Everything will be destroyed.
“Well, no, we’re not doing that.”
Xander pouted. “Oh, what, now you get to make all the decisions because you’ve got the end times inside you?”
“I wasn’t speaking to you,” said Damien.
Archibald raised his hands. “Infernals, I demand to know—”
“Shut up,” Damien and Xander spat in unison, and the king fell silent.
“Look, the castle’s just back there, they’ve got a little bridge running directly from the arena into it and everything. Come on, let’s take Archie down to the vault and get to work on freeing our parents, and then we can have some real fun with all these cute, little beasties you’ve summoned.” Xander crossed his arms, craning his neck. “Where’s our kitten? Or have you already given her a nice, sharp stabbing and fetched out that talisman?”
Damien’s heart thumped, and it reverberated through E’nloc and back.
Kitten, It said, even more hateful than the pet name had ever been on Xander’s tongue.Blood. Heart. Earth. Destroy.
Damien couldn’t stop his noxscura, made too powerful with It inside, from reaching out across the arena, the city, the realm, and he found Amma in seconds, her blood a persistent bright spot even when it coursed with worry and dread. Amma, so brilliant and lovely and sweet. Amma, still alive.
She was not in the city, thank the darkest gods, and it would stay that way.
Will it?
“She isn’t here,” he said to Xander.
“But the talisman! We need it to force this one’s hand. You said—”
“I said thatIwould be here.” Damien’s gaze turned to Archibald. “There is another way.”
CHAPTER 31
A STUDY IN DESPERATION
Xander was still talking. There were a lot of details coming from the blood mage, superfluous ones, mostly about how clever he was—and Pippa too, just a bit—to figure out where Archibald would be conducting his malfeasance, how it was obvious because the arena had been boarded up for construction that wasn’t actually occurring, and how Damien should really be much more thankful than he was being, but that was all right because he’d make it up to him, in the end, by freeing his mother.
E’nloc, on the other hand, just chanted,Kill him, over and over into Damien’s mind. Tempting, but not useful.
There were a few distractions though, and if not for them, Damien might have reduced the whole of Eirengaard Keep to rubble just for a moment of silence. Brave guards and mages dared to stand in their way, to rescue their king held hostage between the two demon spawn as they marched him to the vault. A retinue of basilisks and Abyssal hounds kept the do-gooders busy, an enterprising infernal rabbit with fanged incisors and glowing red eyes even chased off some of those attempting to become saviors, but a tentacle of E’nloc’s here and there assisted in clearing the way.
It was messy though, and Damien hated mess, so he changed course and called up shadows instead that pressed outward from around them, blanketing the keep. They drove away would-be heroes and those who just happened to get in the way, locking them up in stray larders and bathing chambers instead so that the castle felt like a tomb as they walked through it, empty andsilent.
Eirengaard Keep’s throne room was magnificent even under the darkness of the eclipse, as if the king of Eiren would sit and rule from anything less. A floor of hand-painted tiles, blue and silver, spread out before them covered in a length of burgundy carpeting run through with golden threads. Walls of blue-grey marble with veins of sapphire rose forty feet, a domed ceiling at its top inlaid with relief sculptures of dominions and guardians, none of which were there now to see what was slowly becoming of the city that dedicated itself to them. Massive windows along the back wall that should have filtered in sunlight through blue glass were illuminated only by pulsing arcana as infernals stalked the exterior courtyard. Crawling in behind were legions of them, beasts that slithered and flew and stalked with blackened hides and eyes the color of fire to fill up the room.
It all led to not one but two daises atop one another. Even the Grand Order could have taken notes. Twenty steps led to a platform that had no other purpose but to make the climber choose which of the additional curving staircases one would take to reach the throne at its top, gilded and glorious.
“Fancy.” Xander nodded, giving the room an appraising look, Pippa timidly following behind him as if she were safe by his side. “Though it does scream overcompensation. Where’s this vault I’ve heard so much about, Archie?”
The king’s gaze fell onto his high seat. Behind them stood a row of creatures with the hulking bodies of bears but gator-like heads. The infernal beasts kept Archibald between the two blood mages, pawing at the ground with talons and snapping jaws at every errant move. The creases at the corners of the king’s eyes deepened, his lips pulled into a tight line beneath his full beard, and then he continued forward across the long hall.
When they reached the stairs, Xander clicked his tongue. “No, old man, thevault. You know, where you keep your spoilsof war otherwise known asour parents.”
Damien held up a hand, watching Archibald ascend before them to stop on the platform. A banner hung from the upper dais that held the throne. A deep burgundy, the golden embroidery across it illustrated a sun with a set of swords beneath, the crest Damien had seen about the city honoring their god, Osurehm, he assumed. With a wave of the king’s hand, the banner swept aside revealing a set of doors. The blood mages climbed up behind him, the priestess following, and the gator-bears at the rear taking ground-rumbling steps.
Arcane flames burst into life around the newly-revealed room hidden beneath the throne. The space spread out and away from them, alight with a warm glow, the walls covered in dark, lacquered wood, the place almost homey if not for what it held. They were met with the head of a dragon, jaws open, eyes piercing, but it didn’t move. The flickering flames danced off of its too-shiny hide, the scales doused in a clear resin. It was mounted to the wall at the far end of the room, but it was so enormous that it shocked one immediately upon entrance. After a slightly longer look, it became clear that the eyes were but painted glass domes, and one was pointed in a slightly different direction than the other.
More mounted heads adorned the walls, beasts mostly, but then there was a strangely-preserved one of a man, and without clarification, it looked only human. Damien imagined his own head mounted, and how it would be identical, really, no horns or anything else to tell the world he had been a blood mage once he’d been stuffed. Ghoulish, the trophies stared out with more of those glass beads for eyes, looking down on the rest of the chamber’s plunder.
There were many pedestals housing glass cases, beneath each a trinket or jewel or weapon, some whole, others crushed, all significant. Damien could feel the arcana, even when it hadall been spent, little memories of it in each piece. One case stood directly in the room’s center, and despite the prestigious spot in the king’s trophy room, only held a mound of ash. Damien was drawn to it. Or rather, E’nloc was. It nudged Damien, not enough to force him forward, but the blood mage was intrigued enough to approach.
