“Going somewhere?” he asked casually.
“No, I just … I need to get back to the party,” she said, backing away.
As she lifted her dress to curtsey her farewell, she gasped. He was suddenly standing in front of her, only a hair’s breadth away. She looked up at him in fear, and he took hold of her wrist.
“Really, Lady Elizabeth, we were just discussing your predicament.” He affixed those frightening eyes on her again.
She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip almost to the point of pain.
“Unhand me! Who even are you?” she spluttered. She was a noble. No man had a right to accost her in the dark.
“I think you mean ‘What are you?’ And to answer your question, I’m a demon,” he said, looking away. As soon as he broke their eye contact, she saggedwith relief. Her heart thundered against her ribs, and her lungs relearned how to breathe. Without the pull of his strange eyes, he looked like a normal man.
A demon.
Still clasping her wrist, the demon bowed his head. She flinched. She felt his warm breath on her neck, as he whispered in her ear, “There is always another choice, Lady Elizabeth.”
Her back stiffened. He stepped back, and suddenly he was several feet away, the cool night air wrapping around her freed wrist. How had he moved so fast?
“What do you mean?” Elizabeth demanded. “There is no other choice.” Her shoulders drooped with the admission.
She looked down at her slippers.
When she looked up again, the demon was gone.
She shuddered and hoped that meeting a demon was not a bad sign. Still, his words imprinted on her mind, what if there was another choice?
Elizabeth paced in front of the stone bench, fidgeting with her necklace.
She could tell her parents that she refused to marry the duke, or well, she could consider running away. The options terrified her, but they were options nonetheless. This strange demon had opened her eyes to the fact that shedidhave choices, limited as they were.
Elizabeth went back inside, skirting the partygoers and making for the ballroom doors. Someone called out to her and she pretended not to hear, walking hurriedly through the doors.
She wandered the palace alone, avoiding the ball.
She soon found herself in the palace gallery, in the hall of statues.
She drifted past the sculptures: the Sun God, the Sea God, the Moon Goddess, the Goddess of the Harvest, along with many other gods and goddesses. The gods watched over the realm of Asteria, and were to whom they paid homage to on the high holidays.
The statues of the Sun God and Sea God were twice the size of all the other statues—the patron gods of the Rhodean kingdom. The Sun God had a long, curly beard and was sculpted in robes that revealed a broad chest. His crown branched out like the rays of the sun. The Sea God was more slender and lithe, with a trident in one hand, and a small ship in the other. Waves of the sea, crafted in stone, lapped at his sandalled feet.
She curtsied to pay her respects to Rhodea’s two patron gods, as she always did upon entering the hall of statues, but continued on, searching for a different set of statues today.
She walked to the far end of the hall, where there were two sculptures standing beside each other, one crafted with white marble and the other made of black stone.
An angel and a demon. The first sculptures of good and evil, an embodiment of the forces warring in all hearts.
The children of the gods, if the legends were to be believed.
While the angel was magnificent, with white marble wings swept up like a bird about to fly, the black demon statue was an ugly hunched thing, sculpted with bat-like wings, horns, and a permanent snarl etched on its features.
Angels were supposed to be the guardians of this realm, steering them towards the righteous path and always watching from afar. She had never met one, but legends said they embodied goodness and kindness, and that if anyone saw an angel, they owed them their devotion and allegiance.
Demons, on the other hand, were evil, tempting man to sin and stray from the gods’ will. Elizabeth had heard tales of demons, creatures crafted from nightmares that preyed on the flesh of wrongdoers. Creatures that made deals with mortals and often said one thing, only to mean another.
The sculpture of the demon looked like a monster; it did not look like the man from the garden. The eye sockets of the sculpture had been left empty, devoid of soul or feeling.
She wondered if anyone knew how far from the truth the image was. Or had the man lied to her? Was he not a demon after all?
