The demon king, p.28
The Demon King, page 28
More and more are falling into another kind of struggle, clothes torn from their bodies as they couple and throuple and rut in a pile like they don’t even care where they stick it.
Feel like I’m going to sick up. The sounds, the smells, the emotions in the air. A man with ichor smeared across his face and a tent in his pants catches sight of Cirene, giving a shout as he rushes her way.
Much as I crave it, been trying not to link with Cirene after what happened last night, but that tears it. I reach out a hand, she takes it, and we link. By the time the Eater gets close, we’ve already blown apart and vanished.
I don’t skate us too far, just enough to get us away from the worst of the sights and smells and sounds. We come out of a vent and solidify, but now that we’re linked, neither of us wants to break it.
Used to feel strange to link with someone, to share a space that’s uniquely mine with another will, another aura. Now linking is starting to feel like the only time I’m whole. Like something’s missing when Cirene’s not in my head.
Is this love or something else? I don’t know—we don’t know. Cirene’s as new to this as I am.
Mother used to do this with Garos and Apatos, she thinks in my head. They would spend hours in the link before big decisions, or when they got into the blankets at night.
Idly I wonder what that’s like, to touch someone and feel both sides of it, the toucher and the touched. After watching Eaters ruttin’ in the snow, images are stuck in my head, and I’m ashamed because I know that means I’m putting them in hers, too.
Only Cirene ent shocked or cross with me for it. She’s thinking the same things, saw the same things. Touching doesn’t feel as intrusive when we’re linked, like stroking my own arm, or pulling my…
Again I freeze, but the shame triggers Cirene’s own memories of nights by herself, learning her body. I feel her own embarrassment, but it fades as we understand it’s just another thing we share.
Won’t last, I think, and I don’t need to tell her I mean the madness that has taken the village.
Cirene knows. She’s seen versions of this before, but only under the supervision of her mother and father, who kept tight control and never let things get so bad. Damon tried his best, but he’s in over his head.
Sun will come up and burn the excess magic away. Even if they hide from the light, the ichor lust will fade over time. By tomorrow night, it should be safe for the kids to come out.
We share a thought, dissipating again and rematerializing high in a treetop overlooking the lands for miles in every direction. We search the skies, but there is no sign of the Sky Watch. The village is safe from Hive for the night. Just hope they’re safe from themselves.
* * *
—
We skate down a vent before sunrise, and I find a little nook below the surface with room for us both and air to breathe. It’s cramped, but with the two of us linked, I don’t mind being pressed against each other. If I’m to tell honest word, I kind of like it.
Cirene does, too. But she’s me and I’m her and we’ve already agreed not to take things further than they’ve already gone, even if we can sense we both want to. We’ve got each other and the link to keep us warm, bathed in the magic venting up from the Core.
We’re both scared, but it’s less in the link, a shared burden rather than a doubled one.
Damon and the others will be powerful now, Cirene thinks. She ent wrong, but I also ent taught them everything. My mam and da were Eaters, ay, but that wasn’t where all their power came from. A lot of it was the tattoos.
The moment I think it, Cirene’s flash of curiosity opens my mind to her, and she sees everything before I can consider if I want her to. Kept it from Damon and the others on purpose, but Cirene ent like them. Trust her. Especially now, when her thoughts and feelings are an open book.
Da was the first to discover what happened when you tattoo wards on your flesh. The symbols Draw and hold power, charging a body faster and holding the power longer. He did it to protect himself from demons at first, and to strike at them. Defensive wards on his body, offensive ones on his fists and feet, elbows and knees. Over time he added others, letting him quickly produce any number of magical effects with a thought by allocating some of his internal magic directly to the wards he wanted to activate.
Mam was much the same. At first Da painted her wards on with blackstem—an ink that stained the skin for perhaps a fortnight, fading gradually over time. Mam din’t tattoo herself permanently until after he was gone, and when she did, she put electrum powder in the ink, burying it deep in her tissue. Couldn’t really see them in daylight or when she was calm, but they were always there, and when her blood was up they flared bright with power.
Lots of metals can conduct magic, but nothing is close to electrum, a natural alloy that happens when gold and silver run together in the heat of the deep. Hard to find where I’m from, but here in Hive they either have a mountain of it, or…
I see it in Cirene’s mind. They know how to make it here. Smiths back home never quite figured out the trick, but Hive has. Cirene has electrum jewelry. Lots of folk have, even here among the Eaters.
Dangerous, I think, and Cirene understands. These folk only had one demon to eat, but ward tattoos could keep them magic-drunk all the time. Maybe they’d learn to control it like Mam and Da, but it ent easy. Mam used to say Da spent five years living alone in the wilds, magic-drunk and killing demons, before he was fit to be around folk again.
Mam, too, had her problems. Needed Da to slap the fool out of her more than once, to hear her tell it.
But her favorite ale story was about the Warded Children, because it was a tale that let her tweak Aunt Leesha’s nose. Da begged Leesha not to experiment with tattooing folk, but then he went on a trip and she didn’t listen. Started drawing wards on kids with blackstem ink, just to see what happened.
At first it went great. Sickly kids got strong. Everyone got strong. Started killing demons left and right. But then Aunt Leesha went on a trip, too. Children started inking themselves while she was gone, permanent-like. Then they started Eating. Time Aunt Leesha came back, the Warded Children were living in the woods, breaking things, robbing folk, and turning into something that threatened everything she was building. They helped turn the tide of the war, but only after Mam went and gave ’em a spankin’ to bring them back in line.
That what we got here? Already some of the Eaters are losing the thread. Wards will only make it worse, and dealing out spankin’s ent what I’m good at. Cirene, either.
Try it on me, Cirene thinks. Or is it me? She can see in my mind I know how to do it. Mam used to let me help make the ink, and taught me to tattoo so I could help her touch up spots that were hard to reach. If she’s got electrum, I’ve got or can find everything else we need. Ent hard to tattoo. Folk been doin’ it for thousands of years. All you really need is ink, thread, needles, patience, a steady hand, and…
Hurts, I warn.
She probes, learning more. Mam tattooed a mind ward on my head soon as my skull fused, and touched it up over the years. Hated it. Felt like she was pounding my head with a hammer. But on this one thing, Mam didn’t have a bit of patience for it.
Has to be done, Darin, Mam used to say. Without this, a mind demon could stroll right into your brain and we’d never know it until you took a knife to everyone you ever loved.
She wasn’t wrong. Alagai Ka got into my cousin Arick’s mind once. Arick and I weren’t really friends, but we were always family. Die for him, and him for me. But he kicked me off a cliff when Alagai Ka wanted him to, and then, almost a year later, tried it again when we threatened the Father of Demons’ plans.
Do it. I feel Cirene’s surety like it’s a part of me. If he’s still out there, I want to be protected, too.
Ay, all right. I don’t even need to think the words. She already knows.
* * *
—
There was a trick Mam used to do when making electrum ink. Back then it was impossible for me, I just mixed the ingredients. But now…
I take the electrum anklet Cirene offers. It’s beautifully warded and powerful, the kind of thing you don’t own unless you’re rich beyond askin’ what things cost. But she offers it without a thought, even knowin’ I might mess this up.
The anklet is perfect for the test. Ent got a demonbone core like it might back home. Ent got any jewels or glaze or anything like that. Just pure electrum.
Holding it out, I dissipate my hand, taking the metal into the between-state with me. Then, when I solidify, I make the electrum material again, but stop short of putting it back together just as it was. Instead I let go, and end up with a handful of pure electrum dust to mix into the ink.
I’ve got needles and thread in my satchel for sewing up demon wounds. I embed them in a stick I whittle and wrap the needles with thread to only bare the right depth. After that, it’s just patience and pain.
To her credit, Cirene bears it well. She don’t flinch or move, even though I know she’s feeling it on levels most folk can never understand. But Mam was right. Everyone ought to have a mind ward. I put hers on the back of her neck, big enough to protect her thoughts even from the demon king.
I hope.
Chapter 22
Summoned
I don’t sleep, pacing my chambers all day like a demon searching for a gap in the wards.
I feel helpless, and it fills me with anger and a need to rage. Darin is missing and possibly in great danger. Mirella is alive but no safer. Hive politics are the prison game bored mind demons play against one another.
Half of me wants to find Darin and just go home. Leave Hive and Alagai Ka behind and go live our lives.
I huff at the thought. Life back home was no simpler. Fate has a way of finding you whether you like it or not.
Unable to stand the walls any longer, I leave my apartments, going to the lift at the center of the spire. Watch field demons pace the halls, no doubt marking my presence to their unseen masters.
They’re on me again as I exit the lift, padding silently along behind me as I walk to the exit. It’s all I can do not to pull my spears and end them before they can strike at me from behind.
But a strike never comes, and they fall away as I reach the last door before the open air of one of the central spire’s many elevated gardens. A human of the Watch intercepts me first.
“Duch Olive,” a young lieutenant advises. “Be warned the sun is at its zenith.”
I smile. “I’ll take my chances.”
The guard puts a fist to his chest and bows, quickstepping back before I open the door, letting in a great beam of sunlight.
I want to laugh at the Hiver’s fear of daylight, but the feeling is quickly forgotten as the sun envelops me for the first time in weeks. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it and the connection it gives me to the world. Back home, as well, it had been long weeks since I had seen the sun, marching my forces underground to the Spear of Ala.
Just standing in the light lifts some of the weight I have been carrying. I feel more awake, more alert, more alive, than I have in months.
Night in wardsight is beautiful beyond measure, but full day has no less to offer. The terrace opens to flowers, their petals open wide as they straighten and twist to embrace the light. I feel much the same as I look out over the clean and prosperous city illuminated in gold before me. The sky is brightest blue with just a scattering of clouds, and I can see the ocean and far horizon. Somewhere across that vastness is home.
The gardens wrap around the entire level, offering 360 degrees of visibility from the terrace edge. Within they are hedged into something of a maze to offer some semblance of privacy and solitude.
Mother’s gardens back in Hollow were much the same, a place of peace and quiet, away from the bustle of the halls in her keep.
But I see mazes differently since my time in Krasia. Where once I saw places Selen and I could whisper secrets or shade for Darin to hide in, now I see choke points and ambush pockets, places where I could bull through a hedge to avoid a trap or knock over a statue to slow pursuit.
The guards of the Daywatch think they are subtle as they follow me at a distance, but I marked them from the start. Young enlisted from the look of them, likely recruited from the lower city. They are too young and low of rank to warrant night duty, much less demons of their own.
Still they gather, thick-armed young men and women of working stock. I know better than to underestimate them. Are they following to ensure my safety, or to spy? Or are they a threat?
If they plan to threaten me, they should have sent more. These look naked without demons pacing at their heels.
Hive is powerful, but now that I’ve lived among these people for some time, I’ve learned their weaknesses, as well.
Hivers don’t know how to store magic, or at least it’s never been a priority. Making hora is a painstaking process, and live demons and electrum have always been abundant. There was never a pressing need to develop battery power.
Much of Hive’s magic grid is shielded from sunlight and runs day and night. Hivers rich enough to have personal demons can remain active inside, though most take the daylight hours to sleep.
As a result, the culture is not just nocturnal but in fact significantly weaker during the day. Under the sun, it would take squads of them to overpower me. They are normal humans without magic where I am not only Joined but armed with hora items I can Draw upon even here in sunlight.
My spears and shield are warded glass laced with electrum. All but indestructible. My brother’s regal circlet, Prince Chadan’s warded armor, my sister’s choker, my hanzhar, all have demonbone cores with stored magic. I can’t use them for flashier magics, but I could Draw on any of them for strength, speed, or healing.
If the Watch thinks I, too, will be vulnerable in the light, they are sorely mistaken.
But as I stroll through the gardens unbothered, some of the tension begins to ease. Whatever their intentions, they are not looking for a fight, and there’s no need to start one.
Not yet, anyway.
* * *
—
Yndros appears at my door not long after nightfall, but his face does not have the ease to which I have become accustomed. Behind him, Clay looms in the hall.
“Duch Olive, you have been summoned to the mind court,” Yndros says quite formally. That’s when I know something is wrong.
“Good,” I say. “I need to speak with them.”
“It isn’t good,” Yndros says.
My eyes flick back to Clay, and I activate my circlet’s warding field. “Come in.” Without waiting for a reply, I turn and walk into the center of the receiving room.
Yndros blinks, seeing the field, but he does not hesitate to follow, the door swinging shut behind him. I touch Micha’s choker at my throat, dialing the wards to put us in a sound bubble independent of my apartment’s privacy wardings, which I never fully trusted.
“Do you know what happened to Darin?” I ask when I meet his eyes.
Yndros doesn’t break his stare, but there’s a flicker through his aura at the question. He knows something. Something he didn’t know the last time I spoke to him.
“I don’t know where he is,” Yndros says.
“But you do know something,” I press.
“This is bigger than Darin,” Yndros says. “You have been seen meeting with rabble-rousers mere moments after humiliating one of the five Judges.”
“Because I spoke to Hendri in a crowded hall?” I ask. “While I was with you, Xevia, Velena, and Tryan. Who reported it?”
Yndros’ lips purse. “I don’t lie to my mother. Not even for you.”
“Aren’t you just twice the perfect son,” I say.
Yndros sucks in a breath, but he doesn’t take the bait. “Hendri talking at you for less than a minute was nothing. But then you made a call from your apartment that went through several relays to hide the other end.”
“I don’t know what any of that means,” I say. “Is it a crime in Hive to make a call?”
“No…” Yndros says.
“Relays are some sort of ward convergence to boost signal?” I guess. Mother and the Damajah had something similar. “Is using them a crime?”
“Not technically,” Yndros admits. “Who did you talk to? Hendri? Someone else?”
“Am I not allowed to talk to people?” I ask. “That wasn’t among the rules I was given to abide by.”
“Olive, this is serious.” Yndros reaches out, taking my hands. It’s intimate, allowing him in close where he might take advantage, but I allow it. Need it. “After what you pulled yesterday…”
“ ‘Pulled’?!” I tear my hands away, stepping back to create space between us. “Yndros, I kept a human being from being eaten by an alagai. Do not speak of it like some perversion.”
“That is not what I meant,” Yndros says.
“Then what?” I demand. “That I had to breach etiquette to do it?”
“Olive,” he says, “these are powerful people.”
I punch my armored chest. “I am a powerful person, Yndros. You could be, too, if you chose.”
Yndros crosses his arms. “Mirella was a powerful person. It didn’t save her.”
“My choice saved her,” I say.
Yndros laughs, and it doesn’t feel performative. It feels like he’s genuinely shocked at my naïveté. “She isn’t saved! You made it politically inconvenient for them to execute her or return her to Cyla, but she is still an enemy of the state. At best she will be Drained and condemned to a half life like Garos, but without even his few freedoms or the support of her child.
“In the meantime, they will use her knowledge of the Eaters to locate and exterminate them once and for all.”
