Chapter 39
Saer’s spark of unmaking dissipated from Errshek’s body. The demon fell from the tree stump to his knees.
On the opposite side of the fire pit, Saer prowled.
Errshek’s thin arms wrapped around his middle while he gasped for air. “Saer—” A nasal, but not quite grating quality wove through Errshek’s voice. Just like the rest of him, forgettable. In that moment, however, it rose breathless and terrified.
“Errsheken.” Saer held one fist in the palm of his other, rubbing his knuckles.
He cracked them one at a time, a snapping emphasis to echo the persistent thunder.
Errshek twitched with each acute pop and the younger demon tried to maneuver his graceless feet under him.
Envy made it to the clearing’s edge, then wept again when Saer’s true-name command held him.
Helpless. Crippled. Trapped.
“You know why I’m here.” Saer strode to him just as Errshek’s knees collapsed in terror. Away from the canopy’s protection, the demons soaked up the continuous rain. Errshek’s dark blonde hair dampened away to a dirty brown, moisture evaporating off his body.
Shivering, Envy stared at the ground, arms wrapping tighter around his middle. “I don’t want to fight you, Saer,” he uttered through chattering teeth.
“It doesn’t matter what you want.” A sneer pulled Saer’s lips back, and he curled his fingers into the collar of Errshek’s shirt.
Twisting it to the point of near-choking, he lifted.
“Scream, Errsheken.” Saer’s icy declaration could have frozen molten lava.
Forced to stand or be suffocated, the younger demon flailed and kicked.
“She deserved better than you!” The acidic words erupted from Errshek’s lips, hysterical.
Saer didn’t know what he’d been expecting when he found Errshek.
Delightfully tortuous scenes had come into his mind, Envy begging Pride for a reprieve, lamentations alongside screams of horror and anguish.
In every scenario he pictured, he’d never considered Errshek challenging him with such bravado, even in a fit of fight-or-flight.
The impassioned declaration unsettled him before he squeezed tighter and, with an enraged roar, slammed Errshek to the ground and on his back.
Errshek coughed as Saer shouted over him, crushing his chest under his palm. “She deserved to live!” He pulled back and thrust his other fist into Envy’s nose. Bones crunched. He struck again.
Again.
He saw red.
Again, another jab. Again.
Errshek struggled, crying out with each subsequent blow. His arms raised to shield his face as much as he could amidst the onslaught. “She did!” he wailed.
With a barked growl, Saer pressed harder, reveling in the way Errshek’s ribs creaked and crunched under his weight. He used his bloodied hand to pry away one of Errshek’s arms to glare at his broken, bruised face. “Then why, Errsheken?”
Errshek batted at Saer’s wrist and forearm, unintelligible sounds breaking past his lips.
Saer punched again, knuckles cutting on Errshek’s teeth.
Envy’s lip split. Scarlet fluid poured into his mouth, and he coughed. Crimson droplets splattered, painting Saer’s neck and arm.
Errshek shot a hand up and clipped the bottom of Saer’s chin. He bit his own tongue, tasting iron.
Bloodlust.
Vengeance.
Not enough.
Let him speak.
Two warring voices howled inside Saer’s mind.
He unleashed a wordless cry and stood. The moment Saer eased up, Errshek rolled to his side and hacked on the ground, spitting ruby ichor.
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Envy rasped—indignant, even when faced with his own mortality.
Saer kicked him under his ribs, a jarring blow that took Errshek’s breath away.
He seized and choked, recoiling when Saer reared back again.
“Alright. Alright,” Errshek gasped. He lurched over and spat on the ground again.
Errshek let out a growl in turn, though it came tinged with equal parts agony and—Saer noted with bloodthirsty satisfaction—returned anger.
“I didn’t know.” Envy curled an arm around his torso to hold his broken bones in place.
“That’s exactly what you said on that day,” Pride snarled.
Nodding, Errshek gritted his teeth and moved to a shuddering kneel, a fractured, swollen mess. Rainwater sluiced through the blood. Dark fluid ran down his skin in vermillion ribbons.
“It’s still true,” he hissed.
“Explain.”
“It was supposed to be you,” Envy whispered, a bitter confession. Saer lunged towards him and Errshek yelped, flinching back.
“You wanted our creator to unmake me,” Saer roared, barely staying his hand.
Errshek nodded with a jerky movement as he swallowed, inching away.
“You were the problem. Neyu was…” Her name left him as a sigh, and Saer just kept from backhanding the younger demon.
Errshek finished with a loving whisper, “She was perfect.” He lifted his bruised eyes, repeating, “She deserved better than you.”
“Your resentment got her killed!” Saer screamed and let his fist fly, hammering into the side of Errshek’s jaw and sending him once more to the ground in a shower of red. “It almost got all of you killed!”
Errshek groaned and shook his head, moving his trembling limbs back under his body. He muttered something under his breath.
“Speak up.”
“Resentment is what I am, Eldest!” Errshek wailed from all fours on the ground, terror forgotten in the face of blood-curdling acrimony.
He shivered and tilted his head to meet Saer’s gaze.
“Do you know? Do you have any concept of what it is to want? To really want and know that’s all there is?
She—” Choking on the word, Errshek sobbed and bowed his head again.
“She’s the only one who could make it stop.
With Neyu, I could just be...me. It was enough. She understood.”
Saer made a noise of disgust and turned away, his clenched fists loosening. The murderous resolve in his chest simmered while he raked bloodied hands through his hair, curling his fingers at the back of his neck. He squeezed his eyes shut, the pulse of his heart beating behind the lids.
Everything in him yearned for slaughter.
“She called me the King of Want,” Errshek whispered.
Saer’s eyes snapped open.
‘This coming from the Queen of Want.’
His own voice echoed Errshek’s, a mirror to a teasing term of endearment he’d used for Neyu.
Saer pivoted to Errshek, the younger brother shuffling to a stand, despondent and hostile all at once.
“I knew you’d find me,” Errshek said. “I didn’t expect to look forward to this once you got here.”
What?
One of the younger demon’s hands remained wrapped around his waist, rubbing at his ribs while Saer stared, slack jawed.
When Errshek lifted his gaze and glimpsed the incredulous way Saer responded to his statements, he shrugged and bowed his head.
“If she can’t be with us here, I’d rather join her.
” Grief lined Envy’s face, so reflective of Saer’s, a pang of it struck his own chest. “Part of her has to be in you, or you would have finished the kill already. You destroy me...we’ll all be together. ”
Gaze widening a fraction, Saer took a shuffled step backwards.
He’d absorbed Neyu. Pieces of her became more and more apparent as they were sought, as his insight grew. He loved her. He welcomed those pieces.
What would it do to him, to be Pride with Envy?
To be self-assured and uncertain?
To know he was superior and still want?
Who would he become?
What would he become?
“No.” Saer took another step backwards as Errshek staggered forward.
“Please, Eldest. I’m not afraid anymore.” Errshek extended a beckoning hand, and Pride swiped it away with a snarl, backing up further.
“I should have died that day,” Errshek cried.
“No, Errsheken!” Saer roared above the thunder, and the younger demon’s discolored and damaged face crumbled. Errshek’s feet stumbled, and he bent again in half, crestfallen.
Saer rebelled against the uncomfortable sensation unwinding in his guts, a sense of wrongness and dread, though too unsettled to delineate why.
To end Errshek’s being would end his suffering. To unmake him would give him what he wanted.
Who would Envy be without wanting?
‘Do you have any concept of what it is to want? To really want and know that’s all there is?’
“I can’t go on like this!” Errshek may have been howling to no one or everyone. Whosoever would listen. “I hate this life, this shell, these thoughts! I can’t—” His voice cracked. “I should have died that day,” he repeated with a whimper, then fell silent once more.
Everything wrathful drained out of Saer’s body, leaving behind …
It must have been the part of him which hosted Neyu. Pride himself would never admit to feeling as much for the one he’d held responsible for the murder of his beloved. For the one who, moments ago, admitted to conspiring to end his own existence.
And yet …
Pity.
Pity for the husk before him exuding worthlessness. Who always twisted it to self-deprecation on his best day and—as became increasingly apparent to Saer—wishing for a final end on his worst.
Pity that Saer would not do as Errshek begged him to, even though it had been his intent from the start.
Saer hesitated, rocking on his feet while Errshek wept. Envy cried for himself, but Saer recognized the loss he mirrored. Grief for the demoness they each cherished beyond their making, beyond reason.
That, more than anything, made Saer close the distance between their bodies and, after another brief pause, he gathered the shuddering younger demon in his arms and embraced him.
Bawling, despite the pain which must have come with each breath, Errshek clasped Saer in turn as though he held the last solid thing on earth.
Neyu was unmade, but we’re the ones who are punished. The thought came to Saer’s mind, and again, a sense of foreboding fluttered in his abdomen.
With thunder to cover his sobs and rain to hide his tears, the unenviable Envy allowed himself to be comforted by the—against all odds—humbled Pride.