“Yes,now,” Damien spat.
Zagadoth did not speak for a long moment, and Damien held the stone away and shook it to be sure he was still there at all. The yellow eye blinked back and grunted. “Son,” he finally said, “I think if you’re able to ask me that question, you already know the answer.”
Damien squeezed the stone in both hands, a weird prickling in his chest—there was anger there, enough to possibly break the crystal into even tinier shards, but there was something else, something deeper and louder and so much greater. When he sighed, there was laughter to his voice even though frustration tickled at his words. “Why in the Abyss didn’t you just tell me? Why have you always been so adamant that we couldn’t? ThatIcouldn’t?”
“It is…a convenient lie,” grumbled Zagadoth, his eye looking away. “Most living things already believe the myth, perpetuated by prejudice, even though I know for certain it’s not true because I have felt…and even now do feel it, for you of course. I just wanted to protect you.”
A pull in Damien’s chest twisted sideways. “Protect me from what?”
“Look where love got me, Damien,” the demon huffed. “Trapped in this crystal, separated from my son, all because of the weakness I felt for your mother.”
“Because of mom?” Damien swallowed back the burn in his throat. It was the most Zagadoth had really ever said to him on the subject, and the questions poured out. “You mean she’s the reason you’re in there? And you really did love her? You didn’t hurt her or imprison her, or—”
“Whoa, kiddo, breathe.” Zagadoth clicked his tongue. “The reason I’m in here isn’t entirely her fault, no, but she sure asAbyss hasn’t come to get me out, has she?”
Damien opened his mouth, defense on his tongue for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, but then he looked up to Amma again. She had taken to pacing in small circles, head down, ears still covered, humming a little louder. She’d not once given up on him, had thrust herself into every danger, and he knew if he were in some crystal, she would do everything in her power to release him.
“It isn’t just that, Damien,” Zagadoth went on, calmer. “The more shameful truth is that you just look so much like her. I see your mother every time I look at you, and I was afraid, after everything that happened, that I wouldn’t treat you the way you deserved to be treated. I was so angry and heartbroken over her, and I felt it again and again every time I saw her smile in yours, and if I ever failed at showing it, if you ever felt like I didn’t love you, then it would be better if you thought I just wasn’t capable rather than thinking I chose not to.”
Damien felt his brows knit. “So, you thought I should just live a life entirely devoid of love rather than risk me being disappointed in your parenting? That’s kind of fucked up.”
“Come on, son, I already said it was shameful!”
Damien huffed. Now wasn’t the time, really. “Fine, but I never thought you didn’t…”
“Yeah, well,”—Zagadoth snorted out a laugh—“turns out you’re incredibly easy to love, kiddo.”
Damien glanced upward, a stinging in his eyes he was sure was only the bracing breeze that swept through the little clearing. Amma still had hands over her ears, but she looked back at him, brows raised with concern. Damien straightened and motioned for her to turn around again, and she huffed, blowing blonde strands away from her face, but did as he asked. Her humming got a little louder and a little more off-key.
“All right, listen, I’m in Orrinshire, so obviously I’mexpecting you to tell me everything about my mother, or I’ll just go find out for myself.”
The demon grumbled. “I feel like I’m being held hostage here. It’s a little ruthless.”
“I learned from the best.”
“Where do I even start?” he sighed. “Well, about a thousand years ago, I—”
“Not there. Try when you met her. And focus on the facts.”
“Fine, but it’s going to be boring then.” Zagadoth mumbled a bit to himself then began, “Aszath Koth was being attacked. Again. The Brotherhood had summoned me a few decades earlier to protect the place, and I’d been wiping out the divine infiltrators sent by whoever was in charge down in the realm. On the day we met, it was just a sort of regular, slay-the-holy massacre, many died before the rest fell back, but one was left behind. Your mother.”
“So, she really was a priestess?”
Zagadoth’s eye stared back.
“Are you nodding?”
“Yeah, sorry, kiddo, it’s just so…well, you know. She was badly injured and completely at my mercy, but she’d been abandoned, and I just couldn’t go through with killing her. There was something in the way she spoke and in her eyes—I could feel she didn’t want to be there, and she justhatedme so fucking much. So I, uh…”
Damien’s throat tightened. “You what, dad?”
“Well, I sort of kept her.”
“Oh, bloody, fucking—”
“Not like that! I had her nursed back to health, the lamia healed her, the draekin fed her, and I watched all of them and made sure they treated her properly. I didn’t even keep her in the dungeon—she got a private chamber and anything she asked for. I mean, I still needed information out of her, so she wastechnically my prisoner, but she was taken care of! She was pissed about it though.” Zagadoth’s chuckle broke the intensity of how he had been trying to convince Damien, a thing he wanted very badly to believe. “She absolutelyhatedme, begged me to just kill her nonstop for those first few days which was actually kind of cute, but then it was like some curse wore off of her, and she completely mellowed out. Well, as mellow as Diana could ever manage to be.”
Damien opened his mouth to stop him—Diana, that was his mother’s name—but Zagadoth just continued on, voice falling into his regular jocularity.
