I wiped my eyes, then moved to the middle of the dirt floor where I sat cross-legged. Every possible weapon covered the walls. Demons sometimes fulfilled the stereotypes other supernaturals formed about them. They did tend toward spikes and hooks and weapons that ripped and tore. Demons relished gore, and I relished the same. Gore meant pain, and pain was food for our power.
I’d also had one hell of a bloodthirsty grandmother—100 percent magus—who’d taught me and Tempest all of her favorite tricks. My mother had tried to control her influence on us, but then my mother had been gory in her own way. My grandmother had liked to maim a little. My mother liked to trap people so thoroughly that they gave up. I almost thought that mental defeat was worse. All to say that neither of them was typical of maguskind. That upbringing combined with my demon nature… If you were going to kill someone, what did it matter if chunks of brain flew everywhere?
I closed my eyes, working through the breathing exercises that honed my mind for training. My grandmother had made me and Tempest center like this every day, and sometimes multiple times a day. A magus had to center to be balanced in their power. When Tempest’s magic had come in strong and mine didn’t appear, I’d faked my way through centering, making sure to take the same amount of time as Tempest. Grandmother never let on that she knew I wasn’t really centering until years later.
When my meager amount of magus divination magic managed to squeak through, I hadn’t needed to center at all—there was so little—and the less power a magus had, the easier they coped with chaos. I’d watched my twin struggle with the burden of her power. And though I’d been driven to find equal strength through various avenues, I’d also felt grateful not to have that burden of her towering magic.
Boy oh boy was I grateful Grandmother made me go through all those hours of pretending to center. When I’d come into my demon power, I’d needed the ability to find calm. I’d also inherited more magus power upon her death, so my divination magic was stronger now. Enough to give me sight of the immediate future—like warning instincts on steroids.
I liked to think Mother would’ve told me and Tempest the truth about our father one day. My demon had slowly been rearing its head for a month prior to Carmine slaughtering them all. I’d seen the worry in Mother’s eyes as she watched me across the dinner table.
Maybe she’d intended to tell us that very day of her murder. I’d never know. I’d never see my calculating mother or my savage grandmother again.Because of him.
But I might see my courageous twin’s demon if I could be as smart and as powerful as her.
Finishing my breath work, I stayed sitting and released my black smoke. First, I released it from my scalp, then my eyelashes and mouth. I released the acrid, poisonous substance from each finger and each toe, then from my shoulder blades to form gigantic wings. Drawing the wings back into my body, I released smoke from every pore and hovered the wisps over my skin in a shield.
I pushed the shield out, then pulled it in. Out, in, out, and in.
Sweat beaded on my forehead, dripping over my brow and across my cheeks. These exercises might feel silly, but I’d formed them over the last three years, and I’d realized how much my demon power was like a muscle by doing them. The more I used my demon power, the more that power could do. Three years, and I was yet to find a plateau in my abilities.
I blasted my smoke out in a ring, imagining a circle of enemies surrounding me. Which was very likely to be my fate in tomorrow’s round of Tiers. Thanks to Carmine, I’d have anextraenormous target on my back. Carmine wasn’t detested. Most demons in the realm respected his power and cruelty. He inspired awe, one greater than his mother even. Frommost.Those he didn’t inspire went into Tiers, so their bad will toward him would naturally turn on me. Why wouldn’t they try when killing me would absolutely hurt him and maybe even kill him?
Mother be.Why on Earth had Carmine allowed my return to the game? He was risking significant injury to himself or death.
For the first time, I considered that a little moan and shaky exhale hadn’t convinced him to let me play again. He was playing me at his own game, and what wasthat game exactly? I did believe that Carmine was driven by the idea of a more powerful mate.
But otherwise, what did he stand to gain?
He had to have guessed that without Tiers, I would leave the fortress. Which meant that he’d allowed me to play to keep me in the fortress a while longer.
A complete mating ritual would make him more powerful. That was what he wanted to gain—a mate and a queen—and the power that came with her.
Curling my smoke in, I lashed the power out like a whip again and again, as quickly and accurately as possible. I aimed for the hilts and blades on the walls, hitting nearly all of them. I usually aimed for the skulls of desert critters we’d eaten, and had to set them out myself, so this was a nice change. The weapons clattered to the ground or shattered into pieces from the attack of my power. I almost felt bad for the yellows who would clean it up.
I dialed my smoke to 100 percent and poured out as much as I could to fill the hall. This was like doing a single squat with as much weight on the bar as possible. I pulled the smoke all in again and poured it all out a second time. Then again until only wisps escaped me. Weakening myself like this wasn’t smart, andI couldn’t do it every day—especially with Carmine’s mother and her daggers about. As ever, increasing power was a balance. I had to use my smoke to hone it, but if I overused it, then I left myself vulnerable, and my scales wouldn’t spread. Their defense was of as much benefit as any tricks.
Standing, I extended my hands palm up to release my power. This was a recent idea, and one I couldn’t be sure would work. I’d never seen anyone do something like it, not even Carmine. I layered smoke over my palm in a disc. As I layered the smoke, I compressed the layers down on top of each other. The idea was to form something solid from my smoke. Smoke in itself was poisonous, but it wasn’t impenetrable. I could see many benefits from being able to solidify it. I could form weapons. I could solidify it within an enemy too. Solid, the smoke could provide a true shield.
My grandfather had pointed out that the smoke from our fire formed droplets when the cool night air caught it. There was something to that, but I couldn’t figure out how to remove heat from my power to join the smoke layers into one. Even if I got that far, I was unsure how to turn droplets into a solid.
No matter. Every step was necessary to walk a path. I’d learned that one thousand times over. If I couldn’t form anything solid from my smoke, then this practice would lead me to something else.
The door to the training hall opened, and a few crimsons trailed in, falling silent as they saw me.
I pulled my smoke in. “Are you training?”
“Yes, Mate-Intended.” The middle one bowed.
I regarded him. “What are you called, demon?”
“Tygrio, a son of Frink.”
Frink was one of the older and very powerful demons. His son was worth knowing. “You will train with me. Get a weapon. I hope you are prepared for battle.”
His smile was toothy and entirely demon. “Always.” Thelookhe accompanied with his smile was heated and seemed to convey that he was also prepared for other things.
Despite what Carmine’s jealous mind had conjured up, I’d been around very few men in the last three years. On supply trips to the outer realms, I didn’t receive such looks either. The looks I’d received were shocked by my foreign attire—in that I wasn’t dressed in nipple string and a loincloth. I’d allowed myself to humor the occasional fantasy, of course, but when the end of the book wasand she could never feel sexually satisfied by him until the end of time, those fantasies got old. Lust was my enemy. I wasn’t about to give my enemy more food to grow stronger.
