“Saerkhanum.”Fatigue laced the fallen angel’s recitation of his name.“Choose one to go with you.The other will be sent to work next to my Neyuukhan.”Lucifer’s gaze sharpened.“Given your obedience in remaining apart, she deserves to have someone alongside her, wouldn’t you agree?”
Saer fought the quickening of his heart at the implications in Lucifer’s question, focusing instead on the first sentence to avoid giving anything away.“Master, I prefer to work alone.”
“I did not ask what you prefer, child.”The threat couldn’t be clearer.Saer bit back a growl and turned his head to look at the Sixth and SeventhDaemoenica.
Neyu’s kinder nature would blend with either of them, but Saer remembered seeing Errshek helping Neyu and made the split decision.“Kaliaspher will search for Neyu.Errsheken will come to the surface with me.”
Kalia shot a smug look at Errshek, whose expression of incredulity begged to voice injustice.In the end, he held his tongue.
Lucifer inclined Its head and waved a hand.“Go, then.”
Saer hesitated, wanting to pull Kalia aside but finding no good excuse to do so.He locked his gaze with hers, urgency in his.
Kalia raised a brow in a noncommittal fashion, then yawned and stretched as Hellsfire transported her.
Saer bit back a curse.
He accompanied Errshek to Earth.
“No one wants to talk to me.”“They won’t evenlookat me.”“How can I learn to do this when you take over everything?”“Do you have any concept of what it means to besubtle?”
Errshek complained without end.
Saer learned what it meant to have a constant headache.
The two did find humans, and Saer taught the youngest brother how to blend in with mankind.Envy lacked patience, though to the detriment of his goals, desiring to excel at everything without true dedication.
“Slow down!”Saer scolded him one evening after he succeeded in alienating an entire village with his whining.“You have to learn what they want before making grand promises.”
“I know exactly what they want, it’s what I’mgood at!”
But he wasn’t.And Saer ended with his nose pinched between a thumb and forefinger again, and again.
The reasoning behind Errshek and Kalia’s mismatch became abundantly clear the more he scolded Envy—through gritted teeth—to think before acting.
He wondered if Neyu thought of their time together.Of him.If she indeed felt that hollowness within her chest in his absence.A mirroring cavern grew in his, like an answer to her call.
It didn’t matter.
Envy’s grousing fueled Pride’s annoyance to a whole new level.If Neyu grounded and balanced him, Errshek threw Saer off kilter in equal but opposite measures.By the time Errshek successfully harvested a soul and it attached to him, Saer found himself on the verge of shaking Envy enough to make his teeth rattle.
But harvest, he did.
Saer almost went back with Errshek to present the trophy to Lucifer, but stopped before taking his brother’s hands.If he went back, he might see Neyu.
The temptation pulled at him at every turn, and every time it did, he forced himself to remember the frigid terror of Lucifer’s hand around her throat, the way steam leaked from her pores when their maker threatened to unmake her moments after kissing her eyelids.They had to remain apart.He couldn’t risk cluing Lucifer into their forbidden union, and he didn’t trust himself to be near her.
He would not risk her safety.
So, Saer sent the Sixth—and instructed him to direct one of the other siblings to him.Anyone but Neyu.
The Twins joined him.Then Runeak.Even Kalia, after she’d completed bringing a handful of souls with Neyu.Then Errshek again.A rotation formed, one after the other, spreading tactics and information amongst Lucifer’s creations.In between their comings and goings, Saer gathered souls and passed them to his kin to bring to the Hells.He traversed between human settlements on foot, never returning home.The otherDaemoenicarecounted their time with Neyu, and he listened with agonizing intent.They never said enough, and he couldn’t ask for more.
The void in his chest grew, just as she’d described, and he replaced it with antipathy and duty.
He had a function to fulfill, a Master to obey, a vow to uphold.
So he told himself.
