The hallway was dimly lit by petrol lamps lining the walls at regular intervals. From further in a multitude of muffled voices could be heard through the stuffy air. They were led through this hallway by an unassuming, elderly man with a slight hunch to his back. He had barely mustered them as they came in, only briefly lingering on Yaril’s tattoos and Lev's bandaged body.

Stepping through a door, they entered a well-lit room. A single table dominated the center of it, surrounded by chairs and people. Some sat, others stood or paced back and forth. All of them seemed agitated. It took Lev’s eyes a moment to adapt to the sudden brightness and while he tried to blink the tears away, he heard Myja speak.

“This is the devil from Maris.” The chatter died down and all eyes in the room turned towards them and then onto Yaril. The latter seemed nonplussed by the sudden attention, only briefly surveying the room before choosing a point on a wall to focus on.

“Where is Taras?”, a voice asked. “And who is that?”, a young man not older than Lev pointed towards him. From his accent, Lev guessed that he was a Czemik. A brief tang of pain pierced him as it reminded him that Zjuha was dead.

“We were stopped on the road. The authorities were looking for us, so we had to split up. Taras stayed behind to take care of a wounded comrade. I hope he will return soon. He-“, she inclined her head towards Lev. “-is one of Taras’ comrades who participated in the attack on the arsenal. He is also the man who controls the devil.” That immediately shifted the attention from Yaril to him.

Lev forced a weak smile.

“I’m Lev Adrijovitch Lenenko. Member of the Maris socialist party.”, he introduced himself. That prompted some positive reactions from the gathered people. The elderly man who had brought them in inclined his head.

“Welcome comrade Lenenko. I see that you have gone through much to come here.”, Lev suppressed the need to agree and shrugged.

“The important thing is that we arrived. Though I would very much like to rest. The last few days were… unpleasant.”, the old man’s eyes fell to his covered wounds before refocusing on his pale, haggard face. Lev was sure he must have looked like shit. The old man seemed to agree.

“I can see that. Well, then let us provide you with some fresh clothes, an opportunity to wash, and a bed to rest. But before that.”, he paused, and Lev could see his face turn more serious.

“Is what Myja said true? You can control the devil?”, he glanced over to Yaril who as usual gave no indication whether or not she was even aware of the conversation around her.

“She will obey anything I say.”, Lev answered without hesitation. That invited a round of tense silence. The old man, who Lev was assuming was of a fairly high rank in the council seemed to hesitate. After another long moment, he finally asked.

“And how do you control her?”

The question stunned Lev. It really should not have. In fact, he had expected it. It was a natural question to ask. But now that it was asked, he suddenly felt that he was unwilling to answer. He hesitated. A split second later, he’d made a decision.

“I don’t know.”, he lied in as natural a voice as he could manage. His mind raced as he tried to think through the consequences of what he was doing. He was tired and wounded, hopefully, the brief pause before he answered could be attributed to that. The only person who could contradict him was Yaril and he doubted she would. Myja shouldn’t know about the tablet and since Taras hadn’t returned yet-

“I think the sorcerer that we fought had something to do with it. But to be honest, I was wounded very badly during the fighting for the arsenal and passed out. When I woke up, we had already left Maris and the devil was obeying me.”, now that he had lied once, continuing came easy to him. Which should have worried him but didn’t as it came in very handy.

The old man frowned, and he could see that most of the council was not satisfied with that answer. He couldn’t blame them. To them, he was an unknown element. A socialist, sure. Perhaps even trustworthy. But not one of theirs, not one they could trust implicitly.

They had wanted to take the devil for themselves. A totally rational decision even in Lev‘s eyes. But his lie prevented them from it, prevented what was the right course of action.

Yet, he had lied. He hadn’t planned to. Well, he had thought about it, yes. But he had never decided to lie about the sigil. And still, when he had the chance to, he lied, unwilling to relinquish the power and importance that a devil brought.

He would need to really think about that and what this meant about him as a person. But that would have to wait until he thoroughly sold the lie to the men and women in front of him. Lev had committed and now he had to pull through.

They weren’t totally convinced. He could see that. But in the end, there was nothing they could do. Which led the old man to nod gravely.

“Then, comrade Lenenko. Welcome to Terje. May you and your devil be the key to our revolution.”

With that, they were led out of the room and through the hallway. Myja briefly looked like she was going to stay behind, but then decided to follow. After their journey, she too must have been on her last legs.

One of the gathered socialists led them up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the building. It consisted of a fair number of rooms, lining a single central corridor.

“Is this a guesthouse?”, Lev asked the young man who had introduced himself as Ilya. The latter shook his head even as he opened the door to one of the rooms.

“It was one. The tavern on the first floor still operates and serves as a cover. The rooms up here are used by the party to house dissidents that need a place to hide out.” A fitting place for them to stay then.

The room was not very large and simple. A wooden bed, a low wardrobe opposing it and a window facing out into the night. Right now, it looked like a piece of heaven to Lev.

“This will be your room.”, Ilya explained to him, before turning to Yaril. “You may take the room next to him.”

The devil shook her head and for once opened her mouth.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“I will sleep with my master.”, she said to everybodys but her own surprise. Lev stared at her with a dumbfounded expression but stayed silent. Myja looked as surprised as him, though also strangely entertained. The young man who had brought them here had turned dangerously red and stuttered his assent.

“I’ll take my usual room.”, not waiting for the poor guy to calm down, Myja shook her head, shot them a final amused look, and disappeared into a room a little further down. A couple of moments later, Ilya had calmed down enough to continue his explanation.

“Well… ehm... The bathroom. Yes…, it’s at the end of the corridor. You can wash yourself there, I will bring you fresh clothes in a moment.”, he still rushed through the explanation, clearly eager to leave.

“Thank you Ilya.”, Lev said, still a little confused but also amused by Yaril’s unexpected choice of words and the reaction it had garnered. “I’ll rest a bit and then bathe once you bring them.”

With that, he took his mischievous devil by the arm and pulled her into the room. Closing the door behind him, he took a moment to gather his thoughts.

“Master?”, when he finally had collected himself, he turned to face Yaril and repeated the word incredulously. She was watching him with a smug expression on her face. This devil was full of surprises today!

“You don’t know why you are my master, hm?”, she retorted in a mocking tone. He grimaced. He still did not know why he had lied like that. Or rather, he didn’t want to accept the obvious answer.

“You won’t tell anyone about it either.”, he said in a hushed voice. There was a non-zero chance that someone was listening in on their conversation. Yaril was unbothered and just shrugged.

“Didn’t do it earlier, won’t be able to do so now. Don’t worry.”, she whispered before an approving glint appeared in her eyes.

“But I didn’t take you for the man to have it in you. It was the right decision, but I thought you too much of an idealist to make it.” Apparently, his in-the-moment decision had her approval. Not sure if a devil’s approval was a good thing or not.

Lev shook his head, ignored her, and walked over to the bed. With a labored groan, he let himself fall onto the mattress, the cheap old thing feeling like a luxurious cloud beneath him. This was all too much for him. Yaril, the council, everything else. It had to wait until he was rested.

The devil did not agree with him. She dropped onto the bed next to him and mustered him from the side.

“So, what are you going to do about it?”, she asked in a hushed tone. Lev felt that she was drawing entirely too much entertainment from the situation. But he knew what she meant. He couldn’t just carry the tablet with him after lying about it. Even if he were to hide it and keep it on his body at all times, which was already proving difficult considering that he was expected to clean himself once the clothes arrived-

But even if they did not check his clothes while he was away. They would find out eventually. He needed a solution that didn’t include an easily recognizable and stealable item. After a moment of thinking about it, he came up with an idea.

“Can I just swallow it?”, he asked Yaril. She stared at him, flabbergasted by his proposal. Then she began to laugh. It was… a refreshing laugh, a true burst of emotion from someone he had never seen show much of anything. He waited for her to calm down.

“Yes…. I guess you could just swallow it.”, she replied. “Though that means you will have to fish it out of a toilet at some point.” The idea clearly appealed to her which he guessed made sense. The sigil was a tool to restrain her. Seeing it defiled like that would have to feel quite cathartic he supposed.

He grimaced at the involuntary image in his head and tried to think of something else. Nothing came to mind. Pulling the small white tablet from the small pocket of his pants, he stared at it, unwilling to commit.

“This won’t destroy the sigil?”, he asked her warily. Yaril had proven to be somewhat dependable, but he was under no illusions about her loyalties. She helped him because he had the sigil and it compelled her to. She would do the same for anyone else that had it and he was just another taskmaster to her. Unusual perhaps and maybe even preferable to the empire, but in the end not really different.

Yaril shook her head. “It will be fine. Though I might suggest a somewhat more permanent solution.”

Pleasantly surprised he waited for her to continue.

“I can trace the sigil on your skin. It will be like one of my tattoos.”, she gently touched the beautiful ornaments beneath her eyes. “As long as you live, it will draw power and make me yours.”

That was a perfect solution. A solution that made sure that he kept this new power that had been dropped in his lap. Something he at this point had to admit he wasn’t willing to part from for purely egoistical reasons.

“You sure you are fine with that?”, despite that he felt hesitation accepting it. Ignoring the fact that he was selfishly holding on to power and influence that he had received through no merit of his own. He was talking about binding Yaril, who was admittedly a devil, into what amounted to lifelong slavery.

She clearly knew what he was thinking as she snorted. “If its not you, it will be others. I’d rather annoy the imperials with you and your band of rebels than go back to the war in the east.” She performed a dramatic sigh. “And honestly you are not the worst person to end up with. At least you have some braincells left, Master~”, the last word was clearly just meant to annoy him.

Luckily, he could end that quirk before it could take off..

“Drop the Master. Just call me by my name.” He really did not need the attention and rumors that were already sure to spread due to the little incident earlier. She rolled her eyes but didn’t argue and Lev guessed her word count for the day had finally run out. It had already surprised him that she was so talkative all of a sudden.

“Let’s do it then.”, he said decisively.

The new sigil was small, located just under his upper arm, in a fairly awkward but also unassuming position. He had chosen that spot both to keep it as hidden as possible and because it was the spot least likely to get injured. While Yaril had assured him that even damaging the sigil would only lead to it reforming for as long he was alive, he did not want to risk it.

Getting it tattooed had been an underwhelming experience. Just as she had done to heal Jaro back in the wagon on the road to Terje, she only had to trace the lines of the sigil with a finger for them to magically appear on the skin beneath. He had not even felt anything while she did it.

It was bizarre. Magic had always been a fact of life for him. A distant, mostly unimportant fact, but something he conceptually understood. To his frustration this rudimentary understanding did not at all include just how the hell it worked.

Once the sigil was completed, he checked it extensively to see if it was really identical to the one on the tablet. Again, he did not think that Yaril could defy his request or was even likely to do it. After all the result of a failed sigil would not be her freedom but instead the return of control to the imperial family. Still, better safe than sorry.

Only after he was absolutely sure that it was the complete and correct sigil, did he break the tablet with the original sigil in two. The red lines on the white clay immediately faded to nothing. On the other hand, the lines that made up the sigil on his arm seemed to glow a little brighter.

He glanced over to Yaril, a part of him afraid that she would get to murdering first him and then every single other person in the building. But she just cocked her head and ignored him otherwise.

“It worked?”, he asked her carefully. She looked up from her position of lying splayed out over the bed and nodded in response. A relieved sigh escaped his lips as the tension left his body. He let himself fall back next to her and closed his eyes for a bit. Some rest…would be good…

A knock woke him, and he quickly realized that he had dozed off. Looking to his left, the same was apparently also true for Yaril. Which was odd considering that he had not once seen her sleep during their journey. Did devils need less sleep? Did they need sleep at all?

He was interrupted in his thought process by another, more insistent knock.

“Come in.” The door opened and Myja entered with a bundle in her arms. She looked over and saw Yaril still asleep on the bed, right next to him. A cocked eyebrow questioned him.

“I guess she needs to sleep too?”, Lev said helplessly. She smiled at that and walked in, placing the bundle of clothes on the chair.

“I met Ilya outside.”, she explained with an amused grin. “He was too scared to see what you were getting up to in here to knock.”

Lev let out a defeated sigh. He could already imagine the gossip that would go around. “The man has a wild imagination.”

Myja seemed to agree. “Well, you are a devil’s master. What did you expect?”