Just a spirit.A little ghost.
Lucifer let Its weary, smiling lips brush the top of Pride’s head.Saer couldn’t help the slow blink and thrilled growl which coursed through his body.“Good, my First,” Lucifer whispered.“Now, let me assess your offering.”
Saer released Ruki’s essence and shuffled backwards, ending in his usual kneel.
Lucifer knelt and ran Its delicate fingers over the essence while Ruki’s likeness shuddered, held by some unseen force.Pulling Its arm back, Lucifer shook Its head, face puzzled.“No.”It spoke in Its native tongue, so only Saer could understand.“This isn’t right,” It hissed.
Dread began its slow, steady build deep in Saer’s chest.
His maker leaned towards the soul, which yelped in astonishment at the sudden proximity.Lucifer inhaled.
Ruki’s essence remained intact.
Lucifer’s tongue ran over the side of the soul’s face, but It pulled away as if tasting something vile.Ruki’s spirit swayed, a sickened warble on its lips, but still didn’t move.
A cry of frustration and rage erupted as Lucifer snapped Its focus to Saer, heavenly blue eyes bleeding to a deep, threatening red.No pupil, no white—just constant, glowing, scarlet.
Saer’s gaze lowered with haste, but a white hand tipped with onyx claws flew across his face, and Saer hissed when he was thrown backwards, tasting blood on his lip.
“This is the wrong energy.Foolish child!”Claws raked across Saer’s back, and he bit back the scream desperate to escape.The next concussive blow landed on the side of his head, rolling him over.A kick crunched his jaw and nose.More blood ran down his face, and he curled his arms around his head.“Do you not see what this is doing to me?”Lucifer shrieked.“That we are running out of time?Who will watch over you, if not me?”
“Master, forgive me!I’ll find you another.The right kind!”
A hand, stronger than any had the right to be, grasped Saer’s wrist and jerked it away.His maker’s features contorted with rage, eyes drowning in crimson.Sharp, deep lines in Its pale skin pulled tight to reveal a maw overflowing with razor-sharp incisors.“Explain.”
Saer spoke with haste, the breath in his lungs all but gone.“I’ll find you a spirit which feels opposite to this one.I won’t disappoint you—I swear it!”
His maker growled, deep and dark as midnight, but released Saer to slump on the floor.As Lucifer’s claws shrank back into long, pristine fingers, It raked their shuddering lengths through Its hair, not looking at him.
“If you fail me again, Saerkhanum,” Lucifer murmured, heartbreak laced through the tone, “I’ll destroy you.”
Saer nodded and struggled to kneel, wincing past the pull and strain of new wounds.He risked another feverish glance around the chambers.Neyu…
His match was nowhere to be seen.
Lucifer delivered Its next order while ambling towards the final, dormantDaemoenic.“Leave immediately.Don’t return until you’ve accomplished your goal.”His maker waved a listless hand towards Ruki’s spirit.“Take that with you.”
Whatever held the soul in place relinquished.Saer scooped Ruki’s essence up despite its protest and summoned Hellsfire to return them to the surface.Ruki’s spirit couldn’t fight Saer off when he wrapped his monstrous claws around it.While it did struggle and holler, Saer’s digits didn’t pass through its essence.
Hellsfire consumed them.
7
Ruki’ssoulfellsilenton the journey back to the surface.
Snow covered the brumous forest where the pair appeared—all save the space immediately surrounding his feet, burnt away by Hellsfire.The moment Saer drew his first icy breath, he released the hold he’d kept on Ruki’s spirit.
Ruki’s face carried a mixture of human emotions.Aghast.Tormented.Betrayed.
Just a little ghost.
Saer ignored the spirit and the feelings it evoked, concentrating instead on shifting his frame into the human shell his master had crafted.
“Why, Saer?”The spirit’s voice dripped with unfathomable sorrow at the end of Saer’s transformation, and even had the human likeness to crack at the end.
It’s not the boy.
Saer avoided the soul’s gaze and pushed his palm below his ribs where something writhed—an uncomfortable, internal clawing.It seethed upward, invading his mind and heart.An infection after his time with humanity, surely.He’d pretended too much.He needed to remember his place in Lucifer’s army.
