His kin must all have their own tethers.He’d witnessed Errshek and Kalia possessed by Lucifer.The human he’d seen amidst his dedication to become a blood drinker had to have formed those same cords while taking his oath.A vow to and from each party was required.
An oath for an oath.
Our maker destroyed Neyu.Saer repeated the accusation in his mind, and waited for the familiar, roiling sickness to set in.
None came, and he inhaled a deep lungful of air.The easiest breath he’d ever taken.
He’d broken his tie—the tie he could.
Trembling, Saer dragged his arms under his body, then pushed onto his back.He took in the clear, blue sky between the tall trees surrounding the campsite.Birds chirped, peaceful despite the chaos in his mind.
Excitement warred with disbelief and the sudden urge to locate theDaemoenicaagain, to explain his discovery to them.They could be free, too…
Was he free?
The thought caught his breath, and he swallowed past a charred, dry throat.
He’d completed the first step.An agonizing, brutal step.One which opened the door to more, and better, and harder all at once.
He couldn’t tell his kin and risk putting them in danger.Not until he held all the pieces.Not until he knewhowto snap the other chain.
The others need you.Neyu’s words, echoing in the back of his mind.
One more tether to break.It seemed impossible at first glance.
We could be unstoppable.Like she knew the opportunity existed.
Not impossible.
We deserve more than we are given.
For the first time since he’d been forced to unmake her, he recalled other words his beloved spoke when faced with her death.The ones he’d rebelled against without consideration.I need you all to see and experience beyond me…
She’d tried to tell him what he needed, even facing her own destruction.
Saer’s throat tightened.The pain of her absence would never disappear.The Neyu-shaped hole she’d left in his heart couldn’t be filled by anyone but her.But it didn’t need to be.
He’d remember her.He’d keep going.Seeing.Experiencing.Finding the way out.
For all of them.
Saer rolled onto his side and used his quavering arms to push his body into a sit.Once he caught his breath, he forced his legs under his frame.He swayed where he stood, but didn’t fall.
He staggered to the firepit to light one last, revitalizing blaze.
And he began again.
1
Nomatterhowboisterousand hearty his surroundings, nor how many decades passed, or the ferocity with which Saer focused on his mission—nothing could or would heal the First demon’s broken heart.
Outside, an early autumn rain hammered the tavern and inn rooftop, amplifying the chill in Saer’s heart and mind.
He’d overcome possession by Lucifer, sundered one of the two metaphysical tethers linking him to the fallen angel, and been given a sense of threat and doom to his kin, the remainingDaemoenica,as a reward for his efforts.
An oath for an oath.Saer had cleaved the one symbolizing his dedication to his maker.But the one from the fallen angel, declaring Saer as Its own, flared like an angry beacon at his core.A glimmering, golden rope stained by filth and jealousy.Focusing on it filled him with roiling rot and desolation.He’d endured the same after his maker commanded him to unmake Neyu, the Second, and his love.So long ago, and her absence still carved into his heart, a gaping hole that never healed.Not even his innate pride—the sin Lucifer molded him from—could fill it.Her life and unmaking hawd changed him in more ways than one.
He avoided any other contact with his family, moving from place to place, hunting for some way or clue to break that final bond.To say his maker expressed displeasure was an understatement.While the severed tie kept It from reclaiming his mind, the same couldn’t be said for the rest of his kin who remained fully bound.
