It was absurd. The Daemon resided in a secret pocket of his realm that no other deities could travel to, unless Acacius, himself, brought them to it.
Over the many centuries of his life, he’d called on his Daemon to depart Tavora only a handful of times. Those who caught brief glimpses sold the information, causing their scarceappearance to be written about in tomes. Mortals hunted them in an attempt at fame and riches. Scholars longed to study them, just as they did with any other mythological beasts.
It became a thing of delight for Acacius to keep himself—his monsters, his home—an enigma, to drive others mad with curiosity.
“Show me then.” Marina jutted out her chin. “I need to see for myself.”
Whatever had happened was urgently unsettling her.
Compelled to eliminate her stress, he lifted his hand between them. “Okay.”
Marina’s gaze floated down to his open palm, hesitating to grab on. He could see the cynical thoughts swirling in her onyx gaze—questioning his motives, what would happen if she took his offer.
“Whatever will put your mind at ease, Rina, I will do for you.” He wiggled his fingers, nodding reassuringly. “Come on.”
He was determined to prove himself to her without the baggage of their past clinging to them like lampreys.
Marina lifted her hand, her fingers spreading over his palm—a slow, burning touch of blind faith.
24
BLEED
Marina
A landscapeof abyssal cosmos surrounded Marina.
The boundless sheet of black sand expanded as far as her eyes could reach. Sculpted, ghostly knolls glittered under a churning sky. Its clouds looked as if they were made of thinly shattered glass slowly whorling the nucleus of the isle. The motion was slow, calm, without the faintest whisper of a breeze.
“This realm is the most distilled Chaos of Tavora.” Acacius peered up at the broken stars spiraling in the sky. “Long ago, this is the place where I first manifested my Daemons. They remain contained here unless I command them otherwise.”
Marina glanced around at the sloped, barren landscape. “Where are they?”
Acacius swiped his hand across the air, and an indigo breach opened like a knife to fresh skin, coagulating a chasmic darkness from the slit. “They like to hide in the folds.”
The slash grew, and sharp, rotted talons gripped the edges of the hollow.
A grisly creature stepped out onto the terrain. Its lowclickingvibrated from its throat as it crawled to her.
Marina’s heart palpitated, her body stiffening in preparation to defend herself.
“It’s not going to hurt you,” Acacius assured her.
The beast lingered in her space, sniffing her through the jagged split of the cervid skull acting as its face. It was memorizing her scent the way a predator did, but she didn’t feel threatened by it.
Up this close, she could see grooves and cracks in the ashen bone of its mask, marks of its preserved life throughout the centuries. Swirled engravings decorated the base of one of its smaller antlers. The biggest horn was wide and ribbed with claws that jutted out, like the start of a budding tree. Underneath the fur of its shoulders were a savage set of spikes, ready to gore Acacius’s enemies.
Its antlers tilted as it cocked its head, like a curious bird.
Marina took the gesture as an invitation and lifted her hand.
It dipped its head, allowing her to place her palm on the coarse top of the skull. “It’s beautiful this close,” she breathed out.
Theclickingfluttered at a low, calm tempo, satisfied by the attention Marina gave it.
“I showed Ruelle their form once,” Acacius murmured, his tone not as terse as it typically was when speaking of her. “She found them to be hideous. Said they were macabre creatures that belonged in cages.”
“Then mine belong in a far more hellish place than a cage.” Marina dropped her arm and looked over at him. His golden gaze beamed in a place so devoid of light as he stared at his creature the way a proud parent would.
