“What’s that?”
His grin widened. “I’ve never been loathed by a demon. That I know of, anyway.”
The confession made sense. While Red Sentinels had never actively included Helspira in their gossip, her demonic hearing picked up a lot, and there was no love lost over the infamous Catseye, especially where her superior, Banneret Rowan, was concerned. Regardless, she smiled. “That’s probably for the best. If a demon loathes you, your life expectancy is usually very, very short.”
“In that case, I shall remember to stay on your good side.”
If that was his goal, he was off to a good start; he was certainly more amicable than her fellow sentinels. “Thank you for agreeing to come with. Trust me when I say Queen Saelihn is very eager to see you again.”
“I don’t doubt she is. Alas, as soon as I stride into those marble halls of hers, I’ll be screwed one way or another.” Catseye looked skyward, expression unreadable. “Let’s hope our queen is gentler with me than Benjamin and Canida are with that headboard.”
And just like that, she didn’t know what to say. Again.
He reallydidhave that effect on people.
A curious fellow, this Catseye. At least the walk to the castle promised to be an interesting one. After surviving the nightmarish landscape of Chthonia for almost thirty years, there was very little Helspira felt unprepared for.
HELSPIRA WAS EMPHATICALLYunprepared for a sentient skeleton with a glowing blue thread inside its ribcage.
The Red Sentinel marched in formidable procession down the worn, dirt road leading to Vinepool’s inner market. When she didn’t busy herself stealing glimpses of the walking, talking set of human bones, she took timid peeks at the pale-skinned, necromancer-turned-recluse beside her.
As chainmail clanked like a discordant choir, Helspira couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been played for a fool when the other sentinels stomached her presence long enough to tell her that, for as insufferable as they found Catseye to be, he remained the best weapon in Nyllmas’s arsenal. Best how, exactly? He was charming, sure. Charismatic. But he leaned an awful lot of his weight into that scythe. It looked as if he could barely command his body to walk upright, let alone command a legion of undead soldiers.
The unforgiving dirt road transitioned into cobblestone as they journeyed, but it did little to ease Helspira’s agitation. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time she had been the butt of a joke. One of many prices she had paid being the only demon welcomed into Nyllmas, let alone the prestigious Red Sentinel.
A surge of assurance smothered her doubt. No. It couldn’t be a joke. People were dying, and death was never something to joke about.
The sentient skeleton—whom she assumed was Benjamin, based on the context clues—faced Catseye. “Think Queen Saelihn will be upset I missed my own funeral?”
“If she is, she shouldn’t be. She knows you’re not amourningperson.”
Ben failed to stifle a laugh. “True, true. I’m not entirely dead anyway, so it’s not like I’veurnedthe right to a funeral.”
Helspira balked as the two grown men muffled their immature snorts and snickers. Death jokes?Thiswas the person meant to save Nyllmas? She wasn’t sure what irked her more: that they didn’t seem to be taking this seriously ...
... or that she found their depraved, childish banter a teensy bit funny.
Nobody ever joked in Chthonia. Not even on the good days.
Wiping away any traces of amusement, Helspira snuck another peek at Catseye. Even with the scythe’s aid, he seemed to languish with each stride, a stark contrast to the Red Sentinels’ straight-backed, even-paced marching. “Forgive my asking, but are you all right?”
“Oh, yeah.” Catseye paused to adjust his spine and stretch it out. “Forgot how long of a walk it was to Saelihn’s castle.”
Helspira slid a hand to her hip. “Why was your home built outside of Vinepool? I thought you and the queen used to work closely with one another.”
“It was always in Saelihn’s best interest that an expansive breadth existed between us. Necromancy wasn’t—isn’t—everyone’s cup of tea. My distance kept the inevitable assassination attempts far from the castle.”
The confession widened her eyes. “People tried to kill you for practicing necromancy? Even when it aided the queen?”
“Eh, well”—the pitch of Catseye’s voice rose as he shrugged—“turns out relatives aren’t too keen on people puppeteering their dead loved ones, even when it’s for something as noble as winning a war.”
“Probably because corpses don’t get paid for their services,” Ben chimed in. “I swear, the disregard for the rights of the undead is ridiculous.”
“At least they don’t have to worry about paying taxes,” Catseye mumbled, the bustling sounds of Vinepool’s market square nearly drowning his quiet tone, as they neared the queen’s castle.
The powerful aroma of spices tickled Helspira’s nostrils. Heightened hearing and a keen sense of smell held far more practicality in Chthonia than they did on the sunlit surface of Siaphara, but even though the lively chatter of merchants and shoppers made her eardrums pulse, she drank in the sights with an adoring flutter in her chest. She watched a mesmerized child run her little fingers over the scarves draped across a silk vendor’s stall. The merchant, donned in flowing, indigo robes, seemed to capitalize on the situation by regaling the child’s father with a tale of how beautiful his daughter would look in one of his fine, fabric pieces.
It must’ve worked. The father chuckled, offered over a handful of coins, and gazed on with pride in his eyes as his daughter chose a vibrant scarf of goldenrod and turquoise. The scarf matched the child’s movements, twirling behind her, like a weightless ribbon riding the winter wind. Helspira smiled. Even two years later, the concept of exchanging hammered metal coins for goods and services healed her inner adolescent. Were the scenario to play out in Chthonia, the blood of a dead merchant would mar that scarf’s bold colors. And the child ...
