Chapter 35
How long Saer let teardrops sizzle and steam as they fell down his face, he couldn’t quantify.
Kalia remained through it all, a motionless but comforting presence in a way Saer never would have guessed of her—and in no way would have permitted under any other circumstances.
In those moments, they were creatures mourning the loss of another they each held dear, taking what solace they could in their collective memories, even if reliving them in silence.
Still. Just as Kalia bade.
All the Daemoenica felt Neyu’s absence, without question.
The youngest and the eldest, however, harbored the largest voids.
Known but not fully recognized by Saer until that moment, Kalia had been the closest to Neyu, second only to him.
And now, she knew without a doubt that he was in love with her.
Perhaps the same realization on her end prompted Kalia to break the silence, her voice a frightened whisper.
“I told Errshek.”
A different stillness settled upon Saer as his tears slowed, then stopped, the last evaporating from his face. He quelled the immediate impulse to shove her away. Likely, the piece within him that he’d taken from Lust herself forced him to stay his hand, to wait in silence for Sloth to go on.
When Saer didn’t react in violence, Kalia’s shaking voice continued. “Alus and Arek have each other. Runeak works alone. You and Neyu…” For an instant, an edge entered her voice, a mix of hurt and wanting. Sloth stopped herself, and Saer felt her swallow against his back. He remained frozen.
Kalia went on with hushed anxiety when he didn’t interrupt her. “So we paired up.” The statement weighed heavy with guilt. “He…” Saer pictured Kalia’s face as she spoke, the way her brow furrowed in a combination of confusion and agony. “He worshiped you, Saer.”
Saer expected just about anything other than that. “Errshek?”
He pushed halfway up, his signal for Kalia to let him go. As she stood, he twisted at the waist to view her over his shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
Kalia still managed to sound put-out by Saer’s lack of insight despite the reopened emotional wounds. “Think about it.”
Saer’s lips parted to answer immediately, but he stopped himself.
It was no secret Envy embodied his aspect in just about everything he did, just as the rest of the Daemoenica did for their own. Saer never did stop to consider how much Errshek might desire everything he, as the First, possessed: Power, status, physical prowess and appeal, Lucifer’s favor, and…
…Neyu.
The possibility crept into Saer’s brain, and his eyes widened just enough for Kalia to read his awareness.
The expression on Sloth’s face answered his question, but Saer needed it spoken, leaving no room for uncertainty. “Errshek was in love with Neyu?”
“Of course he was, Saer.” Kalia spoke it not as though Saer was an imbecile, but as a soft and simple truth.
He faltered for his next inquiry, dazed. “Did she...?”
Kalia anticipated his question, cutting him off with a head shake. “No. Neyu didn’t know.” She smiled, but it held no joy. “She only saw you.”
Kalia’s words slammed into his heart, crushing and cradling it all at once.
Saer swallowed, then grasped for one thought he could make sense of. “Then how—what happened? Errshek learned from you...?”
Nodding with sadness, Kalia turned her attention to her fingernails and picked underneath them.
“He had no one else to pair with, so he came to me. Errshek told me how he felt because…” Kalia sighed and made a hopeless gesture, walking back around so she stood in front of Saer, her voice cracked as it raised.
“I don’t know! I don’t know why he told me, I wish—” The demoness choked on the last word and then cleared her throat.
The unmistakable fizzle of demon tears made itself known and she growled, rubbing her eyes with angry swipes. “Hellsfire.”
Saer curled his trembling hands into fists, forced himself to remain seated, and waited.
Kalia fought for composure, though her voice still quivered.
“It was one offhand comment.” She grimaced, shaking her head.
“I told him, ‘If you want Neyu, you’d better be prepared to go through Saer.’” Her eyes darted to him, then away again under his glare.
Her cadence of speech picked up, as though desperate to get through it all.
“He went quiet after that. Never brought it up from that point. We finished our harvest. I didn’t think about it again.
” She ended by letting out the rest of a shuddering breath, gaze lowering to the ground.
A few heartbeats passed before her miserable conclusion. “I had no idea he would tell Father.”
Kalia’s eyes raised to Saer’s, this time holding the contact despite her sorrow. “I thought you came here to unmake me,” she whispered. “I thought you knew.”
Saer growled, and while it carried discontentment, it held little anger up front. Unflinching, he answered her unasked question. “I’m not here to end you. Errsheken…” The rumble in Saer’s chest deepened, his lips thinning. “You challenged him to go through me. He chose to do that via our maker.”
And after he explains to me what in the Hellsfire he was thinking, I’ll revel in his destruction.
A timid knock resounded on the calefactory door.
“Miss Kalia, the sun has almost set. We gave you as much time as we could, but—”
Saer recognized the voice of one of the monks from before. Expecting Kalia to curse and lash out at them as she’d done prior, befuddlement struck when her eyes widened. Her head jerked to glance out the small warming room window, confirming their words.
“It’s time,” the brother outside the door finished apologetically. “May we come in?”
“Oh no. No, no, no,” Kalia muttered under her breath as she went over to the window. Only a sliver of the daystar remained showing over the horizon. She backed up a step, addressing Saer without looking at him. “You need to go.”
“What? Why?”
“In case the calendar is right!” Almost stumbling as she turned back to the First, Kalia reached out and grabbed his forearms, pulling him up and out of his chair. “I have a routine. You’re a complication, if they see—”
“Kaliaspher, what in the frenzied Hells...!”
“Miss Kalia?” More knocks at the door came with increased tenacity.
“Saer, please!” Desperation sliced through her plea as she attempted to tug him towards the door. Saer planted his feet, outweighing and overpowering her.
The last fragments of sunlight disappeared behind the crest of the earth.
The First pulled his wrists out of Kalia’s grip with a snarl. “Tell me what you know of Errshek’s whereabouts, and I’ll do as you ask.”
She gasped and froze, her head slumping, face downturned.
Silence as heavy as heartbreak fell in the warming room.
A horrifying and beautiful chuckle lilted inside Saer’s mind.
Glacial water couldn’t have run colder.
With an elegance Kalia would never achieve on her own, no matter how many millennia she lived, the Seventh’s head lifted.
Rather than familiar, comforting earth-toned irises, the whole of the demoness’s eyes were bathed in infinite ebony. Her usually sardonic and rounded lips pulled into a coquettish expression he’d never seen on Kalia’s face.
The entity possessing the Seventh’s body projected Its thoughts directly into Saer’s mind while her lips continued to simper. From Kalia, yet not of Kalia.
This is an unexpected delight.
Taking a step backward, Saer tripped over his chair and fell with a cry while Kalia’s body advanced upon him.
Her human frame stood nearly a foot shorter than his, but there was no questioning where the threat came from.
The First scrambled back on hands and heels, ending with his spine shoved against a wall as the Seventh’s torso loomed over him.
That excruciating melody simmered, unwanted in his brain.
It would be my greatest pleasure to tell you where my Errsheken resides if you will indeed do as I ask, Saerkhanum.