3. Solicitation
CHAPTER THREE
SOLICITATION
Saya Claymore
I’m the devil’s consort.
The way he killed—swift and so easily—as if he had done this a thousand times before.
A habit.
No remorse. Not flinching at the lives lost—even if they are nightwalkers.
And for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his.
Why?
The red light fades before I can fully digest the scene, the theatre once again plunging into darkness.
A ring of fluorescent light appears, and the cages of claimed form a straight line, shuddering as they begin to move towards it.
All except mine, as I’m drawn up into the shadows, wires whirring and lifting me towards the ceiling.
Tendrils of light briefly slip through my fingertips, showing me my vegodian magik is alive—but even now, the light doesn’t know if it wants to stay or fade away. If only my mum had taken me to the same classes as the other children, I might have learned to properly wield my vegodian power.
If only she had believed I was more than the nightwalker she was afraid of.
The cage dips, and I fall forward into the bars, leaving my stomach behind. The cage shudders, and as I try to grab at the bars, the metal suddenly becomes smoke, and I crash to my hands and knees.
I rise, and through gritted teeth in the dark nothingness, sparks of light emerge with my rage.
At least I know something I can do with this now.
“Ardulgyu prus urot.” Moving my hands in front of me, I curl my fingers into half-circles.
Light appears and solidifies in my hands, forming the base of a hilt that grows until the palms of my hands strain against leather.
Then, a slice of light rises from the centre, sharpening with a glint of silver that brings the tip of the blade to a point.
I’m no warrior. Yet, as I grip the sword of rot, it is as if a thousand years of training spill into me and I instinctively know how to hold it. My body finds it familiar. A call so natural—like when I sheathed this blade in Serun’s chest, just before he revealed he was playing me for a fool.
Egotistical fucking night—
A shaft of light eats the darkness as a circular ceiling above opens, revealing the crescent moon.
The pale moonlight encircling me expands, bleeding into the shadows as the room takes shape.
Limestone walls with patterned floral designs.
Vervain. We grew it in our gardens, and it bloomed throughout the entire village.
I hold out the glowing blade as I study my surroundings. Tall pillars, carved with intricate, curved flames line what seems to be a large empty room. Then, my body jolts at the wooden double doors across from me.
A way out.
My ear twitches, bending in ways I used to ignore when I was glamoured. As I take a step in that direction, a faint rhythmic tapping behind me makes my ear bend back towards the sound.
I turn, the tip of the blade raised high, and my eyes narrow at the sight of the creatures sitting at a long table in the darkness.
Across the hall and away from the moonlight, crimson eyes watch unblinking. Frozen, like statues, not a heartbeat among them. The same nightwalkers who stood over my deathbed, including Lucifer, who is seated next to Serun. As much as I want to care about the others, my focus is locked on him.
The light of my sword pulses, radiating along the edges of the blade.
I point it at Serun, and his eyes crinkle as if he finds all this amusing.
With no thought of consequences, the sword instinctively shrinks into a dagger, and with a flip to catch it by the blade, I throw it at him.
Blinding white light flashes across the room like lightning, aimed directly at his head.
The others rise, but Serun leans back comfortably, a cruelly lit grin on his face.
And as the blade is mere inches from his face it redirects, sinking into the ground near the table and turning to ash.
Before the light fades, I see it. A sphere of shadows encases them, and it fucking devoured my magik.
“Amusing,” he chuckles. “Would you like to try again?”
Lucifer scoffs beside him as Serun glares through me.
With a sigh, I straighten and fold my arms across my chest. “Nightwalker,” I say in a bleak tone.
All of them flash a look at Serun as they settle back in their seats. With more moonlight encasing the room now, I can see their marble faces, as though carved from stone.
“Saya,” Serun murmurs, his ears bending back before pricking. “How are you?”
How am I?
I flick my tongue across my top teeth, running it along my fangs, but the movement doesn’t cool me down like it used to.
Fire roils through my veins. “I woke in a fucking coffin underground, crawled my way out, was caged and then sold at auction. Slayers have my young brother, and I don’t even know if he is alive…
” I swallow the bite of tears as my voice grows smaller the more I speak, “I am now held hostage, and all those dearest to me are dea—” Bile burns in the back of my throat, cutting me off and making it difficult to swallow.
My hands tremble, tightening into fists. If I weren’t afraid of using my magik, my friends might still be alive.
“And what?” Lucifer drawls, the jovial facade he wore in the theatre vanished. Red eyes focus on me, but he keeps his head turned away, as if the mere act of looking at me irritates him. “Humans are bothersome creatures, always cutting off their words without finishing them.”
After a deep breath, I say flatly, “My friends are dead. Slaughtered by your creatures.”
The other male nightwalker leans forward, his arms dragging across the table and his back hunched. “Can you specify which creatures? Without a name, I am left dumbfounded.” His voice is elegant. Egregiously proper. A rich voice I’ve heard before, many years ago.
Mum’s Blessed used to watch those old black-and-white movies. She told me people made them a long time ago, before Mother’s fall, but most were lost. This nightwalker’s voice sounds like he could have been an actor in one of those films.
Serun tilts his head towards the nightwalker with the rich voice and says, “Hen puknu en echoes, kuro.”
“Ah! The red moon,” he says with slow nods of his head, his eyes settling back on me. “They are not our creatures, Lady Consort. They came when Mother left.”
“Dobyonu rage,” Serun says.
I lift my chin higher. “Nightwalker, use our common tongue. I’d rather not have to wonder what you mean if you keep speaking in Daryun.”
The woman—Maeve, I now realise—cracks, and a smile breaks across her face as she looks to Serun, then to me. “He said, ‘Mother’s rage’ in Daryun, Lady Consort. As for waking in a coffin underground, it is customary, signifying rebirth amongst nightwalkers. Did Serun not explain this to you?”
“I didn’t have time,” Serun interjects. “We were in Hellsgate, fighting off Mother’s rage. But yes, Maeve is correct. Every nightwalker—even a half one—must wake in their coffin and crawl out. Rebirth into their new life.”
My brow twitches at the idea of being buried alive as some kind of weird custom, but with a shake of my head, I focus on the rest. “Mother’s rage?” I look away from Maeve and back to Serun. “Is that why she was cradling the crescent moon? She was trying to heal her rage?”
They all look to Serun, brows pinched, but he doesn’t tear his focus from me. Red eyes on mine, his right ear flicks, and the finger tapping against the stone table ceases.
The room falls silent, and when it does, I digest more of who they are.
They each wear the same clothes they did in the theatre, but once my focus settles on their bright, enigmatic red eyes, my good sense returns.
Chills crawl across my skin as I recall how easy it was for the nightwalker in the private room to lock up my body with a single stare.
I quickly dart my focus to the ground, earning a deep chuckle from my consort. I stare at my dirt-covered feet that curl inwards. Scabbed-over cuts and an already healed ankle.
“Nightwalkers cannot control you now, Saya. My blood is in your system for eternity—”
“You have a liar’s tongue,” I interrupt. “Just tell me what you want from me, nightwalker. Why am I here?” My hands tighten, trembling with frustration. “Why take away my blessings—my choice—after everything you saw?”
I wait for an answer. Part of me believes he won’t give me one. I am his consort now. Claimed to be a nightwalker’s bride—and because I am part nightwalker, I’m under Serun’s Law. Simple as that.
“For your protection,” he says, his presence tingling against my skin. For a moment, I’m back in the private room with Serun’s mouth brushing against mine. His hands touching the parts of me I’d learned to hate, only to love the bite of his ice.
That was a trick.
“And why would you want to do that?”
A chortled laugh comes from Lucifer. “You are a vegodian, are you not? Or was that sword then dagger of yours an illusion?”
I grind my teeth. He talks down to me as though I am a child. Belittling.
A sharp sigh escapes Serun, and his tap, tap, tap resumes. “Slayers kill both nightwalkers and vegodians. They will kill anyone who holds magik. And though they hate us, they hate vegodians twice as much. That is why I want to protect you.”
My right eye twitches, and I scratch the spot on my chest where Jaxton’s brother shot me. He saw the tattoo and fired without a second thought. He didn’t talk to me. Not a word of warning—nothing. To him I am the enemy.
“And why do they hate my kind so much?”
“Fear,” Serun replies. “Fear makes men do the most careless of things. Fear is like acid to the mind, melting all other senses until only the fear remains.
The unknown man who had a woman standing behind him in the theatre clears his throat. “As soon as humans feared they weren’t on top of the food chain anymore, they had the inclination to kill whatever might be.”
“Then I should find my brother. He is part vegodian too, and if they find out, they will harm him.”
Maeve says, “He is biologically male, no? Vegodian males only hold magik in their sperm, correct?”
“That’s the rumour,” Serun says. “We haven’t met one to confirm, though.”
“He is a child. And I don’t want him with them.” With a shaky breath, I lift my head enough to throw Serun a frosty look. “I’m leaving to find him, and if you try to stop me, I will make you swallow sunlight.”
That same cruelly bright smile reaches Serun’s face, and the shadows that cling so dearly to his shoulders quiver. His finger stops tapping the table, and he curls his hand into a fist.
Serun is beautiful—a pretty corpse, as much as I hate to admit it. A piercing stare, with dark circles under his tired eyes, and lines drawn down the sides of his nose, most prominent when he smirks.
He inclines his head and his dark hair falls forward, shadowing his face. “If that is your desire, then I will follow.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I mutter.
Lucifer stands, slamming his hands on the table.
I jump back, stepping into the moonlight.
“You are Lord of the Undercity, and you have been gone for far too long, brother!” Heat stifles the room.
“The newborns are also notoriously stupid, and with another eighteen of them in the Undercity, it will be far easier to instil fear when you are present.”
Maeve stands, but unlike the fury burning from Lucifer, she is calm as she raises her hand to Serurn and says, “I am happy you desire to please make your consort, dear brother. With that said, I agree with Lucifer. You have been gone far too long. At least stay for a little while. Make yourself known before you’re off once more.
I grow tired of caretaking your responsibilities. ”
Are they…? Is this a voting system?
The children in Cherry Bloom did something similar when choosing which games to play. Biters-and-Feeders was the most popular.
Serun’s unsettled eyes move to the unknown man with the familiar voice.
Serun’s ears bend to the sides, reminding me of a feral cat that roamed my village, while the other man’s ears dip submissively.
But after a quick look at the others around the table, the mystery man pushes his blond hair back and slowly rises from his seat.
Serun’s ear twitches.
The man sighs and says, “I will track her brother while you deal with some of your responsibilities.” He darts a quick look at me. “Once I have located him, you and your consort can join me. Then, we will retrieve the child and bring him to the Undercity.”
My finger twitches, and the urge to argue weighs heavily on my heart. I want to go home with Cole. I want to understand my vegodian magik and who I am. I can’t do that in the Undercity.
“Do you agree?” Serun asks, eyes never leaving mine. “I’ve been voted against, which means to follow you will break the law. It will also mean I am no longer Lord, and my family won’t protect you. They care little for my affairs, so if you decline, expect a bloodbath.”
The three of them step away from Serun as the shadows rise. They float in the air, then the shadow mask consumes him. He is ready to fight his family to follow me.
The three now have auras rippling from them. Lucifer glows a radiant orange. Spiders crawl over Maeve’s skin. The unknown man’s eyes turn into yellow slits, and a low growl rolls through his lungs.
Interesting family.
Serun hasn’t moved. His shadows become inky raindrops and freeze in the air, but he hasn’t moved an inch. His piercing gaze stays on mine, and a twitch of a smirk rests on his face while he awaits my decision.
He knows my answer. He knows what I am going to say. I want to save my brother, not have an entourage of nightwalkers hunting me.
“Fine,” I say. The static tension eases, and they move closer to Serun as if nothing happened. They sit by him, smiles on their faces, seemingly without a care that I am even more on edge. “Find my brother, but don’t approach him. I want to be the one to talk to him.”
“Very well,” the mystery man says with a brush of his hand. “But I will find him faster if there is something of his I can use as a scent. Clothing, perhaps…”
“I can travel to the feeding ground tomorrow. The sun is about to rise,” Serun says.
I step forward, clasping my hands together. “I want to go as well. I left pieces of my friends there.”
This time, Serun stands while the others remain seated. “Let me show you to your room. We will journey to Darkovish Feeding Ground tomorrow night, before we make our way to the Undercity.”
A sickly feeling settles in my stomach at the way Maeve looks at me. She has the sharp eyes of a hawk, and a sweet smile to disguise the venom crawling across her skin. Out of the group, she seems the second most powerful.
“It was nice meeting you, Saya Claymore,” she says, her milky voice like sweetened medicine.
There is something about her I can’t place.
There is something familiar.