would you lead us in prayer over his soul, Abbot?” she asked.
Arm jerking, Saer just bit back a snarl while—at the same time—Kalia clutched his wrist. “He’s started to have the rigors. It won’t be long now.”
“Of course, Miss Kalia.”
What followed next were a series of quotes including words such as worship, forgiveness, heavens, and—Saer noted with bitter amusement—sin. He considered sitting and sniping at the man to leave, yet kept his temper at bay. If he protested, surely Kalia would be far less amiable to speak with him.
The abbot droned.
How in the Hells does Kalia deal with this?
“…save us from sinners, tempters, and temptresses. Amen.”
Kalia echoed the abbot’s ‘Amen.’
Saer had had about enough.
He turned his hand in Kalia’s grip and squeezed her forearm with a dark, vibrating growl.
The demoness shook off his grasp to cover her mouth as she forced out a series of coughs to veil the inhuman sound Saer made.
“Thank you, Abbot Maurice. If you could excuse the two of us, now, I’ll”—a rather convincing renewal of coughs—“help myself to some water and call when he should be laid to rest.”
“Yes, Miss Ka—ope!” The abbot’s address cut off as Kalia looped her elbow under the man’s arm and tugged him up.
“Your pardon.” The demoness ushered Maurice towards the door emphatically. “Have to commune. Especially if today is the day.”
“The brotherhood will be back at sundown to see—!”
“Yes, yes. Out, please!”
Kalia closed the door with a bang and let out another breath, palms on the worn wood of the portal.
“Care to explain any of that?” Saer grouched and sat again, this time tearing the offensive cloak off his body and hurling it away.
“No,” Kalia answered in a sullen tone.
Saer stood and brushed off his otherwise weather-worn clothes. “Okay. Then tell me what I need to know so I can leave you to your praying.” He spoke the last word with mockery.
The youngest of the Daemoenica turned to glare daggers at Saer over her shoulder. “Yes, ridiculing me for doing my job better than you have in the last century is a sure way to get me to cooperate.”
The urge to strangle Kalia grew stronger with each passing second. Pride flexed his fingers, cracked a few of the knuckles, and glared until she huffed and turned her gaze away. “My patience is not infinite—” he began.
“Understatement of the eon.”
“Hellsfire, Kaliaspher, can you not keep your mouth shut for two seconds?” he shouted.
Parting her lips to respond, Sloth thought better of it and closed them instead, eyes fixed on the floor. She remained standing in the calefactory’s entryway.
Saer lowered his voice and tried again. “I’m not here to harm you. I just want to talk.”
He hadn’t resorted to violence so far into their interaction—Kalia had no reason to disbelieve him. In fact, she seemed somewhat surprised at the level of tolerance Saer displayed. Perhaps that, more than anything, had her nodding her head. “Alright, Saer. Let’s talk.”