Chapter 41
Saer didn’t win.
The demons spent their time together with a healthy mix of antagonism, bonding, and sometimes leisure when the two younger ones convinced Saer to indulge.
Saer fulfilled his pragmatism by crafting two more bed frames for the others and stringing up further canopies to settle under when rainstorms filled the night.
Though they didn’t require food, he satisfied his penchant to be alone by fishing or hunting local game to prepare meals.
Arek wasn’t as accomplished a chef as Alus, but he’d picked up a few tricks to help with the cooking.
Errshek would watch or sulk.
Greed and Pride fell into a pattern of banter, though Saer sensed a dull, unspoken longing in the twin.
Alus and Arek were rarely apart. The longer time stretched on, the more withdrawn and clipped Arek’s responses became.
He never spoke of it, but Saer could see it in the subtle ways he’d light up when talking about something Alus showed him or said, followed by a dry brooding as the reality of Gluttony’s absence settled in.
The third or fourth time Saer noticed it, they were in the middle of preparing game meat.
Arek regaled him with another Alus tidbit, something about the protein taking on a taste of whatever flora it feasted upon in life.
As he finished his sentence, Greed trailed off and bowed his head with creases on either side of his mouth.
Saer touched Arek’s shoulder and tried to meet his downturned gaze. “You know he’s coming back. What are you worried about?”
Greed’s lavender eyes snapped up to the question and he growled, opening his mouth to offer some cynical response.
“Truth, Areknar,” Saer cut him off. “Or I’ll make you tell it during one of our games anyway.” While teasing, the command carried a hint of sincerity all the same.
Arek’s grimace persisted, though the tightness around his eyes softened. He lowered his gaze and paused before admitting, “I don’t want him to get used to us being apart.”
The insecurity was something Saer would have expected more of Errshek than Arek. Then again, if the Twins had a weak spot, it was for one another.
“Alustar will always be fine wherever he is, whoever he is with,” Saer said.
Arek flinched, and Saer went on without pause, more warmth in his tone.
“Even so, despite his adversity to experience discomfort of any kind, I guarantee your absence is a hollowness Alus feels every day you aren’t together. ”
The wounded light faded halfway from Arek’s eyes. He even managed a wry smirk. “Here’s hoping you’re better at predicting such things than you are at playing games.”
Nearly a month later, the familiar noise of a Daemoenic arrival captured their attention. Each turned towards the brightness of the immolating sphere. Saer and Errshek remained seated on their respective carved stumps.
Arek stood with anticipation—then slumped when only one female Daemoenic appeared.
Female, and emanating power with perpetual ire.
Runeak arrived in a crouch. Muscular with the unmistakable curves of a woman, they only served to heighten her level of intimidation rather than soften it.
Neck craning to one side in a stretch, the huntress stood and scanned her surroundings. The ebony of the Runeak’s eyes glimmered, though her expression remained blank as she assessed each of the others with a flick of a glance.
“Errshek,” Saer spoke over his shoulder but didn’t take his eyes off Wrath. “Fetch the clothes set aside for Runeakael.” He kept his tone cautious—a predator sizing up another predator. Runeak and he hadn’t departed on bad terms, but neither were they friendly.
“You are fully capable—”
“Errsheken.”
“—of turning any- and everyone into your punching bag.” Errshek slapped his thighs, growling as he stood to do as he was bid.
After her assessment, Runeak’s gaze locked on Saer’s. Even when Errshek offered the pile of garments he’d collected for her, Wrath didn’t look as she grasped them. “You did not kill him.”
Errshek threw a hand up and walked back towards the center of the campsite, past Saer, who barely heard the tail end of his muttering, “—and talking about me like I’m not even here.”
Brows lifting, Saer ignored Envy and pushed himself to a stand, the movements careful. “No, I didn’t.” He nodded towards the clothes she’d taken. “Consider those a welcoming gift. After you’re done getting dressed, we’d be glad to share a meal with you.”
“I do not require food. Only fire,” she said.
“Fine!” Arek shouted from behind them. “You can have all the fire. Will you two get over yourselves and put your hackles down?”
Saer couldn’t help it. The corner of his mouth twitched.
Runeak was, of course, unaffected.
Saer lowered his hands if only to gesture to the central part of the encampment, taking some of the edge out of his voice. “It’s good to see you, Runeakael. Please, join us.”
Runeak approached the three others after dressing. It shouldn’t have surprised them that Wrath made even the bland linen garments threatening.
Errshek and Saer took in her every move while she approached the eldest. “I need metal.”
Saer drew his head back to the unexpected statement. “Metal?”
Her icy stare spoke for her.
He lifted a brow to the others. “I don’t think we have any here—”
“I’ll go.” Errshek half-tripped as he went towards their store of goods. Gathering some supplies, he asked, “What kind of metal, Runeak?”
When she didn’t answer, Errshek glanced at Runeak and stiffened under her gaze. “Right.” He flung a pack over his back and took his leave, shouting over his shoulder, “I’ll be back before the storms!”
“Family reunions,” Arek muttered under his breath with his special cynicism—as deep as oceans. He hadn’t stopped cutting produce at the workbench.
Saer forced himself to sit at one of the stumps and gestured to another across from him, addressing Runeak. “How is Alus?”
The chopping behind Saer slowed.
Runeak remained standing. “Persuasive and insolent.”
It was the huff of a laugh behind Saer, more than Runeak’s words, which provoked a faint smile of his own. “He’s gone to fetch Kalia?”
Runeak offered a slow nod of affirmation.
Pride crossed his arms and leaned back, coaxing himself to relax. “What convinced you to join us?”
Lifting her chin in a fluid motion towards where Errshek departed, Runeak answered in her low alto. “I needed to see for myself.”
“Are you satisfied?”
“Presently.” Runeak lifted her nose, scenting the air. “Your anger is different.”
Saer didn’t offer a response, though it was somewhat alarming, if not unpredictable, that she could tell as much.
“You will tell us why you have summoned us,” she said. “And why your wrath has not gone, but changed.”
“Yes, Runeakael. Once we’re all together.”
Content with his answer, the demoness nodded and sank onto the previously offered stump with feline grace.
Lucifer’s creations all gathered around the fire—Runeak sat at one end while the three others kept to the opposite side. She didn’t seem to mind.
In the usual stormy darkness, under the canopies, the four demons sat in silence, and not because they had nothing to say—Pride, Greed, and Envy found themselves enraptured with Wrath’s ministrations.
A larger bonfire had been built for the evening to fuel four of the Daemoenica, the woodpile stacked as high as Saer’s mid-thigh. Runeak wedged her bare foot into the coals where they smoldered hottest.
Taking pieces of the metal Errshek had fetched for her, Runeak channeled the fire through her body, into her fingers. She melted the core materials to a molten liquid. With a clever push and pull of heat, she turned the substance into a sort of clay, smoothing, shaping, and bending.
Arek broke the silence. “I’ve seen her make blades with the same sort of technique, but this seems different.”
Saer lifted a brow but didn’t take his attention off Wrath’s deft fingers. “She said it was because of something Alus said. Did you ever—?”
“I have no idea what she meant,” Arek said. “It must have been something he told her when they were together.”
“Trust Alus to convince Runeak to do anything.” The admiring comment came from Errshek at Arek’s right hand side.
Runeak’s voice carried over to them with ease. “You are distracting me.”
Arek raised his chin and lifted his voice. “What did Alus say?”
The query hung as Runeak molded a fine bit of soft metal into a particular shape. Once she’d set it where it pleased her enough to move on, the demoness’s shoulders relaxed some. She answered with disinterest while reaching for more scrap metal, “He said I needed a hobby.”
The sentence brought out a surprised bark of a laugh from Arek, a chuckle from Saer, and a snort from Errshek.
Pausing, Runeak’s gaze snapped up to watch the three just in time for Arek to cover his mouth and stifle the sound. The twin attempted to keep the mirth out of his voice when he pressed, “And you said?”
Her jaw tightened, but Runeak resumed her work, heating more metal in her hands until it glowed and softened. “I said making weapons is my hobby.”
“That’s the weirdest weapon I’ve ever seen,” Errshek said.
Shaking her head slowly, the prompt had its intended effect, and Runeak continued with a frown.
“This is no weapon. His words were…” She paused as if recollecting, and then resumed with the same tone of voice, though Alus’s words sounded absurd coming from Runeak’s throat.
“Sweetie, making weapons isn’t fun for you—it’s an extension of you. You need a hobby.”
It was too much. Arek broke first, followed by Saer and Errshek as they gave in to laughter.
Pulling the molten material into another long, thin line, Runeak allowed only her soft growl and words of dismissal to betray her irritation. “Men are idiots.”
The other three hadn’t laughed so long and hard since they’d reunited.
Runeak kept to her work until Arek, wiping steam tears from the corner of his eyes, could form words once more. “Don’t keep us in suspense. What are you creating?”
Face lined deep, Runeak’s low reply almost couldn’t be heard over the crackling fire. “It is almost done.”
Less than an hour later, they came to the same realization at the same time.
“Is that—?” “The likeness—” “Frenzied Hells…”
Siphoning the last vestiges of heat from the shape in her palm, Runeak held it for all to appreciate.
To Saer’s amusement, pride drifted off her in gentle waves.
Runeak had made a tiny, wire-and-metal horse.
Time spent with Runeak wouldn’t have been complete without her challenging them to training and sparring matches.
They fell into a pattern of survival and time passage.
During one of these sparring afternoons a few weeks after Runeak’s arrival, the ground erupted in spontaneous flame for the last time.
Errshek sat at the fire pit tending to a particularly nasty contusion he’d received to his ribs. Runeak had been refereeing Arek and Saer’s match with dual-wielded wooden short swords when the roar interrupted them.
Amongst the blazing flurry, Saer caught Greed’s breath hitching. His own heart rate picked up as he turned.
Alus arrived with Kalia, holding hands.
“Alus…” Arek dropped his practice weapons and took a step forward but faltered when he saw Gluttony’s face.
It wouldn’t have registered as odd on anyone else. If Arek appeared serious, no one batted an eye. On Alus, the dark expression shrieked with unfamiliarity.
The steel-eyed twin moved with slow purpose, coaxing Kalia to step behind him. He still held her hand in his, but at his lower back. Even hidden, Saer could see her trembling.
Alus’s gaze took in the clearing, the corners of his eyes flinching when he saw Arek, but it was the only breach to his determined armor. Gluttony forced his eyes to move past his twin, settling on Saer.
A whimper came from behind him, a sound not foreign to Pride, and the eldest knew Sloth wept.
The twin was acting as a shield.
“Alus?” Saer inquired.
Lower jaw jutting forward, Alus’s voice rose careful and low, bereft of its usual friendly drawl. “I’ve brought our sister here. If you make a wrong move, I’m taking her away again.”
“Alustar—” Saer tried again.
“Listen, Asshole.” Alus bared his teeth in a snarl that Saer had seen countless times on Arek’s face but never on Alus’s.
Pride stepped back and blinked, holding up his hands.
Before he could say anything in response, Gluttony growled on, “You will apologize. You will make this right, or you can go fuck yourself. Are we clear?”