He laughed, placing his hand back on her forearm. “I’m teasing. You’ve just neverthankedme before.”
A sign of growth, for this expression of gratitude had come easier than when she thanked Mansi and Viviana for helping her fight off Acacius.
“Continue to keep an eye on Ash,” she instructed. “Take out anyoneor anythingthat threatens him.”
Soren gave her arm one last squeeze before stepping back, the somberness returning to his demeanor. “Done. What about you?”
She stared out at the silhouette of skyscrapers in the distance. “I am going to find the Daemon. I need to see it for myself.”
Stars hungin the night sky like glimmering gems. They were only visible high above the city lights, when she stood on the rooftop of a skyscraper, its piked top grazing the clouds.
Wind threw her long hair around, slapping her cheeks, as she waited. Up this high in the middle of the night, she did not have to worry about mortals sighting her without her glamor.
After teleporting from skyscraper to skyscraper, she was sure this was the one.
She flicked her index finger over her thumbnail, analyzing the veil of darkness before her. The air buzzed with a predatory aura. Nests were stuffed in the crevices of the steel, and yet, not a single bird was hunkered in the bed of twigs and grass.
The hairs rose on Marina’s nape as the silhouette of a large creature fabricated in the shadows in front of her.
She swallowed, her disappointment chiseling deeper.
This Olethros did not feel like the others that she’d come across. Its presence unnerved her, like she was back in the corridors of her mother’s palace, being hunted by hungry gods all over again.
It sauntered out into the light, revealing a gnarled, beastly skull in place of its head and the horror of its full form. Gaunt, gray skin stretched over its slender frame, exposing the divots of its ribs. Its chest was coated with crimson, as if it recently had a meal. Patches of pale fur lined its shoulders.
Marina’s breath locked in her diaphragm.
The creature was emaciated, unnaturally tall with lanky, long limbs. The front of its chin was split down the middle, reaching up toward its forehead. Teeth jutted out from the layers of bone. Flaps of skin lined with fangs extended off its neck and rested on its clavicles, made to devour. Four horns crowned its head, two on each side, like massive, curled talons. On its face were five holes: two large ones for its eyes, and three smaller ones constellated above them.
Adrenaline roared in Marina’s pulse, beating loudly in her ears.
The Daemon Olethros.
Acacius had really sent them.
Her heart shrunk.
You are pathetic if you thought he genuinely cared for you.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. There was no time to grieve with a malignant beast before her.
It slowly advanced, hunched over on its legs and two of its hands, monstrous and starved of the desolation it craved. Its other two arms curled like wings behind its back.
Marina’s body stiffened as she pulled her divine energy to the tips of her fingers.
For the first time in a long time, she felt afraid, a feeling that stirred the bleakest parts of her back to life—the reservoir of power responsible for crafting her nightrazers. All she had to do was call on it.
But she wasn’t there to fight.
The Daemon twisted its head, the new angle of its long horns more intimidating than before, as if it were intrigued by her stillness. Did it expect her to panic? Perhaps it thrived on the fear of its victims.
She blinked, and its form glitched and reappeared within arm’s length of her. Its thick nails raked inches from the front of her neck as she jumped back.
She drove her arm out, ripping up the darkness swirling at her feet. The fog banded together in an elongated, curved shape, like a crescent moon. Its edge was thin but sharp as a guillotine.
The beast’s form warped into a blur and reappeared yards across from her, on the other side of the rooftop.
This was careless, even for Acacius. While he thrived in insanity, he was not one to boast his power like this. The Daemon Olethros were sacred to him, blessings of his Chaos rarely ever seen. He kept the worst of his tendencies in Tavora, including the Daemons. The idea was too profane.
