Chapter 16 A Table of Interruptions and Interrogations
A TABLE OF INTERRUPTIONS AND INTERROGATIONS
Azrion
Katarina kissed me.
A crack tore through the sky, the earth quaked underfoot, and Azrion’s lips ticked up at the minutes-old recollection.
Oh, gods, I’m an idiot.
“Come on, you two. Now,” his mother called, fear turning her desperation into a demand.
Azrion tightened his grip on Kat’s hand like she might be torn away at any moment—unlikely, unless one thought too hard about whatever the fuck might be happening deeper in Heck.
Her palm was already slick with sweat and trembling, but he hastened after his mother through the garden anyway.
He couldn’t say no to Ayaderan, not when the look in her eyes screamed, I already lost one son, I’m not losing another.
Bringing Kat back to his studio wasn’t an option anyway, another thing he couldn’t do, because who knew what they would get up to? Well, he could think of a few things, and not a single one should be allowed, not after he’d made the decision to end their deal.
Though her kiss had absolutely undone that decision like smearing seed oil over a mistake-riddled canvas.
“Did she say there’s an attack going on?” Kat’s voice was like a slap to the back of Azrion’s head.
“The guard will take care of it,” he said, biting down on his tongue a moment too late.
“My sister!” Kat came to an abrupt halt, and Azrion was tugged to a stop.
His mother spun, eyes frantic in that way when she was coming up with a plan before she even knew she needed it. “Is she back in the house? We need to get her here now.”
“No, she’s in the guard,” Kat squeaked, skin losing what little color it held.
The sharp lines meant for devising a fix fell away from his mother’s face, and she took a deep, steadying breath. “The others will protect her. Come, please, we must go inside.”
Kat made an unintelligent noise as if to say that wasn’t at all likely, but it was gone too quickly to be studied, and Azrion took the opportunity to pull her along into his parents’ home.
The silence of the cavernous entry was stark when the door shut behind them.
He breathed in the familiar familial smell, unplaceable except home and yet not the comfort it should have been.
As he ran a thumb over the back of Kat’s hand, another booming sound came, muffled by the thick walls and many rooms like distant thunder.
Kat’s fingers entwined with Azrion’s as her other hand gripped his wrist. Her shivering body pressed itself close, terror radiating off every inch of her skin.
Shit, he had made the exact wrong choice, hadn’t he?
Of course they wouldn’t have fallen into debaucherous bliss back in his studio while the city was under attack.
He would have piled her under blankets, made her a thousand cups of tea, and thrown on his most charming facade to distract her from thoughts of her sister being mauled by some Dreadmoor beast so that there was only a horn and tail left to identify… gods, not now.
“Az!” Zaiya slid into the foyer, grabbing the archway’s molding to stop herself from toppling over, grace lost in her panic.
“He’s safe,” his mother said in that tone she was somehow always able to muster right after the frenzied one, and she gave Zaiya’s shoulder a squeeze.
His sister took one heaving breath before her face shifted from utterly horrified to cold and collected. “Took you long enough,” she spat, and then her brows lifted. “Katarina?”
The human gave her a wave, disentangling herself from him to become as small as possible, shoulders pinched and head ducked.
“Oh, my gods,” Zaiya murmured, and a diabolical smile twisted itself across her face. “This is going to be so good.”
Great.
At least Azrion’s father was an excellent cook.
He wasn’t excellent at anything else Azrion deemed respectable, except maybe magic.
Small talk was right out, and so was larger talk for that matter.
Thankfully, Valinerath wasn’t making either as the rest of them sat around the circular dining table already filled with food.
It had five spots for many years, so it was easy to fit another in, yet Katarina was painfully tentative as she took her seat.
“Helsintha brought me a gorgeous carnelian to appraise this afternoon,” his mother was saying conversationally but with a tightness in her throat that said many hells of a lot more. “She asked that I send well wishes to everyone on her behalf.”
Valinerath grunted noncommittally in response. Typical.
Azrion took up the ladle from the massive pot of noodles in the table’s center and served Katarina, gaze flicking to everyone in turn as he kept every drop contained.
“Reminds me, I finally got that malachite free.” Zaiya piled thin-sliced meats onto her plate. “A few days of purification, and it’ll be ready for rune carving.”
Their mother chuckled. “You must be sick of looking at it.”
Zaiya shrugged and mumbled something complimentary about the color as Azrion accepted plates of vegetables from his mother.
He placed them artfully in front of Kat and then himself before passing the plates onto Zaiya so the human wouldn’t have to lift her clasped hands from her lap.
Kat’s head was ducked still, the blue rings in her eyes darting all over, though she might not have blinked once since entering the house.
“And how’s the hall, Azrion?” His mother placed a few pieces of root veg into her bowl to stew in the hot broth.
Azrion’s eyes found Valinerath’s on instinct, and they were caught in one another’s stare for a long and cold moment.
Wonderful. Father used my office to threaten the humans and in general be an asshole to me just this afternoon.
“Oh, it’s fine, you know. Itcheran wore mismatched socks today and swore it was part of some new manifestation technique.
Seems a dubious theory, but I thought the look was rather whimsical and dashing. ”
Valinerath groaned at the obvious fabrication, and Azrion smirked, turning to Kat. She hadn’t moved to eat, so he dropped his voice and began to explain how the uncooked foods were meant for heating up to her desired doneness in the pot of noodles.
“Katarina.” Azrion’s father’s voice interrupted the demonstration, her name like a grindstone dropped in the center of the table. The clinking of utensils ceased. “That is an interesting name. Tell us, how did you come by it?”
“Um,” she said as she lifted her head, unblinking eyes finding Valinerath. If she saw what Azrion always did, he couldn’t know: her terror remained unmarred. “My mother gave it to me?”
“That’s usually how it goes,” Ayaderan added with a light chuckle, forcing normalcy back into the dining chamber. “I chose Azrion for my great grandfather, and Zaiya is a more modern version of her grandmother’s name.”
Azrion speared a few spiced pieces from his plate. “The annapa smells delicious, fa—”
“She did not say who she was named for.” Valinerath hadn’t moved, steam licking up from his bowl undisturbed.
“Not everyone is—”
“Sisters,” Kat said tightly. “Kalypso and I were named after a set of sisters in Farryn myth.”
“What’s that?” Zaiya asked, mouth full.
“Farryn? It’s a place south of Ankerick.
Our father’s mother was from there, and he grew up with their stories.
He used to tell us them sometimes before bed—I think anyway.
Kaly also used to tell me some—she’s the one in the guard.
” Kat shot a brief smile at his mother. “We got our names from Kalypsera and Katareyena. They were princesses who saved their kingdom with an ensorcelled magic mirror and poisoned vines. It’s just a story though,” she added quickly with a nervous laugh.
“I think it’s supposed to teach some kind of moral or something. ”
Azrion felt his brow tick up. He’d been able to tell when Kat was lying—not that she did it much, she mostly just withheld the truth—but there was no hard swallowing or nervous finger drumming this time.
In fact, the corner of her mouth ticked up as she studied her lap as if the recollection were a pleasant one.
His father only made a small sound, neither approval nor disapproval, and finally picked up his utensils to eat.
Azrion rolled his eyes and nudged Kat’s elbow lightly. “To hear my mother tell it, I’m named after a prince too.”
Ayaderan clicked her tongue. “You should be honored. Our family speaks very highly of your great grandfather.”
“High up his own ass.”
Zaiya snorted and even his mother snickered, but a cup was placed down a little too hard on the table, quieting them all again.
Kat awkwardly maneuvered the gem encrusted utensils in her smaller hands, but she managed to spear a single piece of meat out of her steaming bowl of broth.
“And do you have a surname?” Valinerath asked her as she began to chew.
She shook her head, lips closed tightly.
“Plenty of demons don’t,” Zaiya said with a bite.
“And almost all humans do. Katarina’s the one who brought up her father.” He shifted forward in his seat, no doubt to make himself look even bigger.
“We dropped it when we left home,” Kat said from behind her hand as she finished chewing.
Azrion swallowed, annoyed his father was hitting all of the off-limit topics in such quick succession. “Mother said you were on a fermentation kick.” He held up a piece of pickled vowry root and pretended to marvel at it. “I’m impressed.”
“Thank you.” Valinerath didn’t mean it.
“I want to know how you two met,” his mother interjected, sitting straight and dabbing at the corners of her mouth.
“Oh, now that sounds like a romantic story,” Zaiya chimed in, plopping her elbows on the table and grinning, fangs on display as she twirled up too many noodles to eat in one bite.
“It is.” Azrion puffed up his chest. “It all began when I visited the post.” He blustered on, skilled and convincing so that even his father listened as he told them tiny lie after tiny lie—he was mailing something for Fenthorn, he was running late for some meeting, he was starving from missing lunch—all superfluous details that meandered and gave Kat the opportunity to get a few more bites down.
“And then I saw her, and nothing else mattered.”
Not a lie. Not even a little one.
Except it wasn’t the whole truth either.
When Azrion had first seen Kat, he had also seen stars.
He’d chalked the odd vision up to confusion from coming across a human in Heck—pretty or not, that would have stopped most demons in their tracks—and of course her beauty had only heightened the reaction.
But with time and paint, Azrion had realized something more was happening.
“There was magic,” he said, gaze turning on Katarina, and though she had been terrified and small then, he could see that other thing now just like when they’d first met. “It was like a spell was casting itself in the back of my head, and it told me she was the one.”
The one I need to make this stupid game with Melora work—that was what Azrion had thought in the moment anyway because the other thing wasn’t possible, not after the binding tattoo he’d been given, surely. And then she’d kissed him, and he was no longer sure of a damn thing.
Kat looked a little less small then, and both corners of her mouth twitched up. Despite the spices of dinner, he could taste her lips again, a human flavor he would crave for the rest of his life.
“I should have given Katarina the flowers instead,” Azrion said as if that might fill up the hollow forming in his chest, but the chasm only deepened. “Each one individually by hand, not by drayk. Every one a request to see her again and again.”
Katarina’s blue rings narrowed, and the blackness in the center of her eyes widened, so demonlike.
“I’m sure Fenthorn would have understood.” His mother sighed tenderly, but the mention of his friend took Azrion out of the reverie.
“Who? Oh, yeah. Well, I completed the task requested of me,”—the one he’d made up on the spot, that Fenthorn needed the flowers sent on his behalf—“and returned to the post later to actually ask Katarina to allow me to court her. Thank all the stars she agreed.”
Kat blinked, and it was like those stars all winked back.
Zaiya said something about work then, but the conversation was just noise as he watched Kat spoon broth to her mouth, wanting desperately to be the noodle she sipped between her lips.
“So, Katarina, how are you finding Heck?”
Azrion’s hands fisted under the table. “If I knew this was going to be an interrogation—”
“It’s wonderful,” she said, and her voice found a steadiness he hadn’t expected.
“I have to admit, I don’t go out much, but what I have seen of this city—what Azrion’s shown me—is beautiful.
I’m so grateful for everything your people have done for me and the other humans.
From what I can tell, most of us didn’t exactly fit into our old lives, and maybe that’s why we ended up here.
Maybe we’re supposed to be…well, I’ve never felt so welcomed anywhere. ”
It was perhaps not all true, but she’d said it with such sincerity that there would be no doubt from his father.
“So, it doesn’t bother you that Azrion was so recently involved with another with the intention to marry?”
Katarina blinked, and then she shrugged. “It’s…fine?”
There was no mistaking his father’s next grunt for disapproval.
“Cake!” Azrion’s mother stood suddenly from the table. “I acquired one from that bakery. You know the one. I think it’s called Bewitching Buns?”
“Lovable Loaf?”
She pointed at Zaiya with an extended claw. “Yes, that one. Smells like a warm, spicy hug in there. Val, why don’t you help me cut it, and the three of you can go on into the parlor and wait for dessert.”