Everything came crashing to a halt. Her blood froze to ice. A dull roar rose in her ears.

She barely dared to breathe.

If he’d been tall in the forest, he was enormous in the hall. Eleven feet at least, and solid. He towered with his presence, broad-shouldered and with a thick body of hard muscle. The thin moonlight might have hidden his form before, but here, he was stark, strong, and obvious. When he spoke, a pair of canine teeth became visible—long and curved, like a lion’s. His voice made the air shake with power.

Blind panic clawed at her chest.

Grobitzsnak wasn’t alone in the hall. Another demon stood close by, a humanoid like the others she’d seen. His armor was different, more fitted and elegant, heavier in design and a deep black that shimmered under the light like carved charcoal. Rentac script decorated its curves, a filigree inked in bronze. Rich brown skin showed between the gaps.

Not one of Grobitzsnak’s undead legions.

Her gaze slid down to Nales, crumpled on the floor between them.

Seconds stretched.

His chest rose and fell softly.

Relief surged through her.

He was alive.

She could work with that.

The greater demon finished speaking. His tone still made the air tremble, an aftereffect of his power. Gods, how had she missed him? Even casual, the strength he held bat at the air like a visceral presence. If she hadn’t shut off her woodcraft, she would have felt him coming from a mile away—dark and shivering, like a perpetual, shifting thunderhead.

But then, he’d done that before, back in the forest.

She hadn’t felt him coming at all.

The other demon spoke again, a question, and Grobitzsnak made a dismissive gesture, clawed fingers catching in the light like beetle shells. When he spoke next, the words were sharper, louder. An order.

He walked away.

The other demon watched him go. Then his gaze fell to Nales on the floor.

His lips peeled back, revealing long, thick canine teeth, and he spat out a word. A snarl came from deep in his throat, and he slammed a savage kick into Nales’ gut.

Nales saw it coming, his arms jerking down to defend himself, but the power of it knocked him back. A sharp cry came from his lips as he thudded into the wall.

Catrin’s muscles tensed. Fear and panic slammed through her, the urge to leap out and attack overpowering. Only the memory of Grobitzsnak stayed her body.

He was too powerful, and still too close. Less than a minute up the hall. Easy enough for him to turn around and discover them.

And then, she would have zero chance of getting Nales out.

The slap of wet meat being hit continued. Each blow made her flinch.

She gritted her teeth and gripped her blades tighter.

After a half-minute, the beating stopped.

The prince lay in another crumpled heap, looking worse than he had before. His breath rasped through split lips. Fresh blood dotted the ground. The demon stepped back, pausing as if to survey his handiwork.

Then, with a guttural oath, he bent down, took hold of one of Nales’ legs, and began to drag him.

Toward them.

Her heart raced. Slowly, she stepped back around the corner, her movements utterly silent. She held a hand out for the others, three fingers splayed away from her blade’s hilt in a signal, but she needn’t have bothered—every one of them had heard the voice, read the tension in her body language.

She gave a silent thanks to the gods that Caracel’s glamour had held.

As Nales and the demon approached, Caracel’s hand curled around her bicep. She didn’t flinch when he leaned in close to her ear.

“We need him to show us where they are keeping people,” he murmured, his tone soft. “Do not attack them. Not yet.”

Her grip tightened on her blades, but she held her ground. Nales’ breath hitched with pain as he slid by. He shifted weakly on the floor, curled and tense. The scent of blood and stomach acid came to her. He had thrown up at least once, probably from a previous kick to the gut. Her entire body trembled with violence as the demon hauled him past, taut as a bowstring.

After they’d passed, Caracel’s fingers left her arm. Silent as a ghost, she rose to her feet and followed.

The demon dragged Nales through the halls. Twice more, he stopped to give Nales another kick, or to spit in his face, but the attempts were more half-hearted—going through the motions rather than dedicated to genuine pain.

They passed another floating crystal, its power dancing across her skin, the liquid shivering underneath it. A brief moisture touched her nose, then the metallic scent of blood. She let go of a breath and decided not to think too hard about the contents of the liquid and followed the demon down the stairs. Nales cried out and curled up as he bumped down, attempting to soften the blows with his arms. One, she thought, was definitely broken.

Finally, after nearly ten minutes of dragging, they came to a large, circular door.

Despite being in the older underbelly of the castle, the door itself looked newer. She perked up as she analyzed its surface, finding more and more hints of a new installation, and none of the crude, rusted wrought iron she’d found in other parts of the castle.

The demon pulled the door wide and dragged Nales through. She ran to catch up, she and the rest of their small group slipping through before it shut.

Inside, the room was full of cages and torture devices, both old and new. A quick glance around at the grisly objects told her everything she needed to know about the place.

This is where they would be keeping him.

The demon dragged Nales to a cage—a relatively large and generous one, she thought, until she noticed that it was attached to a large door on the wall with heavy scratches gouged into its threshold. Likely a place they set wild animals loose on prisoners.

Yeah, no. That was not going to happen. Not on her watch. Not with her blades so ready and eager.

She parted herself from the group without a word, a silent, deadly urge running through her. The demon opened the door with a squeak, tossed Nales in like a rag-doll, and closed it again.

When he was busy locking the cage, she lunged into the attack.

The demon must have sensed something, because he turned a half-second before, but she still slammed him into the cage bars. He yelled, twisted under her grip, and she shoved him, keeping him off balance, chasing him along the outside of the cage.

With a buzz, Caracel’s glamour snapped from her skin.

The demon’s eyes widened, taking her in.

A deep, primal part of her reveled in the fear her blood-mangled appearance caused him.

She shoved him again, slammed a kick into his left side. He blocked but still got knocked against the cage bars once more, and she took a moment to examine him.

He was softer than she’d expected, and more humanoid. Silver eyes stared up at her from a dark brown face, giving him the look of an elf—until one noticed that he stank of sulfur and the tattoos that ran down his cheek were in rentac, not mercari.

He struck out at her after a few seconds’ scramble, gripping her arm above the elbow. A smile tucked the edge of her mouth.

She shoved him once, twice. Turned away a strike aimed for her face and smashed her hilt toward his nose. He blocked it at the last second. She let him get a hand on her elbow, tug her into a lock.

She spun and dropped, throwing him several paces away to where the rest of the group was waiting.

Caracel was on him in a heartbeat.

He roared, his sword stabbing down like lightning. The demon dodged it once, but not twice. Caracel’s sword skewered his shoulder, and a scream split the air.

It cut off with a wet smack when Caracel kicked his face.

Caracel straightened, shaking with fury. Behind him, Doneil and Matteo stood by the wall in stunned silence. Both had drawn weapons, though they weren’t now needed.

“I’ll just stand here, then,” Doneil called over. “Being pretty.”

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s best to play to your strengths.”

A wheeze of breath and a rustle of cloth made her turn. Nales had pushed himself to his feet. He swayed, his entire body hitched to one side. His bloodied gaze watched her, tense and wary. Sizing her up.

She walked over to the cage, looped an arm through the bars in the cage door, and gave him a glance-over.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“So,” she said after a few seconds. “Your deal fell through.”

He swallowed. “The Great Lord Grobitzsnak decided I was being less than honest.”

“He should have expected that the moment you told him you were a Cizek.”

He looked at her again. A small part of her gained a large amount of satisfaction from his hesitation as he, once again, took in the astonishing amount of blood that covered her. Some of it lay so thick in places that it was beginning to move in one piece.

Behind her, the skewered demon made a gurgling sound. Caracel was bent over it, doing something.

“So,” Nales said, hesitant. “Are you here to kill me, or rescue me?”

“That depends.” She leaned closer and dropped her tone. Her accent thickened around the Janessi syllables, turning them guttural. “What, precisely, did you tell the demon back in the forest?”

“It was a repeat of what I’d said to him in Janessi,” Nales said. “I told him I could get the sword, and that Pristav Castle was easy to capture.”

She waited. “And?”

“And a few other things to sweeten the pot.”

“Such as?”

“Passcodes to the armory, locations of weapons caches, updated maps and customs.” He grimaced. “He only half-listened. His only focus was on the sword. He asked for a location tattoo and a blood service.”

Ah. That made sense. A blood service contract was the magical equivalent to slavery. If one disobeyed the contract holder, they had a direct line of punishment. It was unavoidable, and lasted for one’s entire lifetime. Though common among demonic tales, only the old houses in Gaia still used them—mostly to stop family secrets from spreading.

Grobitzsnak couldn’t wield Andalai himself, but he could make a puppet out of someone who could.

Prince Nales, however, had to agree to it.

Her gaze slid over his varying cuts and bruises. “Let me guess—you said ‘no.’”

“I said no.”

“And he decided to work you over until you did.”

“Yes. Something about letting me dwell in my own despair and humiliating me until I wasn’t even a shadow of my former self.” He winced. “He offered to pass me around for his army’s gratification, including the undead.”

Catrin went very still. Old, deep anger stirred in her. She felt two sets of stares bore into her shoulders. Doneil and Matteo, waiting by the wall in silence.

After a moment, her gaze slipped back up to Nales.

“Would you like me to kill him?” she asked.

The words hung in the air, the offer like a knife. She held his stare.

A second ticked by. Then another.

When he didn’t answer, she let it go.

“What about the kiss?” she asked.

Behind her, Doneil started. “Kiss?”

Nales winced, the seriousness from a moment earlier broken. “I’m sorry about that. I had to get you away somehow. You were dispensable, otherwise.”

Her stomach churned at that reminder, but she pushed the feeling down. Her eyebrows arched upward. “And he believed in that? In love?”

“No.” Nales hesitated. “He believes in possession and control.”

Her jaws tightened.

By his tone, he did not mean the magical kind. He meant physical. Good, old-fashioned subjugation.

Her back molars ground together. Briefly, the image of Tarris’ eyes came to her, liquid jade in the torchlight.

That hadn’t been about love, either.

We’re done here. With a rigid stance, she straightened and pulled the cage door open. Metal screeched.

“Doneil,” she called. “Your turn.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He was already brushing her out of the way, helping Nales out of the cage. She heard him hiss. “A kiss, Nales? Temdin, no wonder she wanted to kill you.”

Healing magic stirred. She turned away. Caracel stood two paces from the wall, a dour look on his face. The demon lay slumped at his feet.

She eyed him. “He doesn’t know where your priestess is?”

He grunted. “Lost consciousness before I could ask.”

By his tone, the inconvenience frustrated him. She glanced around at the room, noting the other cages. “That’s unfortunate.”

He grunted again. She took it for a dismissal and slid her gaze elsewhere. Matteo had taken a defensive position against the wall, the light on his gun active. Like usual, a certain amount of concern and confusion highlighted his expression, but he’d pushed it into a concentrated mask.

He’d been impeccable on the infiltration, so far, which was incredible—considering everything, she doubted he had much of a clue as to what was going on. It was only yesterday that he’d discovered that magic existed. Had she been in his position, thrust suddenly into the company of foreign strangers, on a hastily-planned mission involving crazy amounts of magic and demons, unable to even understand the language, she doubted she would have handled it so well.

Likely, she would have stabbed someone.

She caught his attention with a wave, then turned the gesture into a slower wave like she’d seen Doneil do, tilting her head to get the meaning across.

How are you doing?

He let out a quick breath—was that a laugh? If so, she could feel the tension and black humor dripping off it—but he returned the gesture. At the end of it, he closed his fist and slid his thumb into an ‘up’ position.

She stared at it. She had no idea what that meant, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it right now.

We have got to find a way to communicate with him.

She glanced back to the fey, then down to the wounded demon on the floor, giving him a more thorough examination. The humanity in him surprised her. It wasn’t like looking at a troll, or at one of the goblin’s hill clan cousins where the line between savage and civil was a paper-thin cut—he was very obviously clean, sentient, and a high-ranking individual in whatever organization system these demons used for their army.

Even now, with the subtle difference baring themselves to her perusal—the cheekbones that jutted out a little too broadly, the thicker bones of his wrist, the slight upturn of the ridge above his eye—he could still pass for an elf. If one dressed him in different clothes and stuck him on the edge of the Raidt, she would have assumed he was a hybrid.

Only the rentac script tattooed on his face, and the slight scent of sulfur in his blood, gave him away.

Something to ask Nales about.

Actually, she had quite a lot of somethings to ask him about.

Her gaze slid up to where Doneil was still healing the prince. His skin had regained some of its color, and he looked to be bleeding less. Bruises still marked his face, but they faded as she watched. A few smears of dirt traced through his hair, and it fell in messy, jagged locks across his brow.

His eyes, though…

Doneil had slipped into silence as he worked, and the prince’s stare focused on a point midway between him and a blank part of the wall across the room, his brow making a deep, contemplative furrow.

Shit. She knew that expression. He was planning something.

Abruptly, that faraway look focused and looked to her. “Could you kill him?”

She opened her mouth. It was a simple question, but a complicated answer.

“No, not likely,” she said. “He’s too powerful.

“Then why offer?”

“Because the rnari upper levels are a notoriously crazy and suicidal lot,” Doneil grunted. The healing magic still worked, outlining his face. Nales had been a lot more injured than she’d first thought. “She might be able to kill him, but it would take weeks of skulking about in this place, memorizing routines and patrol routes, dodging magic, blending in, until she found a way to sneak into his bedchamber and knife him in his sleep.”

Doneil paused. A frown cut down through his face. Likely, he was following the same lines of thought she had just gone down.

His eyes narrowed on Nales, suspicious. “Why ask?”

Nales straightened, rubbing a patch of skin on his arm that was still sticky with his own blood.

“The demon has the destruction orb of Cnixe, one of the Seven. It’s how he can corrupt the ley lines.”

Caracel swore, his lips curling back from his teeth in distaste. “Truly?”

Her jaws tightened. She knew precisely where Nales was going with this.

“No,” she said. “Absolutely not. We are getting you out of here. You can summon your forces and deal with the demon and his power orb after.”

“Er…” Doneil lifted his hand, a puzzled expression on his face. “What is the destruction orb of Cnixe?”

She glanced to Caracel. When he didn’t make a move to explain, she went ahead. “The Seven were once part of the divine energies that made the worlds. After the Sundering, they supposedly collapsed unto themselves, forming seven orbs of immense power. Three of them, Yinilli, V’ithi, and Andro’t, serve in the highest fey temples. The other four, including Cnixe, were either destroyed or lost.”

It was an old story. She only knew it because she’d done a lot of research into specific mythologies, and the Seven happened to cross them.

“And it just resurfaced in the hands of the demon we’re up against?” Doneil’s expression twisted. “Lucky us.”

Indeed. Lucky them.

“We can’t.” She held up a finger when Nales made to interrupt her. “That’s not a won’t, that’s a can’t. We simply aren’t capable of what you ask right now.”

He could make her. They both knew it. He could invoke the Undersworn Pledge, and she would have to comply—or be killed for treason.

By the way his eyes calculated, he was thinking about it.

“We have other priorities right now. Magic orbs can wait.” She deliberately put a shoulder to him and addressed Caracel, gesturing to the demon on the floor. “Doneil can heal him, and Nales speaks rentac. If this demon knows where she is, we’ll find her.”

The fey eyed her. “And if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll find another demon who does.” She stretched her neck. Her body still felt strong, but the urge to commit violence had slowed, and the tiredness was catching up to her—a sign the rnari tonic was starting to turn from its peak.

“It’s our only option,” she said when she was finished. “This place is too big. We can’t get lucky twice.”

She’d barely finished the sentence when a door at the far end of the chamber scraped open.

Volaon stepped in. Then Jorire. Their attention snapped across the hall, black eyes training on Caracel. Behind them, the other two heartsworn entered, a small, delicate figure trapped between them.

The priestess.