They were alone.
33
Themonks’footstepsechoedaway from the closed door of the abbey’s warming room.Saer nearly dropped the pretense to sit up and would have done so if Kalia hadn’t started muttering to herself with her usual sardonic edge.“Has to be a way to automate this.”Grumbling, the sound of her hands rubbing together shuffled to his ears.“One at a time is ridiculous.Large groups, too much work.”Her steps neared, slippered feet padding on a stone floor.“Can’t someone make a way for me to talk to the world?From one spot?Too much to ask?What do you think, chap?”Her toe tapped Saer’s boot which he allowed to bobble, limp.Sloth took in a deep breath to sigh.“Didn’t think s—oh frenzied Hellsfire youreek.”
“I’m aware.”
To say Kalia shrieked would be kind.
The sound escaped with such intensity that Saer winced and covered his nearest ear while it reverberated in the hot, square room.Kalia stumbled backwards, almost falling over and barely catching her balance on the back of a sturdy, wooden chair.“Saer?What in the Hells?”
A fist pounded on the calefactory door—one of the brothers responding to the disturbance.“Miss Kalia, are you alright!”
Shock transitioned to wrinkle-nosed annoyance, and Kalia snarled at the door, “I’mpraying!”
A pause.
“...Yes, Miss Kalia.Apologies for the disturbance.”
No one could roll their eyes quite like Sloth, and she hissed more to herself than Saer.“They’re so damnedhelpful.”
With a frown creasing her soft features, the demoness put her hands on her generous hips.She dressed in a simple, long woolen dress with her honey brown hair in a braid over her shoulder.
Saer propped himself on his elbows while Kalia scrutinized him with her brown gaze.“Quite the cloak-and-dagger show to get in here.”
Pride pushed the stinking hood off his head.“I’m not carrying a weapon.”
“It’s an expression.”When Saer’s face twisted with more perplexity, Kalia sighed dramatically and made an abrupt ‘shooing’ gesture.“Never mind.Get up.You can’t stay here.”
Saer opened his mouth to respond, but stopped and fought the faintest of smiles.
The would-be smirk had her raising her voice to a new level of incredulity.“What?”
Saer allowed the smile to take over then.“I’m not used to you having a backbone with me.”
“I...you…!”Kalia sputtered, grasping for words.
“Yes?”
“Youscaredme!”
Saer assessed her.No doubt he’d startled her, but a new confidence had grown in Kalia since last he saw her.In the years of Neyu’s absence, it occurred to him that Kalia must have learned to walk taller rather than smaller.
How his beloved’s unmaking shaped them all.
The thought carried through to his gaze about the room.It boasted a roaring fireplace that took up half of the outside wall.The ceilings were held aloft by a series of distinguished, intersecting arches originating from four broad stone pillars dotted evenly throughout the square space.Intricate brickwork decorated portions of the wall with geographic designs meant to draw the eye.A two-person table flanked by a pair of wooden chairs as well as a low-framed bed stood as the only furnishings.
Warmth and homeliness existed in the room despite the amount of cold, unfeeling material used to construct it—thanks in large part to the various bits and bobs Kalia scattered throughout.A dress here, a plate and mug with eating utensils there.Another pair of shoes lay under the table with a duo of stockings.Multiple handwritten books, both closed and open, splayed across the table, stacked tall on one of the chairs.Even more rested next to the bed.While Saer’s eyes took in the room, he observed with some judgment, “This is an interesting choice of venue.”
When Sloth frowned, it had a hard time not coming off as a pout.“I don’t need your approval.You’ve not teamed up with any of us since—” She cut herself off with a breathless noise before turning away.At a loss for anything else to fiddle with, she started closing the books on her table, stacking them into wayward piles.“You need to leave.The brothers won’t appreciate a fully functioning male visitor in my room.”
Saer raised his eyebrows.“So I learned before arriving.Hence the—what did you call it?—cloak-and-dagger?”
“Surprising to think you’d consider the consequences of your actions at all.”It came out as a bitter mutter before Kalia could stop herself, back still turned on him.
“Pardon?”The first hint of a warning growl entered Saer’s tone.
Slamming the last book shut on the desk, Kalia released a harsh breath.Uneasy silence stretched until she broke it with a question of her own, just above a whisper.“Have you come here to kill me too?”
