by Sunny
I realized I had seriously misjudged his mental state when Ruric grabbed my arms and lifted me to my feet, his face no longer impassive.
“Do not,” he growled, his eyes flickering with dangerous sparks of red hot rage. “Do not ever endanger yourself on my behalf again, Princess.”
“Release me.” My voice was deadly quiet, with an ice so pure and biting he had to have felt its warning frost against his skin.
Ruric dropped his hands and took a step back, his huge fists clenching.
“I do as I choose. I am in charge,” I enunciated with cold hauteur, every inch the Princess he called me.
Ruric pierced me with those deep-cut, asymmetrical eyes. “Not if you ever do anything like that again,” he rumbled in a menacing timbre. “I will not return to your father with news of your final death.”
“Nor will I return to the High Lord to tell him that the last two demons of his dragon clan were killed when I could have prevented it.”
“We were more than able to look after ourselves, Princess,” Hari said with a conqueror’s arrogant smugness.
I may not like the egotistical bastard, but I owed Hari gratitude for what he had done. “My thanks, Hari,” I said stiffly, “for coming to our aid.”
“It’s my job,” Hari returned offhandedly. “And I agree with Ruric. It would be easier to accomplish our duty if you did not take unnecessary risks, Lucinda.” He, apparently, had no problems dropping my title.
I gazed at Hari coolly. “Your definition of unnecessary differs from mine.”
Ruric was back to being his rocklike self, and even more frightening because of that stony control. In those uneven eyes glinted an implacable will. “Your word, now, Princess. You allow us to guard you and the Floradëur as we have been so entrusted. Or we will turn back now and return to your father.”
I didn’t bother arguing with how he titled my relationship with the High Lord. Nor did I try bargaining with him, knowing it would be useless. “I agree.”
Ruric drilled me for a moment more with those deep, piercing eyes, and finally grunted. “Then we continue on.”
When Sumera was a hovering oval mass straight above us, casting its gray light across the realm, we reached the distant shore of the North Sea.
We had arrived. As far as we would travel.
I wanted to hold Talon’s hand, to feel that connection flow between us one last time, but kept my hand down by my side. “We leave you here,” I said.
“Here?” Talon looked around, gazing at the peninsula snaking straight out to sea a mile away. “Is that where my people are?”
I nodded. “We cannot venture safely beyond this point.”
“And I?”
“You are one of them. You will be safe.”
“And if I wish to return to you after I have seen them? After I have learned of my kind?”
I shook my head. “The trip across the wild lands is too dangerous to attempt, Talon. Even if you somehow make the journey safely, the demons that await you at the other end are even more dangerous. There is no future for you and I together.”
“Not just you and I, but also Nico. The three of us. Separating us will not break our bond.”
“But neither will it drain you of your power, trying to support one or the other of us. With time, perhaps the ties between us will fade.” I backed away from him. “Good-bye, Talon.”
He said nothing. Just watched as we drew back into the tall rushes that grew along the beach, leaving him a stark black figure standing alone on the dark sand. He looked abandoned. Desolate.
Determinedly, I shook the impression away from me. I was returning him to his people, not abandoning him. Are you not? a voice inside me whispered.
Ruric gestured for us to go, but I shook my head, resisting. I wanted to wait until I saw Talon greeted and accepted. Ruric’s big hand clamped down on my shoulder and drew me forcefully back. I went because I had no other choice, seething, ready to fight him if he tried to draw me completely away, but he stopped at the outermost fringe, in a sparser area of growth. I turned back to see four black figures in the gray twilit sky, winging above Talon. They looked like big birds, but I knew that was not what they were. They were Floradëurs in their animal form. They glided down and landed softly on all fours on the sand, surrounding Talon, their shoulders reaching to Talon’s waist. With their wings folded up, no longer distracting the eye, you could appreciate the sleek, graceful animals they were. Unique, with delicate, triangular faces. Not quite cat or dog or fox, but a blending of all three. A small creature the size of a lynx, with erect ears, a small pointed snout, and sharp claws. Entirely black. Creatures once worshipped by early Egyptians and ancient Babylonians. But the primitive carvings left behind by these people failed to capture the regal grace and elegance. And these creatures were winged. With wings like a bat, and in some ways they resembled one, but only if bats were beautiful instead of ugly, large and graceful instead of hideous.
Three of them disappeared. There one second, vanished completely in the next. Only one Floradëur remained beside Talon.
Hari grabbed my shoulder—Ruric still gripped the other one— and they both turned me to go. But it was too late. The small bush to my right, the thin sapling to my left, and the flowering shrub before me morphed and changed shape. They grew, stretched out, distorted. And in their place stood the three Floradëurs, surrounding us. One of them clicked its teeth together. A split second later they opened their mouths and blasted us simultaneously.
It was like the sound Talon had made, but weaker, almost melodic cries rather than his harsh, terrible screech, without his hammering force. The combined blow from all three, however, was still enough to stun us a little despite our mental shielding; here in Hell, our shields were always in place. It swayed us back, stopped us in our tracks. Ruric was the first to recover. He lunged forward, swiping at the creatures with his claws.
“No!” I cried. “Don’t hurt them.”
But I need not have worried. They vanished and we ran once more, Ruric and Hari on either side of me, almost carrying me between them. Two Floradëurs appeared, blocking our way. The third popped up behind us. We sprang up over them as that warning click sounded, airborne when that combined echolating cry hit us. Faltering, we fell to ground. When we rolled to our feet, it was not just three of them surrounding us now, but over a dozen.
Shit, I had time to think as I heard the menacing click again. Their percussive blast hit us again, their cries beating down upon us from all sides with a synchronized force that wasn’t just quadrupled but increased maybe forty times more. They overwhelmed our mental shields by sheer brute force and numbers.
“No,” I gasped, clutching my pain-splintered head. “We brought him back … not here to hurt you.”
They hit us again with another echolating cry.
A sharp pain burst in my head, and then nothing.
Thirty-two
The sound of beating waves, a sound not hyper-acute but distant and filtered, pulled me from the void I’d been shoved into and sent spinning down. The climb back up into consciousness was a painful, arduous one.
My head ached. So did my body. My arms and shoulders were sore, my wrists and ankles tender and abraded … and restrained. The familiar warmth of metal alloy against my skin told me before I opened my eyes that I was bound with demon chains. And the splattered drops of wetness across my cheek, along with the muffling of my senses, told me that I had been doused with the oil of Fibara. Neither was surprising. It was the Floradëurs who had invented both, after all. Once our closest allies, they were now one of our most feared enemies. Not so much because of their warrior skills but because of their fierce intelligence, their skills as artisans and craftsmen, and their pack-like approach to battle. They were small, slight creatures, easily overpowered if you managed to corner one. That, however, was the greatest challenge—capturing one before they slipped away from you. They were ferocious fighters, once banded together, as aptly demonstrated. But alo
ne, the vocal blast of one was more of a painful annoyance, not an overwhelming force, Talon being the exception. And that ability to slip away … to meld their energy with a plant, a bush, and emerge from it, or disappear down it… only a few things hindered that ability, pregnancy being one of them.
My lashes swept up and I found a multitude of black eyes filled with hate and loathing fixed upon me. Several hundreds of them, women and children scattered among the males, their eyes as hostile as their menfolk but filled with curiosity. We were at the other end of the peninsula, if I guessed right, farthest away from shore. And perched on top of a cliff with nothing but the sea below, if my muffled senses informed me correctly. I lay in what seemed to be their punishment circle. A dozen yards to my right, the land dropped away.
My arms were stretched out upon the ground, my legs likewise secured, demon chains holding me simply and effectively in a splayed X. Hari and Ruric, who had apparently returned to consciousness before I, if they had even lost it, were likewise restrained; Hari was to my left, Ruric opposite me, closer to the cliff edge.
Our capture was no surprise. What surprised me—shocked me—was that Talon was restrained with us, just beyond Hari, completing our little circle. And not just restrained, his mouth was gagged.
“You are awake, demon.”
I turned to the voice that spoke, and looked up into a black angular face standing over my head. It was a little disorientating to look at him like that, upside down. He frowned, and seemed to think so as well. He walked between Hari and me to stand in the open space between my hip and outstretched arm. He was an older Floradëur with white hair sprinkled among the midnight blackness like specks of dust. He moved with the fluid, lithe grace of their kind, carried the same musicality in his voice. But authority cloaked him, was borne by his proud and erect carriage, in the way he spoke. Stripes of gold lined his cloak, denoting his higher standing. Just how high, I didn’t know, but could guess at.
“Why have you chained Talon?” I asked.
Those black eyes narrowed down at me. “Do you speak of the Floradëur you have turned against us?”
“Yes to the name. No to the rest of it. I have not turned him against you.”
“He injured our guards trying to come to your aid.” Those black eyes bore down into me as if he would unearth my darkest secrets. “You have enhanced his cry, turned it into a powerful weapon.”
I wanted to close my eyes, pinch myself, to wake up from this horrible nightmare. How the holy Mother of Darkness had we managed to screw up so badly something that should have been so simple?
I opened my mouth and attempted to repair some of the damage. “Talon is a Floradëur that was taken from this realm by a rogue demon six and twenty years ago when he was an infant, and raised up among the Monère.”
A heated murmuring rose up among the watching Floradëurs.
“We were returning him to you and leaving,” I said. “Why did you attack us?”
“You ventured onto our lands.” His words stabbed at me like knives.
“To return one of your kind back to you.”
“To spy upon us!” He barred his sharp teeth, and his nails, retracted until then, sprang out with his anger, sharp black pointy things.
A woman stepped out from the crowd of onlookers. “He is Sarai and Jaro’s child,” she said. She was slender and graceful, wrapped in a flowing tunic the color of ivory. Her hair was long, black, and loose. She approached Talon, looked down at him, her voice trembling softly. “We thought him dead, lost to us. He has Sarai’s features.”
“Step back, Mesa. He is dangerous.”
“He will not hurt me, Deon.” Her hand reached out to touch Talon’s face.
“You will obey me!” Deon thundered, his voice cracking like a whip. “Step back now.”
Reluctantly, Mesa did as he commanded. Talon’s wrists flexed against his restraints as he followed the female Floradëur’s progress back to the perimeter, blending once more into the ring of onlookers.
“Who are you?” the man called Deon demanded, crouching down beside me. “A female demon who wears the Demon Prince’s clothes?”
That confused me until I remembered that I wore Halcyon’s shirt, pants, and belt. I wondered if I could bluff.
“The Prince has made it a popular fashion that other demon’s imitate.” A blatant lie. None others dared wear his exact colors and style.
Deon’s black eyes drilled into mine. “They carry his scent.”
So much for bluffing. If he was familiar enough with our kind to know Halcyon’s scent, then he had to have at least a suspicion of who I was. There were few demons with my distinct hair and skin color.
“Tell us now,” Deon said, “or we will simply kill you as we should have done already.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
“I was curious.”
His reply made me wonder what would happen once his curiosity was satisfied. I watched those black eyes flicker as I answered, “I am Lucinda, Prince Halcyon’s sister.”
The murmuring rose, grew agitated, swelled up in volume.
“Princess Lucinda roams the other realm as guardian. She is rarely seen down here in Hell.”
That’s what you get for telling the truth—doubt that you were telling it.
“It’s how I found Talon, roaming that other realm. And why I am bringing him back to you. I sought to do nothing more than that, my solemn oath on it.”
“What is a demon’s oath?” Deon sneered, a world of bitter cynicism in his voice, making me wonder how old he was.
“Respected elder,” I said in a voice loud enough to carry to all ears. “If you are knowledgeable enough to know Halcyon’s scent, then you know there is at least a fifty percent chance I am who I claim to be, Halcyon’s sister. Factor in these two royal demon watchdogs the High Lord sent with me …” Another rustling of whispers among the watching throng. “Demons you know by their skin color that have lived almost a millennium of afterlife faithfully serving the High Lord. If you know enough about us, you know who they are: royal guards that my father”—stretching the truth a bit here, but taking any advantage I could—“would be very unhappy about losing, for they are the last two that carry the blood of the dragon clan, other than the High Lord and Halcyon. Take in all these facts—my golden hair and skin, my long centuries of age, and the two legendary demon warriors that accompany me—and those odds rise up closer to ninety percent that I am who I say I am. That is why you did not kill us. Because you suspected our identity and realized that you had bitten off more than you could chew. Because if we just disappear, the High Lord is going to send an army of demon warriors out here to your lands to find out what happened to us and avenge our deaths.”
Those cold black eyes glittered. “If you are who you say you are, and these two are indeed the legendary drakons, Hari and Ruric, then it makes it even more tempting to kill you. To strike such a heart blow to the High Lord. To kill his daughter as he killed my son. To kill his men as he has slaughtered so many of our people, our women and our children.” Sheer malice glittered from those dark eyes, telling me that I had badly miscalculated. He wanted to kill us now with a deep-seated urge that was almost maniacal.
I tried to reason with him still. “The High Lord is the one who made it law forbidding the killing of your people. Who prohibited the hunting of Floradëurs and the unsanctioned taking of your blood.”
“Yet so many still do,” Deon said with chilling coldness. In a swift movement, he unsheathed a short sword. Made of a precious alloy even stronger than demon chains, it gleamed purple under Sumera’s gray light. A pall of silence overfell the multitude as they watched their leader tremble. You could not tell what he trembled from, rage or restraint. If it was the latter—restraint—it was not enough. I looked up into those anger-maddened eyes, and knew that bloodlust was going to overpower good sense. He was going to kill us. Chop us up and throw our pieces into the sea. Feed us to the sea beasts that dwelled in the dark wat
ers at the base of the cliff.
“We are bound, Talon and I,” I said in one last desperate bid at reason. “If you kill me, you will also kill one of your own kind.”
Mesa gasped from where she watched among the crowd, but Deon’s eyes glittered with eerie triumph. As if I had just given him the perfect reason to do what he so badly wanted to.
“By his own actions, he is not one of us,” Deon declared. “He cannot even flow from flower to flower, from growth to growth, but is held down by chains, just like you are. If you are bound together, then even more reason to kill you. To free him of that perversion, that evil condition that enslaves him to you.”
He raised the sword high above his head, and I saw my death in those black burning eyes. Words that should have spared Talon’s life had ensured the ending of it instead.
Perversion, he had called our bond. Evil enslavement, when it was far from that. I’d run from it. Pushed it away from me. But no longer. Now bound by chains, with my power smothered by the oil, with not just my death but of all our deaths a moment away … I no longer fought that bond.
I dropped all resistance and didn’t just open myself to it, I ran down that invisible line binding us together, and found it open. Talon had never closed himself away from me; it had only been I throwing a block between us. A barrier that was no longer there, an impediment that I smashed down in my need. I roared down that mental pathway and cried, Talon, help me. Give me power.
I felt the confusion in him, and then a sea of calm amidst the confusion.
Take what you need. The words rang clear, so clear in my mind, as if he had spoken them aloud.
With that invitation, that willingness, I didn’t hesitate. As the sword swung down, as Ruric and Hari roared and fought to break free of the restraints, I took the energy, gathered it all, and thrust it entirely into my voice.
“Stop,” I commanded. And Deon did, against his will. The wicked, purple sword screeched to a trembling halt a bare inch away from my neck. He fought that command, and fought hard, but could not go against it.