His eyes brightened as he realized she was listening to him with rapt attention, and he swiftly launched into the tale. “Shards of ice as big as my forearm, sharp like daggers, and raining down all around! I had to nearly exhaust my powers to keep myself warm in the cold and to shield myself from impact. Once the dust settled, I blasted my way back out, manifested my wings, and took off. I made it to the nearest town and had to sleep for a week to recover.”
“Your wings?” she asked sharply. “You have wings like Asmodeus?”
He paused, hesitation crossing his features. “Yes.”
“I’d like to see them sometime.”
He humoured her with a smile.
“What were you doing in the ice caves?” she asked, curious.
“Well, ice caves are incredible if you’ve never seen them. The sun on the ice makes the caves look like they’re glowing from within. You can easily get lost if you don't know where you are. I was after the ice diamonds; they’re worth a fortune. I was travelling with a mining group and had snuck away, trying to make off in the middle of the night with all the diamonds we’d collected. I wanted to steal them and keep the profits to myself.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s horrible.”
“Yes, I was a bad lad. Perhaps the mountain knew.” He chuckled. “Anyways, these were bought, purchased properly. I didn’t steal them.”
“Law-abiding behaviour? From you, Caspian? What would your friends say?” she teased.
Caspian lowered his voice and said with a conspiratorial grin, “Best you not tell them.”
She laughed outright.
“And you? Do tell me something positively devilish you have done.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He wiggled his eyebrows at her, waiting.
“Well … my friend Charlotte and I would sometimes make one of our guards dress like a commoner so we could visit the lower city in the capital. We would spend the day pretending to be normal. Charlotte and I would talk for hours and,” She paused dramatically. “we would giggle at the novelty of being able to order what we liked and eat ourselves sick. We would sip horrible wine in taverns, grin like fiends, and people-watch. And we would … slouch!” She chuckled.
“You naughty girl,” Caspian said. “Slouching and without a proper escort in a place you shouldn’t be. Drinking ale and playing cards with hookers, no doubt.”
She snorted loudly and swiftly clapped her hands over her mouth in horror.
A deep, booming laugh sounded in the air, and she gaped at the demon. Caspian was laughing, grinning from ear to ear.
She had never heard him laugh before.
The servants cleared their plates and set the most decadent-looking dessert in front of them. It was a dream of confectionery with swirled frosting of pale yellow. She took a bite.
“Lemon cake!” she exclaimed.
“A little birdie told me it was your favourite.”
“It is, thank you for remembering! It’s wonderful.”
He looked pleased, watching her eat.
“You must try a bite!”
He shook his head. “I don’t like sweets.”
She speared a piece and offered it to him.
“Be serious. Refusing dessert is the most un-evil thing you have ever done. The devil himself refusing to be tempted to sin?” she taunted.
He grinned and took the cake off the fork. He chewed, somehow making the process of eating cake look vaguely obscene.
