45
“Canhedothat?”
“You can’t have thought this through!”
“Only a poor leader abandons their team.”
“Quitting?You’re quitting?!”
“This will come down on allourheads!”
With all of them shouting or snarling to be heard over one another, Saer couldn’t do anything other than raise his hands, calling for order.One by one, theDaemoenicaheld their tongues.
Saer knew his proposition wouldn’t be favorable, but he hadn’t expected their level of vehement rejection.At the very least, perhaps the Twins…
He was doing this to find a way out for himself, but also them.To separate from a maker who didn’t deserve their loyalty.Frenzied Hellsfire, how he wished they could see!
He should have prepared better.
The muscles in his neck and jaw wound tight.Saer fought his own temper, answering their elevated voices with one comparably soft.“Your feedback is noted.My mind can’t be changed.I’ll talk through logistics, I’ll answer questions, but I won’t entertain any persuading.”
Arek leaned back, arms crossing over his chest.The frustrated energy emanating off the twin coerced Alus to reach an arm around his doppelgänger, rubbing his back as one might try to soothe a beast with hackles raised.
“If you’ll excuse the frankness, Sir Anarchy,” Alus said, “you haven’t harvested a soul or gone back home for centuries now.How does your declaration change anything?”
“It might not change anything at all,” Saer replied.“But you all deserve to know my intentions.”
Arek huffed but still didn’t look at Saer.The barest hint of a growl percolated in his chest.
“What do we tell Father?”The hushed and shellshocked question came from Kalia at the far end of the table.
Saer had to fight his instinct to cut into her for using the word ‘Father.’
She doesn’t know any better.She doesn’t see.None of them do.
The memory of the last thing the fallen angel promised Saer in the horrors of Kalia’s chamber slid through him—You will come back to me.
Lucifer had drawn Its line in the sand.Their maker expected Saer to come to It, and he was content in shoving the fallen angel’s words back in Its face.
Pride.
“Tell It, It can come find me if It wants to talk.”
A petrified stillness permeated theDaemoenica.Saer had never referred to their maker in less familiar and insulting terms to them—It instead of him or father.Not even ‘our master’ or ‘our creator.’
Runeak recovered first.“Who leads theDaemoenica, if not you?”
“Why not you, Runeakael?”Saer asked.
Again, the faint tipping of her head to the side, which Wrath did when considering something.“I am not eldest.”
Smirking for the first time since the post-lunch discussion started, Saer glanced towards the Twins.
Arek shook his head once, dismissing the distraction.
After observing Greed’s response, Alus shrugged and lifted a wayward cup of fruit juice.“To Mistress Pain, Queen of the Hells.”
Only those who knew Runeak well enough would see the way her lips twitched with, for her, a glowing and approving smile.Pride undulated off her in surges.Having gotten the answer to any inquiries she had, she stood and went back to her fire pit stump to resume work on her latest figurine.
