Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
There was no seeing where the forest ended and Rhovar began.
The trees grew denser with every step, their twisted limbs knotting overhead like fingers tangled in prayer.
Darkness closed in around her, swallowing the trees as tinny laughter echoed in the air.
Devilish vespers dangled from gnarled branches; some kicked their feet idly while others flitted around Aurelie, tugging at Severin’s long black hair and prodding the curved sweep of his horns.
The demon ignored them, his grip firm as he hauled Aurelie deeper into the forest.
“What did you do to the others?” she snapped, wrenching against his grip. His fingers bit into her wrist, refusing to let go. “Those knights were bleeding!”
“What did I do?” he spat. “If anyone should be offended, it’s me. You completely used me.”
“Oh, and you’ve no intentions of using me?
” Aurelie countered, brushing at her skirts as though his touch had tainted them.
Her gown, while simple, felt absurdly out of place amid the grime and bramble.
The soft blue fabric kept catching on thorns, the hem snagging every few steps, though she wondered how much of that was the vespers’ doing.
“Besides, if I’m to bond with you, I need to ensure you’re able to survive a scuffle. ”
Severin’s expression was caught between irritation and something bordering on appreciation.
“That was more than a scuffle. And I wouldn’t have had to harm them if you hadn’t trapped me.
” He looked every inch the demon she had trained to kill, his horns sharp and as dark as obsidian, his wings the same sleek and inky blackness of a raven’s.
Power coiled beneath his skin, letting his glamour slip just enough of himself to unsettle her.
A second demon materialized beside him, stepping from the shadows so silently that Aurelie’s pulse skipped. There was no footfall, no rustle of undergrowth—only the sudden weight of an added presence in the air.
“If you’re going to argue, do so once we’ve made it home.” The demon was of slender build and moved with a predator’s grace, almost feline in nature. Its tail twitched—or at least what remained of it did.
It was the blue-skinned demon Aurelie had fought the night prior. Instinct took over; her hand flew to the blade strapped to her thigh.
“What’s it doing here?”
“It?” Shadows coiled up the envyborn’s body like living ink. “Who are you calling it?”
“She is named Lute.” Severin squeezed Aurelie’s shoulder, emphasizing the word. “She came as backup, in case you humans tried anything. And it’s a good thing she did.”
Lute’s cold stare bored into the woods ahead, her ears flicking back. “We should keep moving before the angel catches up.”
“Agreed,” Severin said. “We’ll need to make the bond quickly—”
“Do you take me for a fool?” Aurelie took a measured step back, her brows pulling tight. “I said I’d consider a bond, but nothing will happen until I see proof that you aren’t lying through your teeth about this cure.”
Severin ran a hand down his face, muttering something under his breath. When he looked at her again, his crimson eyes burned. “There’s no time for your fucking posturing. You’re walking into an entire horde of demons, and without my bond, they’ll only see you as prey.”
She shrugged, liking that it seemed to aggravate him even more. “I’ll take my chances.”
One of the vespers leaned in, its beady eyes gleaming. “Are you going to let a human speak to you that way?” it taunted, the red aura around it burning brighter. “Kill her. Show the girl how powerful you are.”
Severin’s jaw twitched. Then, with an angry hiss, he blinked clarity back into his eyes and swatted the cackling vesper away.
“Have it your way,” he scoffed at Aurelie. Then, to Lute, “Blindfold her.”
Aurelie recoiled. “I already agreed to come willingly!”
“Which is why we’re blindfolding you. I’ll allow you into my village, but I’ve no intention of giving you a way to find it again on your own.”
There was little chance to argue before Aurelie’s vision went black. There was no fabric covering her eyes. Nothing to pull down or fight against. Lute had formed a mask of shadow over her vision, and Aurelie’s world was dark.
“I can’t walk through a forest if I can’t see,” she snapped, frustration heating her voice.
“We’re not walking,” Severin said curtly. “We’re running. So unless you want to smash into a tree, I suggest you hold on to me.”
Her teeth clenched, but she obeyed, fingers reluctantly wrapping around his forearm. The shadows pressing against her vision made each step uncertain, leaving her no choice but to trust the demon.
How had she ended up here? She’d spent her life training to kill demons, and now she was running through the woods arm in arm with one.
She needed to be smart about this. Perhaps there was still some way she could communicate with Yuri, even if just to help guide his path.
She took a deep breath, then peeled her hands suddenly from Severin’s arm. “I don’t need your help, demon!” she hissed with great show, bracing herself for the impact she knew was coming as she hurried ahead. “I’m fine on my—”
The impact was immediate. Pain exploded through her nose as she slammed into a tree, her breath hitching as the metallic tang of blood flooded her mouth.
“She’s bleeding,” Lute said sharply, her hand pressing against Aurelie’s shoulder to steady her. “Here. Tilt your head back before you make it worse.”
“I’m fine,” Aurelie argued even as her nose throbbed. She leaned against a tree for support, and when she wiped at her nose with the sides of her fingers, they came away wet with blood.
Perfect.
She could still feel the faint pulse of Yuri’s soul, his panic a distant but steady thrum. If he was tracking her, he’d need something to follow.
As Lute muttered something to Severin, Aurelie smeared her bloodied fingers along the rough bark of the tree. She couldn’t be certain it would work—blindfolded, she had no way of knowing if the mark was even visible—but it was better than nothing.
“I’ve had enough of this.” Severin looped an arm around Aurelie’s waist, hauling her off the ground. “Lute, can you clear a path?”
“What are you doing?” Aurelie demanded, her hands scrambling for purchase against his arm. “Put me down!”
His claws pressed into her side, a silent warning.
“You’re insufferable.” Her face burned with a mix of fury and embarrassment. Severin held her against his bare chest as one might hold a bride, and Aurelie despised the way heat flared to her cheeks. There was something possessive in his touch that disarmed her in a way steel never had.
The steady rise and fall of his bare chest made her uncomfortably aware of just how solid the demon felt beneath her.
He carried her effortlessly, and she breathed in his scent of leather and musk, frustrated to find that it was not wholly unpleasant.
Her body, traitorous thing that it was, noticed the heat of him far more than it should.
She bit her tongue, slowly slipping a leather strap from where it was tied around her sheath. Another breadcrumb for Yuri. She just needed to distract Severin long enough to drop it.
“I don’t appreciate being handled like this.”
“Would you rather I hoist you over my shoulder like a sack of grain?”
Aurelie scoffed. “I’d rather not be handled at all.”
“What a shame.” Severin’s voice dipped lower. “It could be fun to see what positions you find more agreeable.”
Her cheeks burned, but she refused to rise to his bait, focusing instead on slipping the leather strap free. She let it fall, the soft leather landing soundlessly upon the earth.
“You’re disgusting,” she told him plainly.
“Perhaps, though I find most women like a little filth.” Severin’s grip shifted, pulling her closer.
She clenched her teeth to keep from reacting.
Held like this, it was impossible to tell where they were going.
Each turn and twist of his body left her disoriented as she listened for snapping twigs, trying to gauge whether the air grew warmer or cooler against her skin.
Everything blurred together, the forest determined to hold its secrets.
It didn’t help that, this close to a demon, the sickness stirring in her gut returned with a vengeance, a side effect of being bonded to an angel. She pressed a hand to her stomach, grimacing. If she ended up vomiting again, she hoped it would be all over him.
The forest was unnervingly still, stripped of any sign of life. No hum of insects, no distant birdsong—only the sound of her own breath filled the silence. Her legs ached from being held at such an awkward angle, and her shoulders throbbed where his claws gripped her too tightly.
“Why aren’t we flying? Wouldn’t that be faster?”
“Too many trees,” Severin said, clipped and matter-of-fact. “My wings might get caught in the branches, and we’d be too easily spotted.”
Aurelie made a hum of acknowledgment, though she wasn’t paying him much attention. It was strange, she realized, that she could no longer hear the vespers. There ought to have been dozens.
“What exactly is your magic?”
Lute sighed, seeming to have reappeared beside them. “Do all humans ask this many questions?”
“My magic is irrelevant until you decide whether you’re taking the bond,” Severin answered before Aurelie had time for a retort. “You can remove her blindfold, Lute.”
Aurelie squinted as the brightness of the forest flooded her vision. The oppressive shadows that had masked them were gone, left behind to obscure the path they’d taken. Ahead, through the shifting greenery, a town peeked into view.
Severin reached ahead, peeling back branches. “Welcome to Veritas.”
The town beyond grew seamlessly from the forest, as though it had always been part of the landscape.
Stone and timber buildings stood before her, their roofs draped in living vines.
Flowers cascaded from the eaves while smoke curled from chimneys.
She squinted, half expecting the acrid stench of rot or the sharp tang of burning bodies.
Instead, the air was crisp and touched with the faintest trace of sweetness—pie, she realized, her eyes catching a small bakery nestled beside a lively tavern.
Aurelie flinched at the sudden burst of laughter and the calls of merchants hawking wares.
Ahead, a marketplace stretched along the main street.
Wooden stalls sat beneath canopies of vibrant cloth, their surfaces crowded with goods: jars of glimmering preserves, bundles of strange herbs, and polished tools whose purpose she couldn’t begin to guess.
All the while, demons moved through the crowd with an ease that set her teeth on edge.
They laughed and bartered, lingering at stalls and chatting like old friends. Their leathery wings were tucked close, horns catching the late-afternoon light. They weren’t fighting, or sharpening their claws on broken bones. They weren’t shouting curses into the wind.
They were just … living.
And that, more than anything, unsettled her.
“What?” Severin arched a brow, all mockery. “Were you expecting us to dance around a bonfire of corpses? Rotted heads on spikes?”
“Something like that,” she admitted.
The grin he flashed her was a wicked, pretty thing. “How disappointing for you. Sadly, we save that for Sundays.”
Jest or not, a bonfire would have been something Aurelie could have wrapped her head around. But this? This place wasn’t meant to be vibrant or alive. Demon camps were dangerous. Filthy. Full of squalor and sin.
“How have you kept this place hidden for so long?” she asked, her voice lower now, gaze darting nervously over the bustling town. Even with magic concealing the entrance, surely the noise or the chimney smoke alone should have given it away.
“I would sooner die than see Veritas fall” was all Severin gave her, making it clear that this answer would have to be enough.
“Keep to the shadows,” Lute said, so quiet that Aurelie had nearly forgotten the demon was there. “I’ll make sure no one sees you.”
Severin nodded, his hand firm against Aurelie’s back as he nudged her forward, guiding her along the outskirts of the market. They moved through the shadows of the taller buildings where the air felt cooler, the lively chatter of the market softening to a distant hum.
The scent of woodsmoke grew stronger as they approached the rear of a tavern.
Severin paused beside a heavy wooden door, partially hidden beneath an overhang of ivy.
A faint creak of metal made her freeze, but it was only him pressing a key against a latch that clicked open with a reluctant groan.
He pulled the door wider, revealing a narrow stairwell that stretched down into the earth.
Aurelie hesitated. The darkness beyond was absolute, revealing not one trace of what was waiting below. Her fingers twitched at her side, inching toward the dagger.
“You want to see the cure, don’t you?” His voice slid through the air like silk. It curled around her, coy and taunting. “It’s right through here.”
She was little more than prey walking into the den of a lion, and still Aurelie felt herself moving, as if guided by an invisible hand. She’d come this far, after all. If there was a cure, then she was going to see it.
And so Aurelie followed the demon into the stairwell, and prayed that she was not making a grand mistake.