Chapter 44
The evening ended with the Daemoenica arranging their camp beds around the fire pit—piled insurmountably high with lumber—then passing out next to it. Arek shared his cot with his twin while Errshek gave his sleeping space to Kalia.
Runeak didn’t require rest, though she bared her teeth when it was suggested she give up her bed. Throughout the evening, she placed more and more metal figurines on its surface, one at a time.
Past sunrise and through the second half of the day, Errshek added logs on the fire until, one by one, they all stirred—except Sloth.
They left Kalia to slumber on while the rest of the encampment set to rinsing themselves and their clothes of the prior evening’s activities. Gluttony took to the task of cooking them a fulfilling meal with a glorious will.
While pressing salt and herbs into a sizable roast, Alus made his usual small talk with his victim of choice, Runeak, as Saer sat alongside on a stump.
Arek worked behind him, peeling root vegetables.
“I’m impressed with the dedication to your project, Madame Fury.
” The twin nodded towards her collection of figurines. “Mission accomplished, hobby achieved?”
Runeak frowned but answered with hushed concentration as she worked on another piece. “It is not done, yet.”
Gluttony paused in his meal preparation, taking the time to examine the scene she molded with more scrutiny.
“Humans on and off horses, some kneeling, some lying down. Is…?” Trailing off, Alus’s next word stuck before he pressed on with more assuredness.
“Are they holding weapons?” Abrupt laughter came from his chest, suddenly making sense of the chaos strewn across her sleeping space. “Are you recreating a battlefield?”
Runeak’s brow lowered as her fingers worked.
The figurine she molded appeared larger than the rest, but she spared no expense of time or expertise on details.
When she didn’t answer, Alus shook his head and went back to seasoning the meat, muttering, “Can take the lady out of the war, but not the war out of the lady. It’s a good start, anyway. ”
Alus cut small slices into the protein, shoving one garlic clove at a time into the roast. “You’re awfully quiet over there, big guy.”
Jolted from his daze, Saer took in a sudden, deep breath. “When will the food be ready?”
“Why, you got somewhere you need to be?”
The words were lighthearted, but Saer grimaced and turned his attention back to the fire.
“Hey. Boss.” Alus tried again, and Saer glanced at the twin’s genial face. “Whatever it is, we’ll work it out.”
Saer shook his head. “One way or another, that’ll have to be true.”
The modest table protested under the weight of the feast Alus prepared for his kin. Fruit salad, root vegetable hash, steamed peas, and three fire-roasted game steaks of substantial heft left little room for plates. Once Gluttony set the final dish in place, they roused Kalia.
The Daemoenica took the meal with idle small talk, though Saer couldn’t focus on any of it.
Staring at his half-full plate, unable to stomach any more of the flavorful food, he blinked out of his preoccupation when Arek snapped his fingers in front of his face.
“Hey. If Alus asks one more time whether you’re going to finish your lunch, I’ll throw it at him. ”
“Messy, but manageable,” quipped Alus from his side.
Saer cleared his throat and pushed his food away, sitting straighter.
“Right.” Arek took the leftovers and handed them to his twin, then tapped the table in front of Saer, exactly where he stared. “We’re all basically done. Do you want to fill us in?”
For the first time since lunch landed, Saer lifted his gaze and observed his family cramped around the worktable, using two cots as benches on each long edge.
He shared a side with Runeak and Errshek between them while the Twins sat across with Kalia.
Alus posted himself in the center so he could have ample access to the entire table, an unspoken rule.
True to Greed’s words, the only food left was what remained on his plate—which Alus cleaned in short order. The rest of the serving platters and trays had been removed, and he hadn’t even noticed.
Saer cleared his throat again and Arek, sitting across from him, extended a hand and touched the back of his. He waited until Pride met his lavender eyes before coaxing, “Eldest. You wanted us here. Against all odds, we made it. Please do us the service of telling us why.”
He was right, of course. Saer knew he stalled.
He turned his hand in Arek’s grip, clasping the palm for support. Offering a brief squeeze, he let go and pulled his shoulders back.
He hadn’t done anything more than sit for the past hour, yet his heart pummeled, trying to escape from his chest.
Saer laced his fingers together and relaxed his hands on the table. “I’m not sure where to begin.”
He had all their attention. Across from him, Arek with his customary bored expression.
His twin likewise watched while licking the last of Saer’s leftovers from two fingertips in a way which should have been offensive—yet Alus pulled off as charming.
Furthest away at the opposite corner of the table, Kalia rested her temple on Alus’s shoulder, her brown eyes blithe and content.
Runeak perched with the stillness of a predator, her face blank, yet harrowing.
Errshek, to Saer’s immediate left, seemed the most nervous, fidgeting with his own knuckles.
They couldn’t be more different.
They couldn’t be more family.
And they’re here because of Neyu’s sacrifice. The gaping hole in his heart took small comfort in the thought. She gave him this moment.
Saer glanced at his intertwined fingers and flexed them, taking the instance to gather his thoughts.
“I haven’t been doing what I was created to do for a long time.
” To the admission, Kalia straightened. “What’s more, I don’t intend to.
” He lifted his gaze, pausing to allow any of his siblings time to react.
Arek opened his mouth, then closed it and peered at Alus, who shrugged. Runeak’s head tilted to one side. None of them spoke a word.
Saer steeled himself. “Since—” A sudden wash of emotion forced him to pause.
“Since Neyu died…in more ways than the obvious, it changed things. It changed me.” Shaking his head, the muscles in his face ached with his frown.
Saer moved his gaze down the lines to each of his kin, one by one, while he spoke in a hushed tone.
“I know each of you blames me, at least in part, for Neyu’s unmaking. ”
Arek parted his lips again—along with Kalia this time—but Saer held up a hand.
“I took her Hellsfire, her essence. But I’d give anything—” Saer’s teeth gritted as he pushed out the words.
“Anything...to have her back.” Pride allowed his declaration to sink in, before resuming.
“I own the physical destruction of Neyuukhanikhraul.” He spoke her true name with all the depth he felt for her.
Errshek shivered and bowed his head. Kalia released a soft noise.
Even Alus stopped smiling. “But I didn’t choose it. None of us did.”
Saer observed their faces closely, searching for some sign of revelation, anything to validate what he’d been turning over in his mind since he and Errshek had embraced on his first night in the clearing.
He hoped beyond hope to witness a reflection of what he’d felt when he recognized and named Lucifer’s blame in Neyu’s unmaking.
Puzzled expressions met him around the table, but no dawning realization. He wasn’t surprised. Their maker’s claws hooked deep and true.
Still, he had to hope.
Sighing, Saer pulled his hair back with a hand, silver crescents falling insistently forward, as always. “I brought you all here because I have a favor to ask, a promise to request, and a proposal for each of you to consider.”
Around the table, the Daemoenica exchanged glances, save Runeak whose ebony stare remained fixed on Saer’s face—the patient huntress.
“The favor first,” Saer said. “I request that, in your own time, each of you consider alternatives to myself for Neyu’s undoing.”
“Eldest, we don’t—”
Arek faltered when Saer turned his gaze fully on him.
“Areknar.” Weariness coated Saer’s address.
The twin’s lips parted again to protest, but Alus rested a hand on his mirror’s shoulder, prompting Arek to turn towards him. Without words, they carried an entire conversation.
“I accept your judgment,” Saer went on, meaning what he said, knowing what it was like to be in their place. “All I ask is, in the quiet of your own minds, in times when you are able to ponder, look at other possibilities.”
And break through our creator’s guise, he added to himself.
He couldn’t lead them any further. Obscure as he must sound, he knew if he served their maker’s blame on a platter, their minds would rebel ten-fold. Even Errshek, who’d witnessed Lucifer’s willingness to sacrifice all of them blamed himself and Saer more than their maker.
One by one, each of the Daemoenica nodded assent. Even Wrath herself.
Saer released a quiet breath.
It would have to do.
“Second, the promise; and this will take all of us, starting with me.” An edge of severity crept into Saer’s voice, signaling the pivot in topic.
“I promised to Kaliaspher when she arrived, and I similarly promise to the rest of you, all of you, that I will never use the power of unmaking on any, so long as my will is my own.” He shifted his attention to the Twins.
Greed and Gluttony regarded him with profound consideration. The usually laughing Alus had no jokes.
It didn’t take as long as Saer would have guessed. The Twins nodded and turned to Runeak. Alus spoke at the same time as Arek. “No powers of unmaking.” “We swear it.”
Then, together, as though they’d rehearsed it, “So long as our wills are our own.”
A flight of unease ignited in Saer’s guts under Runeak’s scrutiny. Tongue licking across her teeth, she addressed them all, though she didn’t avert her eyes from him. “What of true name commands?”
Saer nodded to the expected question. “Consider them a failsafe of the hierarchy. A last resort.”
The response seemed enough to satisfy Wrath.
“On my word of honor, the deal is made,” Runeak said. “So long as my will is my own.” Then, for the first time since Saer began speaking, she shifted her attention from him to Errshek.
Errshek spoke in haste. “Yes. I promise it, so long as my will is my own.”
Kalia’s brow furrowed, staring at the tabletop. Everyone gravitated their attention to her as the last. An uncomfortable silence enveloped the space.
“Kaliaspher,” Saer whispered.
“I have nothing to give.” Heavy defeat weighed her words down.
A melancholy smile tugging at his lips, Saer tilted his head. “Kaliaspher, look at me.”
Sloth frowned but did as he asked.
“You hold us accountable, Littlest Sister. You accept our promises, as you are the only Daemoenic who can do so for everyone present.”
A combination of pain, relief, and disbelief flashed across her face. Kalia’s throat lifted and lowered as she swallowed. Peering around the table, she whispered, “Okay...I accept.” She ended her perusal at Saer, on the verge of tears. “Thank you.” Her voice only trembled the faintest bit.
Kalia was arguably the most prone to complaining of the Daemoenica, certainly the laziest, and had an innate ability to grate on Saer’s nerves by speaking any sentence in a particular way.
After all was said and done, he wouldn’t miss the chance to protect her.
Saer responded only with a faint incline of his head.
“I believe your proposal is next,” Arek said—not domineering but all business.
Saer made a noise of acknowledgement and leaned back. “It is.” Pointer fingers steepling while his hands propped on the table’s edge, he paused.
This was the last of it.
Saer coerced his clenched jaw to relax, craning his neck one way, then the other in a purposeful stretch. “I told you already I don’t intend to resume my duties.”
Out with it.
His words caught. The flutter of butterflies in his guts took flight.
Let It go.
The promises he made to the fallen angel upon his making were like acid burning through his skull.
SAY IT.
A sharp inhale taken in through his nose, Pride forced the words out. “I’m going to find a way out, permanently. I’m ending my servitude. I welcome any of you to join me. Anytime.”
The atmosphere itself held its breath in the immediate stillness after his declaration.
Saer lifted his gaze to his kin.
Silence.
Then, as one, the other Daemoenica raised their voices in protest.