He turned his hand in Arek’s grip, clasping the palm for support.Offering a brief squeeze, he let go and pulled his shoulders back.
He hadn’t done anything more than sit for the past hour, yet his heart pummeled, trying to escape from his chest.
Saer laced his fingers together and relaxed his hands on the table.“I’m not sure where to begin.”
He had all their attention.Across from him, Arek with his customary bored expression.His twin likewise watched while licking the last of Saer’s leftovers from two fingertips in a way which should have been offensive—yet Alus pulled off as charming.Furthest away at the opposite corner of the table, Kalia rested her temple on Alus’s shoulder, her brown eyes blithe and content.Runeak perched with the stillness of a predator, her face blank, yet harrowing.Errshek, to Saer’s immediate left, seemed the most nervous, fidgeting with his own knuckles.
They couldn’t be more different.
They couldn’t be more family.
And they’re here because of Neyu’s sacrifice.The gaping hole in his heart took small comfort in the thought.She gave him this moment.
Saer glanced at his intertwined fingers and flexed them, taking the instance to gather his thoughts.“I haven’t been doing what I was created to do for a long time.”To the admission, Kalia straightened.“What’s more, I don’t intend to.”He lifted his gaze, pausing to allow any of his siblings time to react.
Arek opened his mouth, then closed it and peered at Alus, who shrugged.Runeak’s head tilted to one side.None of them spoke a word.
Saer steeled himself.“Since—” A sudden wash of emotion forced him to pause.“Since Neyu died…in more ways than the obvious, it changed things.It changedme.”Shaking his head, the muscles in his face ached with his frown.Saer moved his gaze down the lines to each of his kin, one by one, while he spoke in a hushed tone.“I know each of you blames me, at least in part, for Neyu’s unmaking.”
Arek parted his lips again—along with Kalia this time—but Saer held up a hand.“I took her Hellsfire, her essence.But I’d give anything—” Saer’s teeth gritted as he pushed out the words.“Anything...to have her back.”Pride allowed his declaration to sink in, before resuming.“I own the physical destruction of Neyuukhanikhraul.”He spoke her true name with all the depth he felt for her.Errshek shivered and bowed his head.Kalia released a soft noise.Even Alus stopped smiling.“ButIdidn’t choose it.None of us did.”
Saer observed their faces closely, searching for some sign of revelation, anything to validate what he’d been turning over in his mind since he and Errshek had embraced on his first night in the clearing.He hoped beyond hope to witness a reflection of what he’d felt when he recognized and named Lucifer’s blame in Neyu’s unmaking.
Puzzled expressions met him around the table, but no dawning realization.He wasn’t surprised.Their maker’s claws hooked deep and true.
Still, he had to hope.
Sighing, Saer pulled his hair back with a hand, silver crescents falling insistently forward, as always.“I brought you all here because I have a favor to ask, a promise to request, and a proposal for each of you to consider.”
Around the table, theDaemoenicaexchanged glances, save Runeak whose ebony stare remained fixed on Saer’s face—the patient huntress.
“The favor first,” Saer said.“I request that, in your own time, each of you consider alternatives to myself for Neyu’s undoing.”
“Eldest, we don’t—”
Arek faltered when Saer turned his gaze fully on him.
“Areknar.”Weariness coated Saer’s address.
The twin’s lips parted again to protest, but Alus rested a hand on his mirror’s shoulder, prompting Arek to turn towards him.Without words, they carried an entire conversation.
“I accept your judgment,” Saer went on, meaning what he said, knowing what it was like to be in their place.“All I ask is, in the quiet of your own minds, in times when you are able to ponder, look at other possibilities.”
And break through our creator’s guise, he added to himself.
He couldn’t lead them any further.Obscure as he must sound, he knew if he served their maker’s blame on a platter, their minds would rebel ten-fold.Even Errshek, who’d witnessed Lucifer’s willingness to sacrifice all of them blamed himself and Saer more than their maker.
One by one, each of theDaemoenicanodded assent.Even Wrath herself.
Saer released a quiet breath.
It would have to do.
“Second, the promise; and this will take all of us, starting with me.”An edge of severity crept into Saer’s voice, signaling the pivot in topic.“I promised to Kaliaspher when she arrived, and I similarly promise to the rest of you,allof you, that I will never use the power of unmaking on any, so long as my will is my own.”He shifted his attention to the Twins.
Greed and Gluttony regarded him with profound consideration.The usually laughing Alus had no jokes.
It didn’t take as long as Saer would have guessed.The Twins nodded and turned to Runeak.Alus spoke at the same time as Arek.“No powers of unmaking.”“We swear it.”
