by Sunny
Amidst all the screams and shouts and chaos, Brielle was perhaps the only one to hear the whispered thanks the bronze-skinned warrior gave for his lady’s safe rescue as he lay there broken and forgotten, his body torn half open.
Brielle waited until all the demons had left the area, then crept down to the arena floor where the dark one lay, one body among so many.
Eyes noted her cautious progress. A few wounded bandits even called out to her as she skirted around them. She had to move quickly before the wild beasts crept in, lured by the bloodscent. Of them all, only he did not look upon Brielle’s arrival with interest or cry out to her for help, even when she stood over him. He lay there with a slack, peaceful look on his dark, swarthy face, despite being so fearsomely wounded. Please . . . please save her, he’d whispered, and his desperate prayer had been answered. He didn’t seem to care what happened to him now. A mindset that irritated Brielle, made her angry.
Moving away from him, she steeled herself and stripped the pants from two injured demons nearby, moving quickly to evade hands that grabbed frantically for her as two large carcajou scavenger beasts cautiously climbed over the rubble and entered the arena. They had the flat, pointed heads of wolves and were as big as primeval saber-toothed cats. Once they began eating, almost nothing could drive them away from their food.
Brielle froze as they looked at her with their coldly intelligent eyes, assessing her threat. She was the only demon standing, the only one not injured. They crouched with alert readiness, ears perked, hackles raised, their thick bodies poised to spring. It wasn’t anything Brielle said or did, but rather the distracting movements of the injured bandits trying to drag themselves away that broke the dangerous, still moment. Instinctively the large scavengers pounced on the wounded prey trying to escape. Terrible shrieks and guttural cries rent the air and the moist scent of blood grew thicker, even stronger as the animals began ripping into flesh, feasting on the ready meal.
Moving with trembling slowness, Brielle made her way back to her felled warrior: Hari, the golden warrioress had called him. He noted everything—her presence, the two feasting scavengers, three more creatures slinking in—but he seemed apathetic to it all. Resigned to his fate.
Brielle dropped down beside him and began binding his torn abdomen with one of the trousers she had pilfered, tying the legs around him. Ire mixed in with fear made her rougher than she intended, but he made no sound, asked no question as four more darkly striped carcajous slipped in. One of them claimed the large geant boar lying only a dozen meters away. There were nine carcajous in total now. At this rate, they would soon run out of bodies. They had to get out of here before that happened. Quickly she tied the legs of the second pair of trousers around his opened torso.
“Try not to make a sound,” she said softly as she gathered him up. Cries, whimpers of pain, would draw dangerous attention to them.
The agony must have been immense as Brielle lifted him up, but he made no sound. Then again, he hadn’t cried out when they had deliberately tortured him.
Brielle might be small, her strength not as great as a full grown demon’s, but she was still demon dead and carried the warrior easily, moving with slow caution among the feeding scavengers. They were less of a threat with their attention fixed intently upon their meal; it was the new ones pouring in that hadn’t claimed a body yet that were the most dangerous. By the time she reached the broken outer wall, there were only a couple unclaimed bodies left inside.
A large black carcajou slinked in and eyed them with interest. The creature took a step toward them and Brielle snarled and hissed, baring sharp little fangs. It hesitated, then loped to one of the last wriggling bodies. With a shudder, Brielle hastened away from the frenzied feeding.
She made it back to the palace and fumbled open the door. “You don’t have to be quiet anymore,” Brielle told him as she slipped inside and shut the door.
“You cannot save me,” the demon said in a wet rasp.
“I changed my mind,” Brielle said, unbearably irked by his defeatist attitude. “Maybe you should just stay silent.”
Had Brielle not seen his fierce, indomitable will while he had focused on aiding his lady’s escape, she would never have guessed him to be so deadly passionate and skillful a fighter as he lay there passive and uncaring in her arms. He was tall enough and she was short enough that his feet dragged the ground, his joints swinging sickening and unnaturally loose. He had to be in terrible pain, but it hardly showed on his impassive face.
The two servants had to have heard them, smelled the overwhelming stench of blood, but they didn’t come to investigate, probably too frightened after hearing Hari’s male voice. She strode into the bandit lord’s bedchamber and awkwardly pushed open the hidden doorway on the far wall.
They descended down a black well of stairs that took them deep belowground to the hidden prison that only she, Sarai, and the bandit lord knew about—and now him. Hari’s eyes noted the barred cell, the ebony occupant within, and his gaze abruptly sharpened.
“Sarai,” Brielle whispered, laying Hari down outside the cell. Sarai was curled up on the floor, the same way she had left her.
Her breath caught as she peered more closely at Sarai, and saw that her wounds had healed.
“You’re better!” Brielle exclaimed. “How?”
Sarai’s dark eyes glittered up at her. “Something disturbed my shields, allowed energy to flow through me, and caused me to heal.”
Brielle felt like a knife had been plunged into her. “You were blocking yourself from healing?”
“Why did you bring this demon here?”
Brielle shook off her feeling of betrayal. “You must heal him.”
“Why?”
“So that he can save us.”
Chains clinked and rattled as Sarai sat up. “That is a fool’s dream, Brielle. You cannot trust any demon male. They are all evil.”
“Not this one,” Brielle said. “He’s honorable. Not like the other bandits.”
A sound came from Hari then, lightly shaking his chest. The movement bulged out squishy intestine around his stomach binding, a disturbing and distracting sight. It took Brielle a delayed moment to recognize that the sound he was making was laughter.
“You know me not at all, little demon girl,” Hari rasped. “I am far from honorable.”
“This is your only chance,” Brielle said earnestly. “You know what Sarai is. Without us, you will not survive. But if we save you, you must save us in turn when you are healed.”
“And you would take a demon’s word? You would take my word?”
“If you swear by the lady whom you serve that you will do so.”
Brielle’s words slapped all the amusement away from Hari, and his eyes focused balefully on her. Even so terribly injured as he was, she almost took a step back away from the sudden hardness in his eyes.
She let what felt like a minute pass before she tried again. “Agree to help us so we can help you.” Then more softly, persuasively, “You can return to your golden lady after you bring us safely out of here.”
He eyed her almost malevolently. “You are more cunning and merciless than you appear. Very well.” A cynical twist of those thin lips. “I swear upon my lady’s name that I will aid the two of you if you can make me whole enough to do so by some bloody miracle.”
Brielle turned eagerly back to Sarai. “Please, Sarai. I know you can heal him. This is our chance, maybe our only chance. Please.”
Brielle wanted to shake her as Sarai gazed at her with distant eyes. Shake both of them, so stubborn and foolish.
“Very well,” Sarai finally said, after Brielle had given up hope that she would answer. “I will try for you, Brielle. Give me your hand, demon.”
“His name is Hari,” Brielle said, moving Hari’s hand between the bars, helping him stretch out his poor arm as much as he was able. Half a foot still remained between them.
Brielle watched, breath suspended, as Sarai’s black hand
slowly bridged the distance to Hari’s bronze demon fingers.
The Floradëur touched him. And with the contact, power swirled.
EIGHTEEN
WITH GREAT RELUCTANCE, Sarai touched him—willingly touched him, a hateful demon male. Brielle was the only one of their kind Sarai did not abhor, a child, innocent. Not so this demon, whose eyes were so cold and dark. He had a killer’s eyes; someone who could bring death and destruction with no remorse. She did not want to touch this demon, to heal him, to believe in him. But Brielle had pleaded, begged. And there had been something in the demon’s eyes when Brielle had mentioned his lady.
Whoever this demon served, she was important to him. Whatever honor he held was held tenuously only by her and the oath he swore upon her name.
It was the only thing that persuaded Sarai to try to heal him. To lay her hand willingly upon his abhorrent demon flesh and lift the gate she had imposed, opening herself again to the flow of energy that came to her even here. With will, Sarai allowed it to fill her, and ebb out of her into him. With her eyes, and a sense beyond, she watched the torn, open flesh of the demon’s belly and chest begin to mend together. Watched as the bulge of intestines was smoothed down and layered over with connective tissue. Watched as sinew, tendons, and nerves came together; broken ribs and dislocated joints fit back into place. And then the pulse of energy stuttered, shut down, leaving him only half mended. And Sarai pulled away her hand with shuddering distaste.
“What happened?” asked Brielle. “Why did you stop? He’s not fully healed yet.”
“I gave him all the energy I could,” Sarai said.
“He needs more.”
Sarai’s lips twisted down in an unhappy curve. “My body is . . . unwilling to give him more.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sarai is repulsed by me,” Hari said. “Her mind and heart reject me. It’s surprising she fought her own natural inclinations enough to heal me as much as she did.”
“Sarai?” Brielle said, bewildered.
“That is all I have to give. I tried . . . But it is as he said. I do not desire to heal him, or even touch him.” She could not even bear to look upon him, and called herself the worse kind of fool for channeling what energy she already had into him. She hated that she was whole and healthy again, and yet still chained, still captive.
The demon moved. His hands gripped a cell bar and pulled. Despite his lean and wiry build, despite the fact that he was only partially healed, and the outermost layer of skin still left open and unhealed, the bar creaked and slowly gave way. So did his body. The muscles and fascia over his abdomen strained and popped open, blood seeping out again. Only the crude binding, still in place, kept his entrails from spilling out.
“Stop!” Brielle cried, putting her hand in restraint over his.
“You should add your strength to mine, not try to stop me. If you can shift me a foot over to the left, perhaps with our combined efforts we might be able to pry open a large enough space for your friend to crawl through.”
“A second effort like that and your chest will split open, along with your belly!” exclaimed Brielle. “And just getting her out of the cell isn’t enough. How will you help us escape afterward with blood and guts spilling out of you?”
“I gave my word that I would try,” he said in a hard, clipped voice.
“I did not heal you fully, demon,” said Sarai from within her cell.
Hari’s shrug made his loose belly contents jiggle in a sickening dance. “A half-assed escape for a half-assed healing effort.”
“You would still try to break me free, even though I did not heal you fully?” asked Sarai.
“I swore upon my lady that I would try.”
“Well, you can’t!” Brielle cried. “Not like this. Sarai, please. Heal him fully so we can escape. Please . . . I know you can do it!”
“Can only works if I want,” said Sarai bitterly, “and it is as the demon says. I do not truly in my heart desire to heal him.”
“We are so close. So close to freedom,” Brielle whispered tautly. “Can you not make yourself desire it—for your freedom and mine?”
“How can you make yourself love what you hate?” asked the Floradëur. “It is like asking a creature without eyes to see. You have a chance, Brielle. You can leave. Flee this place.”
“Not without you,” she said. “Not without him.”
“Then we are all of us doomed,” Sarai said, closing her eyes.
Brielle shook her head with despair. “So close . . . We can’t give up! You could save him, Sarai. And he you. All that stops you is your prejudice. Tell her,” she urged, turning to Hari. “Tell her that you know others like her—the black one who came up through the plant and rescued your lady. He was your friend, wasn’t he?”
Sarai’s eyes snapped open. “What is she speaking of, demon?”
“His name is Hari,” Brielle said.
Sarai ignored her, her gaze fixed on Hari. “There was another Floradëur here?”
“Yes,” Hari nodded. “He rescued my lady.”
The slightest pause. The slightest tremor. “And you are friends with this Floradëur?”
“I would not call him friend,” Hari said with a strange look in his eyes. “Perhaps a brother. We both belong to the lady.”
“A demon calling a Floradëur brother.” A harsh sound of laughter pealed out from Sarai. “You overplayed your hand there, Hari. You lie! No demon or Floradëur would call each other brother.”
“I saw him,” Brielle said, voice and eyes intent. “If you don’t believe him, then believe me! I saw this Floradëur rescue the female demon, though I don’t know how. She was huge, transformed into a dragon. He touched her and they disappeared down this little plant!”
“That’s impossible on two levels,” Sarai whispered. “Demons do not take on animal form, and—”
“I know, it sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Disappearing down a plant.”
“No, not that. We can travel that way, but we cannot transport another like that with us.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Unless . . .”
“I told you,” Hari said in a quiet, even voice. “He belongs to Lucinda, and she to him. They are bonded.”
Sarai’s eyes slanted into malevolent slits. “And you think telling me this will make me look more favorably upon you? No Floradëur would bond himself willingly with a demon! Only a creature like me, enslaved, beaten into it.”
“A close but inaccurate guess,” Hari said. “He was indeed kept captive like you, for twenty-six years by another demon. My lady rescued him, freed him.”
“Twenty-six years.” The words came out of Sarai soft and strained. “He . . . bonded with your lady in return for his freedom?”
“No. She had already freed him. As you very well know,” Hari said with a tight smile that was more a baring of teeth, “a Floradëur’s bond cannot be forced under duress. Talon chose her. Willingly bound himself to her to save her when she was dying, slipping away into final death. He brought her back to us, and that is why I call him brother, for what he did.”
“Talon,” Sarai murmured to herself. “What a strange name.” Without warning, her small black hand grabbed ahold of Hari’s. With all her will, Sarai gathered all the energy that filled her and tried to shove it into the demon, but it slipped through her mental hands like spilling water. There was still too much ingrained antipathy and repugnance within her toward the demon. “Argh! I’m trying . . . but I can’t!”
Driving Sarai most was the fierce need to know: Was Talon her son? With that desire most urgent, she unexpectedly flowed into Hari. It wasn’t energy but herself that flowed into him, partially melding into his essence, his thoughts, his memories. Talon, she thought, and that name pulled her through images until she came to Hari’s first encounter with a creature as black as night, standing between the High Lord of Hell and the High Lord’s daughter—Lucinda, the lady this demon served! It was a jarring realization. Even more of a shock was when sh
e caught her first glimpse of Talon, and saw in those delicate features the distinctive slanting eyes he had gotten from Jaro, the small mouth and high straight nose that looked like her own.
Immersed in memory, Sarai watched the tale the demon had spoken of unfold and become true. Watched and learned of the bond, not just with Lucinda but with another living Monère, too.
Sarai spun among the memories, the whirl of emotions, watched all that happened with a disbelief echoed by her demon host as they tried to return Talon to his people and were captured, almost killed, by them, even Talon. Watched as Lucinda drew power from her bond to transform herself into dragon. Felt Hari’s awe, shock, and fierce wonder as his world turned upside down, his emotions cracking and unthawing like frozen ice coming back into moving fluidity. Felt new meaning thrill the demon’s existence as he saw drakon fly once more.
Sarai spun along the flow of memories until the moment when Talon appeared outside the arena and rescued Lucinda, shrinking her huge dragon form down the stem of a plant along with his own. Only then did Sarai begin to withdraw. Only then, as she came back into awareness of her separate self, did she realize the coldness of the hand she gripped.
The demon’s eyes were closed as if in sleep. His body was eerily still, shimmering. Becoming translucent!
“Sarai,” Brielle said in a horrified whisper, “what have you done?”
“I went into him somehow,” Sarai said dazedly. “I . . . I didn’t know I could do that.”
“You drained him of all his vitality,” Brielle said, stricken. “He’s fading away.”
“No!” But even as Sarai denied it, a part of her knew it was true. In seeking his memories of her son, she had drained him of whatever sparked his demon essence. “No,” she repeated more firmly, stronger. No! You will not leave us. I will not stay here, captive, while you slip away free into final darkness.