“Yes, they’re Legions.” Mose nodded, fear flickering in his eyes. “Generals that command our armies. There are dozens of them in each city, and believe me, you do not wish to cross them. Sometimes, they get involved in hard labor just to show the others that they can get down and dirty despite their high rank. It’s our military’s way of keeping its soldiers rooted. Nobody wants an arrogant mass of muscle thinking he’s better than others in his rank. And the Legions answer to the Seven Princes, the seven sons of Shaytan. His firstborn sons, to be precise, because the king spawns dozens of offspring each year, but only the first seven are granted a chance at the throne. He’s been around for three thousand years now, though, and he’s not going away anytime soon.”
“So the Seven Princes command the military?” I asked.
“Not just the military,” Mose replied. “They form the Council in charge of the day-to-day running of our kingdom and our capital city. Their younger brothers are assigned to the other cities, in equal groups of seven.”
“How many sons does Shaytan have?” Caia’s eyes widened.
“Honestly, we’ve lost track. He takes some new wife every two years or so. He has dozens of those already, so he is never short of heirs. He doesn’t discard the wives after they give birth; he likes his palace rooms filled with beautiful females and his offspring, I suppose.” Mose shrugged. “But it’s the Seven Princes who call the shots and help him govern. I will give you their names, so you know who to target when your armies come to Neraka.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s—”
“That is very kind of you. Thank you, Mose,” Caspian interrupted me. I bit my tongue then, realizing that we couldn’t risk our one ally on the daemon side learning of our hopefully temporary issue with getting GASP over to Neraka.
“The first born is Cayn. He is ruthless and has a filthy soul. He will most likely succeed his father on the throne. The second is Abeles, followed by Garros, Mammon, Karellen, Adaris, and the youngest on the Council, Zane. They are very different but share common goals, which is why the Council ultimately works in passing decisions around the kingdom. King Shaytan signs off on all of them, though.”
“Are there other species inhabiting Neraka?” Caia then asked. “Aside from the Imen, Maras, and daemons, that is. Perhaps fae, swamp witches?” Jax, Hansa, Blaze, Caspian, and I looked at her with confusion, and she gave us a defensive shrug. “What? I’m just trying all avenues here, because this whole swamp witch magic thing still doesn’t make sense to me, and neither does Vesta’s presence!”
Caia was still trying to wrap her head around the fae who had helped us in the Valley of Screams during our rescue mission. To be honest, we were just as baffled as she was, and the fact that Vesta didn’t know anything about her past only served to amplify the mystery around her.
“It used to be a much livelier planet, I’ll tell you that.” Mose sighed. “There were other creatures living on the surface, but I don’t know what became of them. I haven’t seen their kind in centuries. I suppose that’s what happens when daemons become the dominant species… We consume everything in our path…”
“What can you tell us about them?” Caia replied.
Mose’s head turned as he picked up noises from outside. His eyes flared bright red, and he looked at us, fear draining the color from his face.
“Quick, hide! The crates,” he whispered, and we scrambled to our feet. Voices became clearer outside the hut.
“What’s happening, Mose?” Caspian breathed, visibly confused.
“They’ve come for me,” the old daemon replied, motioning for us to hurry. Caia, Blaze, Jax, and Hansa were the first to hide behind the stack of crates, several feet away from the firepit.
“What do you mean? Why?” Caspian frowned, then pushed me to join the rest of my team. I stumbled and landed on top of Hansa, who groaned and helped me back to my feet. We all crouched.
“Nothing for you to worry about.” Mose shook his head as he nudged Caspian into our hiding spot. “Just stay hidden, and, if I don’t make it back, you keep going with our plan, Lord Kifo. Just keep going.”
“Wait, how can I not worry if you follow up with ‘if I don’t come back’, Mose?” Caspian was frustrated, and I felt the need to hold his arm, just to make sure he wouldn’t leave my side.
Mose grabbed a metal bowl and scooped ashes from the dying firepit, which he scattered over us. I covered my mouth and nose so as not to choke on it, while we all huddled closer together.
“This will keep your scent hidden in closed quarters with daemons,” Mose explained briefly, then straightened his back and turned to face the door, just as two grunts came in.
Caspian’s arm pulled me close into him, and we crouched and listened quietly.
“It’s your turn today, Mose,” one of the daemons said, his voice rough and low. I’d only caught a glimpse of them, but I’d registered their impressive height and size. They made the hut look tiny.
“No way to avoid this any longer,” the other added.
We heard Mose clear his throat as he shuffled toward the exit.
“I hear you, I hear you,” he replied, cursing under his breath.
“It won’t take longer than a couple of hours,” the first daemon grumbled.
“Unless they catch you lying.” The other scoffed as all three left the hut.
We waited for a couple of minutes, and I used my True Sight to watch as the daemons escorted Mose up an alley leading toward the city center, where the giant tower stood, surrounded by palace walls.
“What the hell?” I gasped, staring at Caspian.
“I’m just as in the dark as you are,” he replied, as we emerged from our hiding spot. “He’s supposed to have good standing in the city. On one hand because of his role as a cleric, but also because he helps around the city. Shaytan looks favorably upon elders with a… sense of civic duty.”
“At least we learned a new trick with the ashes,” Caia replied, dusting herself off.
“What do we do now?” I asked, checking the areas outside the hut. Barely a handful of daemons were around, all of them old, weak, and barely moving, supporting their weight on gnarled wooden canes.
“We should wait here for Mose to come back,” Caspian replied. “You heard the grunts. I doubt Mose will willingly get himself in trouble here. Besides, this place gives us a good vantage point.”
He moved toward one of the two small, circular windows I hadn’t seen before, hidden beneath a layer of black cloth. He slowly lifted the fabric to peek outside.
“Do you think he’ll be back? I mean, do you think they’ll let him go?” I murmured, not feeling too optimistic in a city as savage as this.
“I don’t know.” Caspian sighed, his shoulders dropping. “But if he doesn’t, we can keep moving in a couple of hours. We can devise a plan, and I can show you a few more useful parts of the city, in case Mose doesn’t return. He is right. I must go on, with or without him…”
I found myself in awe of Caspian. So many secrets concealed behind those jade eyes. Such a strong sense of duty and such a desire to help the innocent… and yet he wasn’t actively working with his own species on this.
I was intrigued and filled with even more questions, but at least we’d learned something about the daemons. Most importantly, we’d learned that Fiona’s abductor, Zane, was one of the Seven Princes, and a son of the king of daemons. I didn’t have time to properly digest that particular nugget, given the sudden arrival of those grunts, but whoa…
Fiona had been abducted, then released by a prince of daemons. What had been his end game? What was he hoping to achieve with that? I wished I could simply call Fiona, or use Telluris to tell her, but… that was obviously out of the question.
Besides, I had a feeling that by the time we saw each other again, I’d have a lot more to tell her about this city and its evil, soul-eating inhabitants…
Fiona
(Daughter of Benedict & Yelena)
It felt like
a dream. The moment in which Zane blew yellow dust in my face was played on a loop. My eyes popped open, the utter darkness replaced by faint shapes against the streetlamps outside, their lights fluttering amber in the night. I sat up with a gasp, my muscles hard and tense. I’d expected to wake up in a cage, in a cave buried deep in the gorges again.
I breathed a sigh of relief once I realized I was still in the bookstore. Also, I’d been put in one of the armchairs in the reading corner.
What the hell was Zane thinking?
I went over my last conversation with him, trying to pick up on any details that might come in handy later. Something told me I’d see him again, and I was determined not to get fooled by that damn yellow powder next time.
After a couple of minutes of processing everything that had just happened, I left the bookstore and went back to my room at the Broken Bow Inn. There was a square white giftbox waiting for me outside my door, with an elegant pale green organza ribbon and a note from Vincent.
I saw this and thought of you. I look forward to seeing you tonight. Yours always, Vincent.
My cheeks caught fire. I still wasn’t used to that kind of attention, but I had to admit, it felt nice to be pampered like that once in a while. Given the mess we’d gotten ourselves into with this whole Neraka business, I could at least enjoy the few spare moments I had between running for my life and killing daemons coming for my soul.
I went into my room and opened the box. A gorgeous dress awaited, layer upon layer of delicate, ivory-colored organza with thousands of perfect pearls, along with matching earrings and a pair of elegant shoes.
A smile settled on my face, and I lifted the dress in the air, loving how the light threw shimmering reflections at it from all angles. I slipped into the shower, then got ready for my dinner with Vincent, all the while going over my encounter with Zane—repeatedly, almost obsessively. I kept looking for something that wasn’t there, eager to replay the scene in which he’d pushed me against the wall and hidden his face in my hair.
My skin tingled as I put the dress on, pulling the fine long sleeves over my arms. I wasn’t sure whether it was the fabric or the memory of Zane’s touch that had such an effect on me. A couple of deep breaths later, I stepped into the shoes, and took a gander at myself in the mirror.
Why am I still thinking about him? What the hell is wrong with me?
I shook my head, then put the pearl earrings on, sprinkled a little perfume from the small fragrance atomizer I’d brought from The Shade, and stilled. A chill trickled through my limbs—I found myself under the impression that someone was watching.
Was I getting paranoid, or was there a daemon around? I carefully scanned the room, but the air seemed normal, and there wasn’t a single glimmer of red eyes. No, I’m just imagining it.
Not that I could be blamed for feeling on edge, based on what had happened earlier.
I left my room, blowing out the lights on my way out, and locked the door behind me. There was tension mounting in the air around me, but it was all part of my thought process. I was feeling watched, followed, and constantly surveyed.
Spotting Zane at the bookstore had kicked off alarm signals in my head. I was seeing him everywhere, so to speak. Whenever I found myself alone now, I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder and check… just in case.
The daemons had definitely played a part in this… trauma, for lack of a better word. I’d never been this guarded before. It took daemons using invisibility spells to try to kill us in order for me to become more aware of my surroundings.
But it felt as though I were taking this state of alertness just one step too far. There was no daemon following me. I was on my own as I walked up the alley leading to the White Star Hotel.
Surprisingly enough, I was hoping I’d see Zane again sooner rather than later, though I didn’t know why, exactly.
I must be losing my mind…
Avril
(Daughter of Lucas & Marion)
Lemuel’s studio on the first level could easily be described as a dump. It was a large room, tucked away on the first floor of what looked like a derelict building in the slums of Azure Heights. His choice of location actually made sense, as few to none would think of looking around these parts for… anything, really.
He locked the door behind him, then walked across the room, which was filled with old furniture covered in dirty cotton sheets. There was a wooden bookshelf leaning against the wall at the end, loaded with dusty books, and a lever hidden behind an encyclopedia. The old Iman pressed it, and the entire bookshelf shuddered, clouds of dust falling off in thick rolls as he pushed it to the side.
Heron and I were speechless at the sight of a small, hidden chamber filled with boxes of scrolls and manuscripts, their pages yellowed by the passage of time.
“I keep everything here,” Lemuel grumbled as he started looking through the scrolls, selecting a handful, which he handed over. “I don’t know why, but I just do. It’s like… something inside me tells me that I need to preserve the history of my people and keep it away from the Maras… so, I do.”
“Yeah, you’ve been mind-bent like crazy.” Heron frowned, staring at the old Iman.
Lemuel blinked several times, then shrugged, while we started reading through the scrolls he gave us.
“That’s highly probable, and I don’t know why. But as long as they don’t know about the archives, I’m good. They can’t make me forget about something they don’t even know I have, right?”
“Fair point,” I muttered, while scanning the texts.
“It says here that there was a hundred-year war between the Maras and the Imen when the Maras first arrived on Neraka,” Heron said, checking another scroll. “But there is no mention of a truce. I specifically remember the Lords telling us about a truce, about how they came to finally get along with the Imen, when they swore an oath to only consume animal blood and so on…”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Lemuel replied. “All I know is that there is a long-standing truce, but I have no idea who signed it, or when it took place. It’s just common knowledge. Something we’ve learned since we were children.”
“Do you remember anyone teaching you that, in particular?” I asked, suspecting another instance of the Maras mind-bending “facts” into the Imen’s heads.
Lemuel shook his head, then gave me a large notebook filled with handwritten notes and sketches. I recognized the daemons in the drawings, but not all of the creatures. Some of the illustrations were quite strange, depicting massive beasts, along with pit wolves and what looked like giant bats with big, round red eyes. The artist had used red ink to emphasize that specific trait.
I started reading entire passages from the notebook, instinctively looking at Heron whenever fact and fiction met in the middle.
“Heron,” I muttered, “this is supposed to be a collection of myths and legends…”
“And the truth seems stranger than fiction?” He sighed, giving me a faint smile, while Lemuel kept scouring his archives for anything we could use regarding the daemons.
“No, that’s the thing. This is supposed to be fiction, but everything I’ve read so far is real… what the daemons look like, what they feed on, where they hunt,” I replied. “Even their underground cities and their use of magic, which the Imen identify as ‘foreign power’.”
Heron frowned, then moved closer to me so he could read, too. His eyes wandered across the pieces of text for a while.
“I see they mention the armored daemons here… the hierarchy in their cities, along with Seven Princes and a King Shaytan,” he breathed, then looked up at Lemuel. “Lemuel, is all this meant to be lore?”
The old Iman stopped his search and straightened his back, groaning from physical discomfort.
“Yes, just… just ancient mythology, at least two thousand years old. Tales passed on from one generation to another, scribbled down by the few Imen left behind in Azure City who could write,” he replied, taking a seat on a ne
arby stool. Its wooden legs creaked under his weight.
“A lot of the stuff in these scrolls and books is true, though,” Heron said. “At least, as far as we’ve seen, in the Valley of Screams.”
Lemuel thought about it for a second, then put on a half-smile.
“Don’t tell the other Imen, then.” He sighed. “It’s bad enough they’re being taken away by these invisible beasts. If you tell them they’re organized and whatnot, it’ll scare them to death.”
“Tell me something, Lemuel,” I asked. “How come there is so little written history of your people?”
“Well, it all goes back to the founding of Azure Heights,” the old Iman replied, scratching the back of his head. “The majority of Imen in the region chose to live beyond the gorges, away from the Maras’ new city. At the time, there were millions of Imen inhabiting the planet, so we didn’t think much of the newcomers settling on the mountain. Those of us left behind, however, didn’t know how to read or write—most of us, anyway. There were a couple of scholars among us. We went into servitude and learned to coexist with the Maras, while the rest of our people died out in the world.”
“But why? How do millions just die out?” I frowned, unable to wrap my head around the mysterious demise of nearly an entire species. “The daemons ate their souls, or what?”
“That’s what the lore says, yes.” Lemuel nodded slowly, sadness pulling the corners of his mouth down. “I’ve only been around for some decades, milady. All I have to work with are these pieces of paper, as far as the past of my people goes… and it’s mostly legends and tales. I’m afraid I don’t know anything else beyond that.”
There were still many unanswered questions weighing down on us, but at least we were getting somewhere with all these searches. We were getting some answers, even though each left the door open to more unknowns.
“There’s one thing we know for a fact,” Heron said, his eyes fixed on me, as if he’d just read my mind. “The Maras are mind-bending the Imen on a much broader scale than they’ve told us.”
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