“Where?” I asked, my heart pounding and my hand clenching empty air as if I was Ves’hil’n reaching for his sword, reaching for me.

Night Lover gave me a look of disbelief, then his eyelid twitched and he rolled his eyes, “I’m not a fucking bloodhound.”

Piercing Gale frowned at the entrance of the town. Without fully turning around he looked back at Night Lover, “How do you know?”

“Ahh hmmm...” Night Lover pursed his lips and cocked his hip to the side as he spoke, “well demons are a lot less communal and a lot more territorial than humans. They even have an ability to mark a place as their territory or their clan’s territory and only other demons can sense it. Or, well, I guess I spent enough time with Valeron that I can sense them too, I suppose.” Night Lover frowned contemplatively.

“Hmmm...” Piercing Gale hummed to indicate he heard and... took a step forward. My heart skipped a beat.

“What are you doing?!” Night Lover’s eyes flew open wider and he grabbed the back of Piercing Gale’s shirt. “They’ll know we’re here the second we enter their territory.”

“What? Are you scared?” I sneered. Not wanting to lose to Piercing Gale, I stepped up right beside him.

Or at least I tried to. But Night Lover grabbed my arm with surprising strength, “do you three even know how to fight?”

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“We beat you, didn’t we?” I said, trying and failing to shake his hand off.

He let go of the back of Piercing Gale’s shirt and pressed his hand to his chest. His thin, dark eyebrows pinched together and raised, he made his eyes as big and round as he could, and batted his long lashes once, twice... “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Piercing Gale took the opportunity to step forward. Night Lover threw out a hand to stop him but pulled back, as supposedly Piercing Gale crossed the threshold only Night Lover could see. “Whyyyy did you doooo that?” Night Lover whined, a hint of desperation in his voice.

Piercing Gale turned back to him and said with a cold expression, “we are the weapons that defeated the Demon Lord, the strongest of his kind. And if we want to beat him again, we can’t be afraid of some random demon.” Piercing Gale didn’t look at me but I almost felt like he did, like he was Eun telling Ves’hil’n, “don’t be afraid, this is what we’re here for. This is our destiny. And I’ll be with you all the way.”

Though I wasn’t afraid to begin with I still felt emboldened and I stepped forward. This time Night Lover didn’t try to stop me. Death-Bringer quietly crossed the invisible threshold with me.

Piercing Gale suddenly smiled at Night Lover, “didn’t you want a bath? Who knows how far away the next town is.”

Night Lover’s mouth was set in a thin straight line. For a few long seconds he just stood there, facing off with us. Then he sniffed his own armpit, gagged, and made his way over to us, arms crossed over his chest and feet dragging in the dirt as he pouted a little.

“Wonderful,” Piercing Gale said, turning Night Lover’s pout into a glare, before he continued on into the town, “hopefully the demon will let us have a nice long soak before it attacks.”