Chapter 1
No matter how boisterous and hearty his surroundings, nor how many decades passed, or the ferocity with which Saer focused on his mission—nothing could or would heal the First demon’s broken heart.
Outside, an early autumn rain hammered the tavern and inn rooftop, amplifying the chill in Saer’s heart and mind.
He’d overcome possession by Lucifer, sundered one of the two metaphysical tethers linking him to the fallen angel, and been given a sense of threat and doom to his kin, the remaining Daemoenica, as a reward for his efforts.
An oath for an oath. Saer had cleaved the one symbolizing his dedication to his maker.
But the one from the fallen angel, declaring Saer as Its own, flared like an angry beacon at his core.
A glimmering, golden rope stained by filth and jealousy.
Focusing on it filled him with roiling rot and desolation.
He’d endured the same after his maker commanded him to unmake Neyu, the Second, and his love.
So long ago, and her absence still carved into his heart, a gaping hole that never healed.
Not even his innate pride—the sin Lucifer molded him from—could fill it.
Her life and unmaking hawd changed him in more ways than one.
He avoided any other contact with his family, moving from place to place, hunting for some way or clue to break that final bond.
To say his maker expressed displeasure was an understatement.
While the severed tie kept It from reclaiming his mind, the same couldn’t be said for the rest of his kin who remained fully bound.
As recompense, Saer gained isolation and cynicism. He had nothing. No friends. No kin. No love. Not even a direction to wander.
And so, he stood in a tavern, and contemplated letting it all go, if even for one night.
Saer held his hands out to the lumber within the tavern’s unlit, expansive fireplace, and paused. Arek and Alus’s—Greed and Gluttony’s—warnings played through his mind, the rules they had set up for one another. Never weaken oneself without a partner to oversee. The failsafe. The security.
He missed them, much as he hated to admit to himself. All of them. But if Lucifer even caught a hint of a whisper that Saer could teach them how to break one of their ties…
Saer couldn’t afford to make the same mistake, to risk his kins’ unmaking: Arek, Alus, Runeak, Kalia.
Even Errshek, who he’d wanted to destroy prior to realizing Lucifer’s lies and manipulations.
He’d made a vow to protect the family—he wouldn’t break it for the sake of satiating his own loneliness.
He needed to sever both bonds, to find true freedom before such a risk could even be considered.
A well-rounded ale mistress, the owner of the establishment, wiped down counters and steins with calloused hands as she prepared for the evening rush.
She’d tucked her golden curls underneath a head rag, traces of gray in the strands.
A handful of patrons spread between the multitude of wooden tables and chairs.
The clock declared them between mealtimes; the alehouse wouldn’t be so empty for long.
“Son, it won’t light if you just stare at it.”
Saer raised his gaze to find the owner glaring at him and making a no-nonsense gesture at the inglenook borders. “Flint is there with some kindling. Make yourself useful and the first one is on the house.”
Saer gauged the maiden for another breath, then returned his focus to the fireplace with a deep frown. She grunted and turned away.
Just one night.
Fingers tensing then expanding with subtle briskness, Saer shoved all but the most essential of his Hellsfire vitality into the stack of logs.
The exploding roar surprised gasps and curses from those few in the establishment. The owner whirled around while Saer wavered where he stood, and he flashed her a languorous smile. “Fire’s going.”
The blaze died to pleasant and full crackling.
“...Right.” With a suspicious side glance, she ducked below the counter while Saer shuffled up to it.
He leaned into the bar as she stood with a pitcher of ale, pouring him a healthy stein.
Pushing the cup his way, she continued to size him up, letting him take a long draught before asking, “You one of those magic folk?”
Saer nearly choked on his drink. For some reason, newly lightheaded, the question struck him as comical. He cleared his throat, the first hits of alcohol already dancing into his nerves. “Just have a talent with fire, Miss...?”
“Sal is fine.”
“Miss Sal is fine.” Saer tipped his head towards her and lifted the mug. “This drink will need to be refilled.” To prove his point, he brought the receptacle to his lips and finished it off before placing it back in front of her with a questioning lift to his brows.
The middle-aged barmaid didn’t seem to be one normally charmed by anyone, yet her lip curled up at the corner in a cynical half-smile. “You got coin?”
Saer reached to his belt and pulled up a small drawstring bag of money, tossing it between the two of them.
When she reached for it, he laid a hand smoothly over hers, catching her brown eyes with his.
“There should be plenty for the evening, plus enough to keep banked for the future. I can tell you run a fine establishment here, Miss Sal is fine.” The second sentence landed exactly as he’d hoped, and when he sensed the mote of pride spark in her, Saer tugged it delicately to the surface.
“Keep the drinks coming, and I’ll keep you in coin. ”
Shoulders pulled back, lifting up a little straighter, Sal nodded. “I’ll let the crew know once they’re all here.”
Saer patted her hand and then pulled away. The owner refilled his mug dutifully and went on with confidence she hadn’t had a moment prior, her underlying charm coming through. “And what shall we call our finest patron this evening?”
Saer raised the full stein in a mock ‘cheers’ to Sal. “Saer will do.”
The evening at Sal’s started innocently enough. True to his word, Saer had enough funds to keep him in the cups for the night and then some.
He engaged with the patrons in ways rare for him, exchanging stories of foreign lands and tales at sea for more drinks. Card games were played, and Saer coerced his challengers to overbet with well-timed draws on their pride. A great many fools dared him to compete in tests of strength.
Even weakened, he never lost.
More than once, barmaids and ladies of the night approached him, touching his muscular arms and shoulders, running their fingers through his ebony hair.
The first few times, he brushed them off with a chuckle and a shake of his head.
It wasn’t until a voluptuous beauty with a storm of raven curls and brilliant green eyes slid her thumb and forefinger around his chin, compelling Saer to look at her, that he stopped to consider…
Then she kissed him, and he didn’t consider any longer.
Her lust pulsed against his mouth, slid along the back of his throat, and he dropped the reins he kept so tightly leashed on the power—the one which he stole from his beloved and unmade Neyu, rather than inherited.
Ensnaring the woman’s lust proved simplicity itself, and she gasped against his mouth, her back arching to press more of herself against more of him.
In a play of curiosity, he honed in on her pride as well, making her well and truly see herself as the most desirable, the best lover in the establishment.
Saer growled against her lips and demanded they find a room for themselves, challenging her to prove herself worthwhile of his time.
He meant it to be one night.
He laughed. He drank. He pushed and pulled on the sins he embodied. He sank into pleasures of the flesh.
He forgot.
Again, and again, and again, he forgot.
Saer turned into a regular at Sal’s, earning his money via bets the humans proved foolish enough to place against him.
A spectacle to the patrons, he remained heedless of the attention he drew.
Even the late afternoon lighting of the fireplace became an event, one which drew approving hoots, claps, and cheers.
Each morning after recovering enough strength to roll out of his usual room’s bed—more often than not with a young lass next to him—he contemplated resuming his quest.
Yet, the evenings bled together.
No harm came to Saer, despite the precautions the Twins warned him of years prior. Who would dare tangle with the First of the Daemoenica?
Pride.
It might have been weeks or months later. However long, the night began as all the others.
Well on his way to another bleary-eyed morning, Saer sat at one of the tavern’s tables furthest away from the roaring fireplace. The greater his distance from the blaze, the longer Sal’s drinks frolicked in his system.
Surrounded by other customers, Saer pulled a fine and buxom lady into his lap while those around hollered in appreciation.
He slid his thumb along the redhead’s jawline.
She giggled when he pulled her closer, noses touching, too near for his bleary-eyed vision to focus.
Her arms glazed up his chest, and he growled with encouragement when the female tilted her head to brush his lower lip with her mouth.
Saer didn’t see the leather strap in her hand until it wrapped around his throat. Didn’t register the danger until the band latched.
Cold.
Saer’s breath caught as he reared back and touched his neck. He’d meant to snap his hand up, but each limb moved as though dragged through mud. Fingers fumbled under the piece of leather, blasts of icy numbness shocking them wherever he made direct contact.
The auburn-haired maiden with cobalt irises and a splatter of freckles across her pale cheeks turned from warm and inviting to anything but. She wiped at her grimacing mouth with pinched fingers.
Mage.
Saer grabbed for the woman with sluggish hands, eyelids too heavy. Between alcohol and the bitter cold sapping his strength, his mind could barely compute the surroundings, what his body did, which way was up, and which was down.
Something fell in the distance, the dull thud of a heavy body. Eyes unable to focus, his body ached where it could. Everywhere else chilled to his core.
The world was sideways.
He’d fallen over.
Voices surrounded him. Bar patrons.
Sal.
“I’ve got him, M’lady. He’s had too much. My mates and I’ll carry him to his room.” Saer recognized the voice of the redhead.
So cold.
“See that you do. Idiot man. It was only a matter of time.” Sal, dismissing them.
No.
Desperate to make some sort of noise, Saer could only groan. His body rose, lifted by carrying arms, and his eyes rolled partially open. Everything blurred. Dancing flames from the fireplace came nearer as they lugged his frame away. He called with his metaphysical gifts to the inferno, straining.
The blaze flickered and reached for him, weaker than normal, as though a shield blocked his call.
The collar.
Hells. No.
Feet dragging, the sounds of the bar faded. They dumped his weight on the ground in a separate room, his temple slamming into the wood floor.
Pain.
Weakness.
Helpless.
“Why isn’t he frozen solid through?” The disapproving hiss of the woman slithered into his ears, met with the unsure replies of a handful of men—the others who sat at Saer’s table. “Where is the apprentice?”
Somehow, Saer managed to get an arm under his chest. He pushed with everything, trembling with the effort.
Feet rushed into the room. The voice of a teen boy lifted. “Yes, Ladyship Astra?”
“You are meant to be the demon expert, are you not, Boy?”
“Y…Yes, I am…”
Unable to cry out as a foot slammed between his shoulder blades, Saer unleashed an echo of a growl when forced back to the ground.
“You imbued this collar with runes of ice magic?”
“Yes, I was told—”
“Then why is he still able to move?” Astra’s voice hissed with devastating severity.
Saer willed his eyes to blink open. The swimming vision of a young boy stood over him, next to the glaring Astra. No more than fifteen or sixteen, wearing mage apprentice robes on his gangly frame, he had blonde hair.
The teen’s eyes widened, his eyes as gray as storm clouds He stuttered, trying to find answers to appease his apparent mistress. “I was precise! I enhanced the spell, the celestial runes are exact, but we’ve never…this is the first time—!”
Saer’s fingers flexed. Every second he kept his eyes open was a small victory.
“You know our mission, Boy.”
“I do.”
“You trust your enchantments will render him weak enough until we’ve reached the glacier?”
Oh, Hells.
“I—I’m…”
Impatience seethed through Astra’s response. “Check it, once more.”
“But I—I’ll have to get…”
“Close? Yes, Boy. Let it be your flesh on the line.”
A long pause followed by a shuffle, then the proximity of a body drew nearer.
Fingers grazed his neck.
Saer followed the teen’s motions with his eyes, unable to move anything else. The boy was all he could sense, all he could reach, barely within his feeble, metaphysical grasp. He pulled at the boy’s pride with reckless intent, a final desperate act.
More existed than Saer would have guessed. If he weren’t incapacitated, he’d have scoffed over the bewildering amount.
Siphoning the young man’s pride into himself, Saer forced the boy into a state of worthlessness and shame in the span of a heartbeat. It wouldn’t strengthen him like fire and heat did, but if he could gain the upper hand in any way…
The boy’s cry of outrage and emotional pain rang out. He reared back, then slammed his boot into Saer’s face. The blow crunched his nose, broke his concentration and he slumped at last, nothing left.
Far off, the boy’s harsh breathing cut through the room. Tears thickened his voice, but he rebuilt his walls quickly. “The ice runes are sound. But…”
“But?”
More deep breaths, then a growing confidence slipped into the boy’s tone as his innate and abundant pride returned. “It…he invokes feelings, emotions, as well. I broke it, and I can protect against it.” The boy paused, a thoughtful edge dipping his voice lower. “I’ll make a second collar.”
At last, she sounded pleased. “See that you do, Apprentice Cylen.” Her voice lifted. “Get him into the Cold Cage, men. We leave as soon as the horses are saddled.”
Saer’s world went black.