Chapter 34
Sloth dragged out the empty chair and plopped into it. She pulled an ankle across the opposite knee, leaning over and untying one of her slippers. “Have a seat anywhere.”
The other chair had books stacked high atop it.
The bed was a tangled mess of linens which looked to have been ignored and unmade since Kalia started living in the warming room.
“I’ll...stand.”
The demoness made a have-it-your-way gesture with her hand. “Then ask your questions so you can get out of here before the light is gone.”
“Why are we on a time limit?”
Kalia rolled her eyes upward with a dramatic flair. “What. Do. You. Want?”
Grimacing, Saer crossed his arms.
The eldest and the youngest.
The First and the Seventh.
Biggest brother, littlest sister.
“I want Errshek’s location.”
Kalia only nodded. “Yeah.” She sighed and refocused on her slipper, pulling it off her foot and muttering more to herself than Saer, “Yeah, I thought that was probably what this was about.”
So, Errshek had visited her, too.
Saer’s nostrils flared. Every one of his kin heard Envy’s recounting of events, rather than Saer’s. Hellsfire, it rankled him.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Do you even care that she’s dead, Saer?”
She spoke the question with such quiet resentment that Pride convinced himself he must have misheard, or at least misunderstood.
Arms lowering to his sides with deliberate slowness, he stared at the top of Kalia’s head where she sat frozen, refusing to look at him.
His voice came strained and hushed in turn. “Explain yourself, and quickly.”
“Threats, always threats!” Kalia’s outburst echoed in the stony chamber.
She ripped her other slipper off and threw it on the ground to punctuate her frustration.
“Rage, ultimatums, punishment, murder.” Snapping out the last word, she bared her teeth when she lifted her head to meet Saer’s seething glare, then retreated inwardly.
Even so, she managed to finish in a disparaging tone.
“Neyu is dead, and you’re more interested in ending Errshek than acknowledging her absence. ”
Nothing betrayed Pride’s emotions other than a flinch at the corners of his eyes.
The perceptive and cunning Kalia still seemed to see it.
Sloth continued, softer this time. “Feel angry if you’d like. Go after Errshek if it pleases you. But I thought…” Kalia’s voice trailed off, and she rolled her lips together in a thoughtful pause. “I thought you cared about her.”
Something about the hushed observation wrapped around Saer’s heart, squeezing it with razor blades. Whatever version Errshek had told her, Kalia obviously struggled to reconcile it with her own observations.
“Have you given yourself any chance to be...still...first?”
The rest of Saer’s ire deflated, though something within him clung desperately to it, like rupturing nails on a chasm’s edge. “Still?”
Kalia released a heavy breath. “Yes.” She dropped her attention to the chair piled with books.
Without moving from her own seat, she leaned over and tipped the piece of furniture to its side.
The tower of manuscripts fell over with a rustling clatter before she righted the chair. “Start with sitting.”
“Playing ‘almost dead’ was already awful enough.”
“My point exactly. You were terrible at it. We’re starting easier.” Kalia pushed the chair towards Saer with one foot. It didn’t move far, but the resulting, abrasive scraping noise drew his eyes to it.
“Hellsfire, it’s not going to bite you.”
Saer snagged the seat and pulled it towards himself, nettled and not bothering to hide it. He straddled the chair in reverse and settled his forearms on the backrest, facing Kalia. “Now what?”
“Now you get a treat for doing as you’re told.”
“What?”
“Now,” Kalia went on as though she hadn’t just made a joke at Pride’s expense. “You sit. And you be quiet.”
Saer rubbed his face with his hands, groaning, “Weren’t you just saying you wanted to speed this up?”
“I changed my mind. You need this more. And,” she added as an afterthought, “the brothers’ calendar is off. Has to be. Feels too soon.”
Kalia might as well have spoken in gibberish, but Saer had no desire to dig into whatever she went on about. Though it left him doing exactly as she bid, sitting quietly.
Sloth opened a book on her table and poured over the words.
He made it a half minute and not a second longer. “Is this all?”
Sighing with unveiled annoyance, the demoness put her hand on the book’s pages. It appeared she might snipe at him, but stopped short, changing her question at the last moment. “What do you remember about how Neyu looked?”
Saer growled, ready to lash out, but Kalia went on. “Stop. Close your eyes. Picture her. Tell me what you see.”
His immediate impulse was to argue, but something in Kalia’s pitch made Saer bite his tongue against it. Frowning, he rested his temple on one of his hands, still leaning forward on the backrest of the chair. With the same fading growl as before, he shut his eyes.
Saer’s creased brow evened out before Kalia prompted, “What does she look like?”
Feeling foolish at the start, Saer had a hard time finding the words. “Beautiful. She’s—”
Simple as that, his throat constricted, and the words stuck.
What in the Hells?
Gritting his teeth, he forced his voice past the emotion. “She was so damned beautiful.”
Kalia sat in silence, giving Saer the time he needed.
He inhaled through his nose in an attempt to open his closed gullet. “Her eyes. The blue. I can’t find—” Another pause as the deep cerulean color swam in his mind’s eye. “Nowhere, no one, nothing has its match.”
Kalia whispered, “Did you tell her?”
“No.” Jaw tightening, a lump rose in Saer’s neck, a pressure behind his eyes. “I didn’t notice until...she was gone.”
Saer could see his love with increasing clarity in his memory, the elegant way she moved, her refined curves which begged his touch, the arcuate curve of her lips when he’d inadvertently amused her.
One of his hands raked through his hair and gripped at the back of his scalp. Anything to quell the torrential tsunami of emotion. The internal defenses he’d built were intentional and, Pride thought until recently, robust.
‘I have taken what vengeance I can.’ Runeak. Blame and rancor. The first cracks in the foundation.
‘No one will ever be able to take away what the two of you experienced, no matter how Father came to know about it.’ ‘Nor will killing another of us make your anguish disappear.’ The Twins. Acknowledgment and bartering. Another blow to his shields.
‘Neyu is dead, and you’re more interested in ending Errshek than feeling her absence.’ Kalia. Umbrage and sadness.
The impenetrable walls, well and truly, crumbled. Helpless to their disintegration for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, Saer shoved his other hand through his tresses, bending forward on his elbows, and squeezed his eyes shut tight.
“Why are you still fighting, Saer?” The youngest’s voice was unusually soft.
Choking out a noise, something between a barking breath of air and a cry, Saer dug his fingertips harder into his scalp. He didn’t respond, and couldn’t discern whether he had no desire or lacked the capability.
Kalia tried again, still hushed. “What was the last thing she said to you?”
A whine crawled out of Saer’s throat, but this question he could answer, as easily as though Neyu said it moments before. “I’m ready.”
He just heard Kalia’s acknowledgment of his revelation—a catching of her breath. With renewed sorrow, she pushed for a hint more. “What were your final words to her?”
Those, Saer kept locked away, always extinguishing the recollection before the moment Neyu was consumed.
The cracks and fissures splintered further.
Saer’s knuckles went from pale to white with the urgency he gripped at the nape of his neck.
The memory wouldn’t be denied, and he fell, powerless to the onslaught. An almost imperceptible hiss made itself known from the corner of his eye. Tears he’d refused to shed past that night, reminding him that they’d never disappeared, but had been denied too long.
“I love you, Neyu.” Saer whispered it like she was there, like his lips grazed her ear, feeling her shivering in his arms all over again, and the way he trembled in turn. “Hold onto me.”
The dam broke.
Kalia’s arms wrapped around him from behind, her forehead pressed to the crown of his head while Saer, for the first time since his beloved’s unmaking, allowed grief to overtake him.