Chapter Eighteen
Helspira
HELSPIRA PLACED A SMALL festival flag atop the meager belongings she had stuffed into her open bag. Running her fingertips over the embroidery, she traced the frayed threads that poked up in places, ignoring the stains that soiled the illustrated likeness of Queen Saelihn’s castle.
The flag was in sorry shape, having been found on the ground after a festival praising another year of the queen’s rule.
Helspira and her parents had clung to the outskirts of the celebration after their presence earned them distasteful glares from the townsfolk, but it was still a pleasant memory.
A token of the city she loved, the kingdom she loved.
Water dripped from a hole in the ceiling, landing in a copper pot with a splash. Viina, her mother, shooed a rat from the far corner of the small room, and it disappeared into a wide split in the wall.
The almshouse paled in comparison to even the grimmest room in the queen’s castle, but Helspira would miss every crack in the foundation, every hole in the crumbling partitions.
To think of how often she had stared out the hole in the ceiling, delighting in the company of the stars, knowing she would never see those constellations outside that little opening again.
“Helspira.” Viina crossed the room and towered over her daughter, then knelt beside her. “Wu kat mbak.”
Helspira forced a smile. “Of course, I’m sad. We have to leave.”
“We have found many homes in many years,” Viina said, voice slow and deliberate as she tried to recall the local language. “You are mourning more than the loss of a house. A mother knows.”
Sikras and Ben appeared in her mind, and Helspira curled her fingers into fists. “I am. But I’ll be okay. Let’s just gather the rest of our things and get out of here before Banneret Rowan returns. Where’s Da?”
Before Viina could answer, a knock sounded at the door. Helspira’s stomach dropped. He couldn’t be here already, could he? Would he cast them back to Chthonia? Did he have the whole of the R.S. behind him? She froze, heart pounding, until—
“Hello? I’m looking for a family of demons, and before you ask if I have a death wish, like the twelve families I asked before you, I can assure you, I do not.”
She would recognize that voice anywhere. Helspira all but ran to the door in a mix of emotions and threw open the rotting wood to unveil the necromancer and skeleton standing on the other side.
“Helspira?” All fatigue from Sikras’s jade-colored eyes vanished at the sight of her.
She wanted to hug him. She wanted to smack him. Paralyzed by conflicting thoughts, all she managed to say was, “You abandoned the Red Sentinel?”
“What? No, I—”
“You promised you’d help them,” she whispered, voice breaking.
“And I will, Hels. I will, but”—Sikras reached for her hand but stopped shy of touching it—“I had to make sure you were all right. You were there in that tent, and then you weren’t, and—”
Merciful fate, she wanted to throw her arms around him and breathe him in. Her toes curled inside her boots as she fought the urge. “I’m fine. Please, Sikras, you have to return to the banneret. He needs you.”
“Yes. Right. The thing is, I need you to come with us.”
“What?” The word came out ragged, and she shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve been dismissed from the Red Sentinel. If I kill anyone as a civilian, as a demon, it’ll be seen as a declaration of war.”
“Or, consider this,” he said, holding up a finger, “I could just kill anyone who gives you guff over it, maybe?”
Helspira fought and lost a battle to stave off a small, amused smile. “Killing people sort of defeats the purpose of us saving people.”
“Yeah, maybe, but the thing is”—Sikras extended his fingers to graze hers—“a sidekick is nothing without his hero. I need you.”
In the viscous tension, a nonchalant Ben waved from behind Sikras. “Helspira,” he whispered, “hi!”
She smiled, giving Ben a quick wave, before reality dampened her spirits once more. “I can’t. My parents—”
At nearly seven feet tall, Viina didn’t need to make any concerted effort to peer over Helspira’s shoulder. She approached her daughter’s side, clawed finger tapping her chin. “This is the necromancer that will save Nyllmas?”
Helspira nodded. “Yes, Mum.”
“Ti kat mbampe,” Viina mumbled.
“B’yehnz, Mum!” Helspira dragged an exasperated hand down her face. “He’s a perfectly normal height for a human.”
Sikras sighed. “We can’t all be six foot three and gorgeous like Benjamin.”
“She meant no offense.” Helspira ushered Sikras and Ben inside and shoved the uneven door to force it into the frame. “She’s just used to hanging out with Da, and she doesn’t get out much to engage with other humans.”
“No offense taken.” Sikras flashed Viina a charming grin and bowed. “And where is your adoring husband anyway, madam? I’d love to make his acquaintance.”
Booming footsteps from the other room signaled an approach, jostling tiny pebbles on the broken floorboards.
Ever-so-slowly, Sikras turned, falling under the shadow of Helspira’s father.
“Blood and bone,” Sikras wheezed, lifting a hand to give a tiny wave, “you could kill me with a sneeze, couldn’t you, sir? ”
Blazing yellow irises set inside two black sclera peered at Sikras from an impressive height. Gold strands of hair streaked with gray shifted as his nostrils flared. “The only thing I slay,” he said, voice a reverberating baritone, “is hunger. Lemon tart?”
Sikras glimpsed the tray of tarts clutched in the giant, clawed hands. He blinked. Stared. Grinned. “How did you know lemon was my favorite, Mister ...?”
“Toggones,” her da replied. “Tog to friends and humans who cannot pronounce Toggones.”
Sikras’s hand looked small when swallowed by her da’s grasp, but it didn’t appear to dissuade him from shaking it. “A pleasure, Toggones. Sikras Nikabod.”
“Da, don’t get attached. He can’t stay.” Helspira grasped Sikras’s arm and tugged him backward. “He promised he’d kill Vessik and save Nyllmas.”
“And you’re coming with me?” Sikras asked, an upward inflection adding hope to his query.
Helspira dropped her head in a sigh. “Banneret Rowan threatened to send me and my parents to Chthonia the second he returned to Vinepool. I can’t risk leaving them here alone, not even to help save Nyllmas.”
“They can stay at our mansion. Right, Benjamin?”
Benjamin nodded. “Of course.”
“Mansion?” Viina’s black and purple eyes brightened. She rubbed her fingers together as she nudged Helspira. “B’yehnz, ti li mbi ling.”
“Actually, Mum”—Helspira rubbed the back of her neck—“he’s in crippling debt. Years and years and years of tax evasion.”
What little color Sikras had in his face drained. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and tapped a small rock with his boot. “Yeah, no, I mean, brutal honesty is good, sure.”
Viina parted her mouth, presumably to speak, but paused. Recognition evaporated from her expression, and her upper lip twitched. A low growl rumbled in her throat, and just as she lashed at Sikras, Toggones dropped his tray to hold her back.
“Oh, Mum.” Helspira’s voice broke as the tray clattered, and she placed herself between Viina and Sikras. “Please, not now.”
“Shh, my love,” Tog whispered softly into his wife’s ear, his giant arms rocking her back and forth, as she writhed against him.
Wide-eyed, Sikras’s gaze slid to Helspira. “Is it the tax evasion thing? I’ll clear my debt with Saelihn, I swear.”
“It’s not that.” Helspira slid her hand into her mother’s straining grasp to soothe her with gentle strokes.
“It’s a side effect of her entering a feral state in Chthonia so many times.
It happens randomly, but Da and I can handle it.
It just takes an hour or so for her brain to settle, for her to remember who and where she is. She’ll calm down, I promise.”
Ben and Sikras exchanged glances, and Sikras tilted his head. “A feral state, you say?”
“It’s the closest phrase I can think of to describe what happens when demons unite their minds and bodies to fight.
The chemicals that get released in the brain, it’s all rage, fury, adrenaline, and something only found in demons.
” Heartache gripped Helspira’s chest at the sight of her mum thrashing wildly under her da’s hold.
“It stops the body from feeling pain, gives you incredible bursts of strength. It’s not sustainable for long, and the more a demon does it, the more unpredictable it becomes.
It gets harder and harder for the mind to filter those chemicals.
Mum went feral in Chthonia so many times protecting me.
I thought I got her out before her mind took too much damage, but then .
..” Damn that diavolos who had freed them.
If her mother hadn’t tapped into her demonic savagery that final time, maybe she would’ve—
“I see,” Sikras said with an unusually casual tone. “How frequent are these episodes?”
“Two, maybe three times a month,” Helspira said.
A considering hum came from Sikras as he stepped closer to Tog and the writhing, snapping Viina. “Toggones, may I?”
Tog never broke from the gentle, rhythmic sway to calm his beloved. “May you what?”
“May I help your wife?” Sikras asked.
A deep grunt. “If you can.”
Helspira bit the inside of her cheek. Before she could pry for details, Sikras shook his hands, manipulated his fingers into a practiced pose, and whispered words she didn’t understand. He tapped her mother’s head with his index finger as magical recoil lurched his body.
Ben caught Sikras when his knees gave out.
With a gasp, Helspira faced him, but her mother’s tender grasp on her arm pulled her focus away.
“Helspira?” Viina’s pupils, once little pinpricks, returned to normal. She withered into her husband’s chest and bit her lip. “Did it happen again? Tse am kichinge tatyuhung.”
“Mum!” Helspira threw her arms around her mother’s neck and squeezed. “You’re back already. That was—” With dawning excitement, she turned. “Sikras, what did you do? A—are you okay?”
Sikras grasped Ben’s arm for support, then wiped the sweat from his brow, the blood from his nose, and managed naught but a nod.
“How?” Helspira aided him in standing straighter. “I thought you said you didn’t know any healing spells.”
Catching his breath, Sikras grinned. “I don’t. Can’t heal someone to save my life. I just manipulated her neurotransmitters a little, and ...” His head lolled, words slurred. “She’s not fixed. I can’t fix her. I can just block the ... the norepinephrine ... the adrenaline ...”
“Mental manipulation?” Ben readjusted Sikras’s weight in his arms. “I thought you just worked in shadow blades and dead people. Where the fuck did you learn magic like that?”
Sikras flashed a mischievous albeit exhausted smirk. “Language, Benjamin. We’re in the company of ladies and gentlemen.”
Relinquishing his hold on Viina, Tog stepped toward Sikras. He plucked him from Ben’s arms, stood him upright, and dusted him off. “For you”—Tog pulled Sikras into a crushing hug—“I will make many lemon tarts.”
“Our mansion has a fully functional kitchen,” Sikras wheezed.
“Sikras has a point, Hels.” Ben nudged her. “It’s on the outskirts of the city. The perfect place for people who want to stay close but be forgotten. The banneret won’t find them there. Vaulted ceilings, too. Da here won’t have to hunch his back just to walk from room to room.”
Helspira cringed, searching her parents for their reactions. They both gave approving nods.
“My daughter, still making friends with bones.” With a loving smile, Tog lifted Helspira’s chin with one of his giant claws. “Go. Go save our home.”
Smiling, she laid her hand atop her da’s. “All right,” she said with a relenting nod. “If you two will be okay, then by all means ... let’s go.”