I run my gaze over the flickering sconces on the walls. The chamber is long and empty, well, except for me and the bones, and an ominous warning curls around my shoulders like a needy cat. I should feel some sense of relief standing in a room filled with the very thing that fuels and guides my magic, but I don’t.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m currently only donning Rogan’s sweater, my bra and underwear, and a circumspect disposition. Or maybe my apprehension comes from the fact that the mark Dyad gave me was supposed to summon me for a trial. I look around as though maybe I missed something. There’s a raised rostrum with what appears to be three lecterns placed on it, but there’s no one here but me.
“Hello?” I call out, my shaky voice bouncing back at me from the walls.
The sound must displace a pile of bones, as they start to cascade down, and the sudden noise and movement has me whirling around in fear, expecting someone or something to pop out at me. I watch the bones fall down the little slope they were once perched on, reaching out with my magic to make sure there’s nothing living beneath the dusty layers all around me. I don’t feel anything living, but I do feel a heavy patina of death on every inch of this place.
Fuck.
I don’t know what I’m doing here, but it’s impossible not to get the impression that whatever the reason is, it’s bad. Do they know about the demon magic now saturating my blood? Am I in trouble for having it?
I shake my head as I search the walls and ceiling for a door or seam that would hint at a way to escape. It would be just my luck that having demon magic when you’re not actually a demon is considered an offence punishable by death.
A whooshing sound startles me, and all at once, the air around me is disturbed and displaced. I call on dragon ribs for weapons, ready for whatever is coming, or at least trying to look like I am.
Fake it until you make it, right?
Dyad drops down a couple feet next to me. Dust plumes all around him as he does, but not a spec dares to settle on his immaculate clothing, red skin, or long black hair, as though the dust itself is unwilling to risk the demon’s wrath. The crown his horns form on his head makes him look even more regal and menacing in this light, and it makes me wonder if he actually is some kind of demon ruler. He mentioned he was a High Demon before, and I thought I knew what that meant, but now I wonder.
A woman, or rather female demon, rises up out of the ground next to Dyad, like she’s a blooming plant. Instead of leaves and petals unfurling in the dim light of the space, petite milky-white limbs unfold, as does floor-length straight snow-white hair. Her face is beautiful and young, her ivory eyes lacking a pupil or any other color at all.
A grunt sounds behind me, and I turn to see a man in a gray tweed three-piece suit. He looks completely human, with light skin and short light brown hair. He smooths his suit jacket down and then looks up. I immediately take back the human designation as his glowing red eyes meet mine. He dismisses me with barely a glance, focusing his attention instead on Dyad.
“Is this the accuser?” Red Eyes asks, and his voice sounds more like the deep rumble of an earthquake than it does a voice.
“It is,” Dyad confirms, not bothering to look at me either.
“Let’s set up so the accused can arrive and we can get this over with,” the red-eyed man-demon instructs, his tone bored and his face disinterested.
I stand there, not sure what to do. No one is addressing me, and despite my thoughts to the contrary, thisiswhere the trial is going to be. A shiver moves over me as I wait and watch the three demons make their way to the platform. They step up, Dyad grunting like his body objects to the movement, and it makes me wonder how old he is. I have no idea how long demons live, and I make a note to look into it another time.
There must be a bench or something behind the raised lecterns, because the demons sit behind them, and all of a sudden they look like three judges who are now presiding over the room. Well, minus the judges’ robes and if the courtroom were a marble-encased boneyard, that is.
The sconces brighten on the wall as though someone finally found the dimmer switch and flicked it up, exposing the dark recesses of the massive room. Flickers of flame no longer make the shadows all around me dance, but seeing the magnitude of death all around me more clearly doesn’t make me feel better at all. Goose bumps prick at my skin, and I don’t know if it’s from the bleak vibe or the fact that it’s cold in here. I can’t see my breath, but I feel my warmth leaching out of me, and it’s all I can do not to wrap my arms around myself.
“State your name,” the white-haired demon demands.
I look around, wondering who she’s talking to.
“Are you deaf? I said state your name,” she snaps at me, and I balk.
“Lennox Marai Osseous,” I tell her, vacillating between nervous and annoyed.
“You will address me as Cozen,” the white demon states. “Him as Gremory,” she says, gesturing to the man-demon in tweed. “And since you filed the complaint with Dyad, you should know him already.”
I nod at the names and pronouns mentioned, and Cozen continues.
“You are here accusing Count Botis the Murk of violating the Accords, is that correct?” she asks as though she’s in a hurry to get this over with.
Count who? The Murk what?
“Uhhh...I don’t…I don’t know,” I admit, looking to Dyad for help. His fixed stare on me is blank.
“You don’t know if Botis violated the laws between our kinds?” she asks, clearly pissed.
Fucking hell. Someone woke up on the wrong side of hell this morning.
“I don’t know the demon’s name,” I tell her, trying to bite back a wince at her sudden fury. “I only know what it looks like. I have no idea if Botis and the demon hunting me are the same.”
