She caught up to him easily, her steps soft and quiet on the forest floor. He flinched when her fingers locked around his wrist.

“You’re planning to do something stupid. When I find out what it is, I’m probably going to murder you,” she informed him, her tone quiet, clipped, and irritated as she directed him around the large bush he’d been attempting to breach. “But if you insist on this idiocy, then I’d better lead. At your rate, we’ll be lucky to get there by morning. Elrya, you humans are blind at night.”

Actually, he was surprisingly not blind for a human. A small dose of shock zipped through her nerves when his eyes met hers in the dark, seemingly without trouble—and, large bush aside, he had gone a fair distance for a human.

The fey’s words from earlier came back to her.

Be careful of that one. He has devil’s blood.

She snorted softly. No time like the present to find out. “Do you have demon in your ancestry?”

Nales’ arm jolted in her grip. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking—how could a human line so specifically wield a special, powerful demon sword? It makes sense if it’s locked to a lineage.”

There were a few like that, historically—the Raidt palace had several locked away in vaults, though not nearly as powerful as the Cizeks’ sword. Goblin-made items could be hard keyed to an owner’s blood, but they had an iffy success rate on even first-generation descendants. If the humans wanted something multigenerational, they had to tap into older magic, like the fey.

Or demons.

“I’m not going to just tell you the secrets of my family’s ancestral workings.” Nales’ voice was terse, closed—though she detected an undertone of incredulity beneath it.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’ then.” She led him around a patch of fallen timber, the rustle of their footsteps grating on her skin. “One of the fey told me you had demon blood.”

“What?”

“The one right at the end. That grabbed me. He said to be careful of you.” She paused, taking a moment to sight through the forest with her senses. Everything had gone still, back to its restful state, though she detected a wariness to the trees that hadn’t been there previously.

Nothing around. All the animals were either hiding or sleeping. Mostly hiding. She could feel threads of attention over her shoulders as they moved.

Ahead, the raw energy seethed like hot air.

It hadn’t gone away, or dissipated, since the explosion.

Not a good sign.

Face grim, she turned her attention to Nales.

The shadows bisected him, only a few slants of scant moonlight dappling his hair and shoulders. The darkness of his clothing stood out in the dimness as a darker shade—not an unnoticeable shade, like thieves and assassins tried to mimic; it was too dark for that, unless he decided to go sneaking around some of the obsidian caveforms she heard the dwarves kept. Though he presented a slight figure, she realized that was misleading. He was actually quite broad in the chest, with more muscle than she’d initially given him credit for—he had to be, in order to have kept up with her during the demon attack on Abiermar.

But maybe the demon blood fed more than a bloodline key to him.

He had been keen to leave the next morning. She’d thought it regular human desperation and vengeance, but…

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Something was niggling at the back of her mind.

She blew out a breath.

“Anything else I need to know about this demon that you aren’t telling us?”

“He’s powerful.”

“Yes. You mentioned that. Any other fun talents, apart from the fire-rending, necromancy, and mind control?”

Nales grunted. “Three hundred years ago, when the gates were active, this demon nearly corrupted the entire forest ley vein with his power.”

She halted. “What?”

“My ancestor put a stop to it, along with a group of elves. It was, perhaps, the one time elves worked together with a demon. She used her power to cast the demon from the realm and helped the elves seal the gate.” The corner of his mouth twitched in a grim cant. “This was before the Quickening, when Eolos sealed the rest of them. A precursor, most likely. He had been her grandson.”

Ah. So now he was admitting to demons in his lineage.

It wasn’t unheard of. As far as she knew, the four main races were, more or less, compatible with each other. Elf and human mixes were common, same with elf and fey and, to a lesser extent, fey and human. Dwarf, human, and goblin mixes also existed.

But demons?

They’d been gone so long she’d never even considered them.

How would a demonic line affect a person? Based on what she’d seen so far, demons were malevolent creatures—but the ancestors Nales spoke of did not seem evil. They had helped the other races.

Around them, the trees were silent, the air still. Ground fog was beginning to rise in places, giving the dips and breaks in the trunks an eerie chill.

She held his gaze. In the dark, his stare never lost hers.

“So,” she said. “In short, we have a very powerful demon who has a specific reason to be pissed off at you?”

“Yes.”

Her eyebrow twitched. “And you want to walk on up to it and poke it with a sword?”

“If the opportunity presents itself, yes.” His jaw worked. “Like I told you before, I have a duty.”

Duty. There was that word again.

She remembered how angry he’d gotten in the courtyard. How they’d snapped at each other.

She’d thought they’d end up fighting, right there.

Maybe he does believe in what he says.

He wasn’t naive, that much was certain—he was as wary and cautious as one would expect a prince of the Cizek line to be, given their power dynamics—but neither did he shirk. When the demons had attacked, he’d been with her all night, putting his life on the line again and again to hunt down and kill every last one of the things they could find. Then, he’d tried to keep going, all on his own.

Maybe she’d finally met a prince who wasn’t a complete, self-serving asshole.

Tarris isn’t completely self-serving. He’s a good prince, when it suits him.

Which is what had really twisted the knife for her. Having experienced his bad side, when she’d known he was capable of so much more. Living with the damage she’d done, knowing he’d also ride at the head of the rangers when the time for war came.

Gods.

But Nales…

She narrowed her eyes, silently examining him in the dark. His brow furrowed, sensing this, but he kept still under her scrutiny.

Maybe he was a decent royal.

“What?” he asked after a few seconds.

“Nothing.” She brushed off his question and twisted, readying to lead him farther through the forest. “We’re on this path now. It’s gone quiet, but we’ll try to find this demon of yours. Keep close behind me, follow my lead, and don’t do anything idiotic.”

She was expecting a smartass remark back, something along the lines of ‘you can’t tell me what to do, underling.’ Instead, his gaze remained calm and focused. Studying her as she had studied him only a few moments ago.

Then, he nodded.

She stepped off into the forest.