Renewal interlaced her fingers and leaned forward. Sievan’s domain stretched out before her and Decras, splayed across a shimmering screen of magical energy. She reached out blindly and felt around at her side for a few moments before her fingers found a bowl.
The Goddess of Reincarnation dug a piece of chocolate out from within it, not letting her eyes so much as break from the screen for an instant. Decras’ fingers brushed against hers as he claimed some food for himself. His own vision was similarly affixed to the scene playing out before them.
Time had slowed to an absolute crawl around them. The figures within the Damned Plains moved so slowly that they might as well have been frozen in ice. It wasn’t that time had stopped moving — Renewal and Decras were simply processing it at a speed so heightened that the flow had functionally crawled to a stop for them.
“What is Sievan doing?” Renewal asked through a mouthful of chocolate. “Why did he gather them all in the same room? Is he trying to kill both Noah and Wizen?”
“He’s never had that much ambition before,” Decras said. “I’m surprised he’s even bothered meeting with either of them. He could have kept Wizen wandering through those halls for a thousand years if he’d wanted to. Those imbuements are quite old, and that little thief is nowhere near powerful enough to shatter them and have strength left to fight.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate Wizen.” Renewal’s features tightened in displeasure. “I don’t like that mortal. He has harnessed things that humans should not harvest. Why am I unsurprised that it was with your rune that he pulled it off? Isn’t any part of you redeemable?”
“It’s hardly my fault. I can’t be held responsible for what little rats do with the scraps of my passing. He dug a fragment of my rune from an altar the Apostles managed to contact me through. At least I didn’t let a mortal take a bite directly out of my powers. Now that would be embarrassing.”
Renewal would have glared at Decras if that didn’t mean pulling her attention away from the slow-moving scene before her.
“And whose fault is it that a mortal was able to get magic like that in the first place? I’ll give you a hint — he’s leeching off my food.”
“Excuses,” Decras said through a snort. His tone grew more serious and he shook his head. “But I do not understand what Sievan is aiming after.”
“Probably your runes.” Renewal huffed. “They’ve both got a piece. Sievan is probably going to try to take those pieces for himself. He already knew about Wizen, and I imagine he found out about Noah somehow. I’m waiting for the reveal, myself. There’s no way this is a coincidence.”
“Pieces of my runes?” Decras’ forehead creased in distaste and he leaned back in his chair, interlacing his fingers behind his head and getting more comfortable. “Doubtful. dabbles in a bit of dramaticism, but only upon occasion. As I said, he could have killed Wizen ten times over by now. The moment Wizen set foot in the hallway leading to that little pocket of dead space, he should have been dead. You saw it too. Wizen was caught in a Space Loop. Every step he took moved him an identical amount backward. It only stopped because Sievan released the binding on purpose.”
“He wants Noah and Wizen to meet, then. Perhaps he likes drama more than you would care to admit.”
Decras’s expression thinned. He studied the screen in silence for several long seconds before moving one of his shoulders in what might have been a shrug. “Perhaps. But Noah will not be able to defeat Wizen. The gap in their strength is too great, even with the advancements he’s made.”
“You say that as if he isn’t the only mortal in the entirety of the toy kingdom to make a Rune from intent,” Renwal said crossly. “He’s a prodigy. There’s no way he’ll die here.”
“He’s a suicidal idiot that manages to stumble his way into success through sheer dumb perseverance and luck,” Decras grumbled. “And he’s a thief.”
“Sounds like someone’s still bitter.” There was more than a little smugness in Renewal’s tone. “Don’t tell me that you’re still stewing over getting robbed blind by multiple different mortals. If we’re speaking about embarrassing, I think you might be penning the novel.”
“Am I the one that lost an entire avatar to a mortal who gave it — literally — nothing in return?”
Renewal let out something between a cough and a groan. She hurriedly cleared her throat and glanced down at the black cat curled in her lap.
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“I suggest changing the conversation. I no longer enjoy this one.”
“Fine.” Decras snorted. He grabbed another chocolate and popped it into his mouth. “I’m of half a mind to break the rules and put Wizen down like a dog when he arrives.”
“Arrives?” Renewal’s head tilted to the side, but she was grateful for the redirect. It would be a few hundred years before she wouldn’t want to bury her head in the ground every time she saw Mascot. “You were right about Noah not being able to defeat Wizen — so you think Sievan will open the way here? Surely not.”
“He will.” There wasn’t so much as an ounce of doubt in Decras’ voice. He was completely convinced he spoke the truth.
“Why? He’s powerful enough to defeat Noah and Wizen working together,” Renewal said. She turned fully away from the screen for a moment to focus on Decras. “This entire thing makes little sense to me. How well versed are you on him?”
“Well versed?” Decras’ lips pulled up in the faintest hint of a smile, but there was something else in his expression. It was so faint that it was almost impossible to make out, but a flicker of regret smoldered deep beneath the black pools that were Decras’ eyes. “I am more than well versed. I made Sievan with my own hands. It would not be inaccurate to call him my son.”
Renewal blinked in surprise. “He was the first demon?”
“The very first,” Decras confirmed. He leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh. “Sievan was the first — the most successful of the lot. The only one who held true potential. He flew through the ranks like he was born to do it. I watched him craft Flawless after Flawless Rune, all the way up until Rank 8. The only demon in history to succeed in such an endeavor.”
“Don’t tell me… you think he’s going to Ascend?”
Decras burst into laughter. “No, Renewal. He will not. Sievan is a failure.”
“What? But you said—”
“The most successful. And, unfortunately, still a failure,” Decras said. He shook his head in disappointment. “I was crushed. Everything had looked so promising… but Sievan is still a demon. I was younger when I made him. I cared more — cared too much. For hundreds of years, I tried to help him find a way to break into Rank 9, but it’s impossible. It stumped me for far longer than I care to admit, and still my inability stings. It is my greatest regret.”
“But you found out why,” Renewal said. “Don’t make me beg for it when you’re eating my food.”
“I was getting to it, you impatient woman. The answer is painfully simple. Sievan is nothing but a fragment of myself. He was handcrafted from a portion of my runes, and that is all that he will ever be. A rune cannot become more than itself. Sievan is nothing but a worthless shell. Every other demon is worse. I know the cause, but I cannot fix it. It is an impossibility in the very core of their creation. I have already said before. Demons are a flawed experiment. A race with no future. Any potential they may have is, and always will be, destroyed by what they are.”
Renewal’s eyes went wide in realization. “That’s why they get consumed by themselves. They’re living runes.”
“Correct. It was not what I wanted for them, but it is what they are. Sievan went the farthest, but he is still nothing more than a rune. He cannot advance to godhood. No copy ever can.”
“Why did you let this ever come into being?” Renewal demanded, rising partially from her chair. “This is more than cruelty—”
The words died in her throat. Decras wasn’t holding her gaze. His hands had tightened around the armrests of his chair, knuckles whitening, and he’d turned his head to the side. The god’s jaw was as tight steel.
“You couldn’t bring yourself to kill them,” Renewal said, her voice softer. “You actually do see them as your children, don’t you?”
“I do not,” Decras snarled. He pounded a fist against an armrest. “They are a failed race, one unworthy of the effort it would take me to purge them. And if you want proof of that, witness the latest mistake in their long line of failures.”
He turned his gaze back to the screen. Renewal followed it. A frown crossed her features. Out of everybody in the room, Decras was staring at the tiny demon that had followed Wizen through the hallway.
“The little girl?”
“Hollow,” Decras said. “Not an uncommon condition. Her soul is improperly formed and not well connected to her body. In theory, that should make her more prone to creating a rune of her own. That isn’t what happened. Instead, she’s incapable of properly connecting with even the flawed, so called, Demon Runes. The result is a shell of a being that can do nothing but wait to die no matter how desperately she struggles.”
“There’s no way around it?” Renewal asked, but she already knew the answer to her own question. It only took one look at the girl to see how weak her lifeforce was.
“Ask Sievan,” Decras said through a snort, but there was no amusement in his tone. “He attempts to fix what cannot be changed. Sticky is one of many, and far from his first attempt. Ironic. The so called Lord of Death, unable to keep a child alive because her body would crumble under the force of even his weakest rune fragment. Sievan attempted to delay her death by externally wrapping her in death energy — but that hasn’t saved any of the other demons he’s tried it on. All it has done is delay their end.”
“And you?” Renewal asked.
“If I possessed a way to cure my greatest mistake, do you not think I would use it?” Decras asked. “I brought every scrap of power I have to bear. The demons are nothing but flawed runes, and that girl is one of the most useless of them all.”
Renewal’s eyes flicked back to the small demon girl sitting on the cracked obsidian floor. “Then she—”
“Spent the power Sievan put on her opening a door that should have been impossible to move,” Decras said with a shake of his head. “Now there is nothing left to spend. She will be dead before the sun rises.”