Chapter 13 #2
“Enough is enough, Azrion. The decision should have been made long ago—was made, but your cowardice has postponed things long enough.”
“It’s not cowardice,” he said despite the shaking of his voice.
“Fine, then it’s foolishness.” Valinerath slammed a fist on the table, and Azrion again winced like a foolish coward. “Or it’s stubbornness. Laziness. Disdain for all your mother and I’s hard work? What is it, Azrion? What are you?”
Brave.
That was what Kat had said—Kat, who had finally told him about where she had come from, who had endured crowds of strangers, who continued to help him despite her terror. Kat, who was softer to Azrion than anyone else had been since Valromotch.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” Azrion got to his feet, a derisive laugh surprising him.
“I mean, I can’t, can I? You refuse to listen.
Not to me, not to anyone unless they’re some authority here at the hall.
You keep mentioning mother, but you don’t listen to her either.
You don’t work with her, you just tell her how you think things should be and expect them to end up that way.
You don’t care about her, and you certainly don’t love her. ”
Valinerath took a step back. It was small, and the desk was between them, but Azrion saw it all the same.
“You want me to do what you did: marry the demon who’s right for what you want out of the world. You call me selfish and lazy, but what’s more conceited and cowardly than ignoring the pull of your soul?”
“Not everyone feels a bond, Azrion,” his father said in a rushed whisper.
“And that means no one else is allowed to try?” He slapped a hand against his chest and felt his heart flying so madly beneath it there was no stopping him.
“That means Zaiya has to follow mother’s passion and carve stones instead of performing?
It means we all have to live in the shadow of Valromotch’s death and never take a risk? ”
“Azrion,” came in that warning voice, but he hardly heard it.
“Why do you want everyone around you to suffer? Why would you want me to be miserable with Melora and her with me when there’s someone else who makes me feel—” Azrion snapped his fangs shut. Apparently there was something that could stop him after all.
“Don’t tell me you think you’re in love with that human.” Valinerath surpassed disgust and dove straight into ridicule. It was almost nice to hear him chuckle, but then Azrion couldn’t imagine it not at his own expense.
“Would that really be so bad?”
His father strode around the desk, fangs on terrifying display as his tail snapped through the air. Azrion wanted to back away, unask what wasn’t really a question, beg for mercy, but he was brave, he knew because Kat had said so, and he didn’t move.
“You understand nothing.” The demon closed the distance between them so that his angry hissing showered Azrion’s face in spittle.
“You speak of suffering? I give you more coin and freedom than the gods have. You want for nothing. Consequences are just things other demons deal with in the aftermath of your mess. Breaking your engagement with the Thiemos—”
“Melora and I aren’t engaged.”
“That’s not how her parents see it,” Valinerath leaned back, nostrils flaring. “Her mother, the Horn of Rudiments, is as old fashioned as anyone on the council. Do you think she’ll take kindly to her daughter being jilted for a human?”
Cold fear hit Azrion faster than his father ever had. The worst he had thought Kat might endure was a few nasty words for which he planned to mitigate with gifts, but it had never crossed his mind that there would be lawful ramifications.
Gods, maybe his father was right—maybe Azrion understood nothing, least of all the consequences of his own actions.
“Plenty of demons don’t want humans in this city, including some on the council,” his father went on, voice lowering because he didn’t need to yell anymore, not when Azrion was taking anxious breaths and searching the chamber for an escape.
“The Horn of Rudiments voted in favor of keeping them, of treating them like equals, but even you know how easily swayed she can be. How would she treat your precious human if she thought she’d humiliated her daughter? ”
Azrion stammered something incomprehensible to his own ears, but even as he failed to respond, his body decided to roll up all that terrified doubt into mounting anger.
Katarina couldn’t be sent away, especially not back to that place she and her sister had come from, the one that made her speak about herself like she was a dirty, useless thing. She needed to be here. With him.
“The Thiemos family isn’t known for leniency.
They dress their doings up in frills and tittering, but they aren’t naive.
They know what kind of power they have, including the ability to cast out every human from Heck.
Or worse.” Valinerath picked at something invisible on his coat as if their conversation had been nothing but a boring chore, and then he turned for the door without a second look at his son.
“But by all means, Azrion, continue on in whatever way you see fit since you know so much better than I.”