“I’m going for a walk,” she said, eyes falling to the forest floor and voice falling cold. “And you arenotgoing to follow me. You’re going to be the one to sit here and not move, and you can wait and wonder if I’ll come back. Then you can feel for once all of the awful things that go along with being ordered around and left, if blood mages evencanfeel them.” She turned and headed off into the darkness of the trees, alone.
CHAPTER 28
THE VERY SINEWS OF VILLAINY
Damien watched after where Amma had gone for a long time. The shadows amongst the trees deepened, the sounds slipping into night, and he could only wait in the spot he’d been left in, sitting on the ground, hoping she would eventually turn around. He wanted to believe that she would because she was kind and sweet and forgiving, but it was unjust and stupid to think Amma had no limit for her patience, and he was a bloody, fucking idiot, he had broken the vow he’d made to her, and somehow convinced her that he didn’t even have the capacity to care.
But he did care, and he did feel, blood mage or not, all of those impractical, human emotions that had been pounding on his chest and he had finally let in. And it was awful.
“She’ll hate me now.” Damien didn’t recognize his own voice when it broke into the quiet, thick with defeat. “Won’t she?”
Kaz had been waiting patiently up on a rock tending to his leathery skin to be sure there were no lingering snowflakes, smart enough not to say a word until then. And still, he was even smarter, only lifting his shoulders with a hesitant glance back at the blood mage.
With no cutting words from the imp about how they should both be glad to be free of Amma’s presence, Damien knew he had truly fucked up. With a nonsense sound that came right from his chest and echoed out into the world uselessly, he fell onto his back, the ground coming up to meet him not nearly as painfully as he deserved.
“Master?” Kaz skittered down the rock, landing in a crunchy pile of leaves. “Amma does not hate you.”
Damien lifted his head to see if the imp’s underbite had twisted into a smirk, boldly about to break into some sort of joke that would surely end his life, but he looked only hesitant, claws tapping against one another. “You’ve never called her by her name before.”
The imp made the beginning of a retching noise but stopped. “She made sure I was warm,” he mumbled and then shook his head, great, big ears flapping. “Master, the point is, I don’t think she hates you. I don’t think shecanhate you.”
“I know, I know, I’m a dark lord with the infernal power to compel and enthrall, and I can make her do whatever I want.” Miserably, Damien dropped his head back to the ground to stare up at the dark sky, the two moons drawing ever nearer one another as if one would eclipse the other and soon. He touched his hip pouch, arcanely returned to him through the fall out of the Everdarque, and he could feel the latent magic of the Yvlcon summons inside.
“I don’t mean that, Master,” said Kaz. “I think it’s that she’s—”
“Pathetic.”
Damien flew to his feet. The voice—Xander Shadowhart’s voice—struck him, and he whirled around. There stood the blood mage, casually leaning against a tree, pouting, and looking like an absolute asshole.
“Where in the Abyss did you come from?”
“The better question is where didyoucome from?” Xander pushed off the tree like the effort were overwhelming, rolling his head on his shoulders. He was dressed in a red suit this time, bright even in the dark, and much too festive for how Damien was feeling, only adding to his annoyance. “Lost you for a bit, but I didnotexpect when I finally found you, that you would be all alone, sprawled out on the ground and looking so sad, though I am pleased to have you to myself.”
Kaz skittered at a gesture from Damien as he unsheathed his dagger with his other hand. “I’m really not in the mood, Shadowhart. What do you want?”
Xander smiled viciously. “Well, at first, because of that little stunt you pulled in Durendreg, I wanted blood. But then I realized that was a bit too cliché, you know? And if I were in your boots, I might have betrayed me too. In fact, I might have even done it just for funsies. But you—you had a reason, which is annoying, really, because it was probably something stupid and righteous and put in your head by that girl.” At the mention of Amma, Xander’s smile fell off, and Damien’s grip on his dagger tightened. “But then I realized, whatever the reason, it was enough to make you abandon your best chance at freeing Zagadoth, at getting whatyoureally wanted. So, I dug a bit deeper and decided that, as much as I’d like a spot of revenge, what Iactuallywant is more important.”
Damien swallowed, eyes darting out into the forest. Amma hadn’t taken the opportunity to return at the worst possible moment, so keeping Xander there with him was for the best. “And?”
Xander dropped himself down onto a fallen log, crossed his legs, and gestured between the two of them. “I want this.”
“What?”
“You know, the thing you said. Fondness? What is it…friendship?” His tongue came out like there were ash on it.
Damien rolled his eyes. “Don’t play games with me, I told you I’m not in the mood.”
“Games? Me? Why would I do something like that?” Xander propped his chin up on a fist and smiled, and for once it wasn’t entirely wicked, though it did look like it pained him. “You know I’ve got a special place in the hole where my heart ought to be for you, so I just thought I’d give you one last chance before I really turned my back on whateverthisis, this thing you insist exists.”
The muscles in Damien’s shoulders loosened a bit, and he clicked his tongue. “How’s that meant to work?”
Xander shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe we just…chat?”
They both grimaced.
But then Xander let out a deep sigh. “So, things, how are they?”
With another long scan of the darkened treeline but no sign of Amma, Damien shuffled in place and ran a hand over his face, the answer coming out in spite of himself. “Bad.”
