“Next week, I must kill you.”
The yellow smiled. “We all enter Tiers for a reason. You have your own reason too.”
“I do. But I can promise you something. Tell me the name of the demon who killed your mate, and if it’s within my power, I will make him suffer.”
The yellow straightened off the wall. “You would do that? Why?”
“Because I feel bad about killing you.”
He stared. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Not to a demon.
I chuckled. “There are entire realms of beings who extend kindnesses for no benefit to themselves other than feeling happy to have done so.”
The demon shook his head. “I don’t follow.”
I shut my eyes. “I am not solely demon, yellow; that is what I am saying. There are things I do that will never make sense to this realm.”
“Like entering Tiers even though you’re nearly queen? Like running away from the king?”
I didn’t want to kill this guy. “Exactly.”
The yellow was quiet for so long that I thought he’d fallen asleep. I was considering a quick nap when he answered.
“Carmine,” said the demon.
I cracked open an eyelid. “Huh?”
“The name of the demon who killed my mate. The demon king killed her.”
How… coincidental. “Was your plan to win Tiers and demand that the king let you kill him?”
“I would fight him.”
“So you always intended to die,” I said.
The yellow glanced away. “I could not continue living in such resentment and pain. I had to try my luck or die in the same manner as her. That detail felt important.”
So he had wished to die and by Carmine’s hand. He’d wished to know what his mate had felt in her last breaths. “You have a deal.”
The yellow smiled and shut his eyes. He likely expected that I would never do anything to Carmine. He would have heard that I’d agreed to join with Carmine in the intention ritual.
Perhaps for the yellow, confessing his reason for entering Tiers was enough.
But I had another reason to end Carmine.
“So we have to listen to that all night?” I wrinkled my nose at a series of wet squelches.
The yellow mumbled, “Yep.”
“All four of them are at it.” I tried to differentiate the sounds, but it was impossible.
“Not the red. He’s mated. Fully mated. He keeps to himself at the top of the Pinnacle since the other reds… left.”
I sniffed. “What’s his deal, do you know?”
“I keep my head down. But he’s different from the others. Only kills once in the game. He’s… afraid.”
