Izi would have loved the irony of me being exiled to this barren wasteland.
Amagi—her proto-Sumerian moniker forice—had nothing on the frost-bitten expanse where, at long last, I found a soul that glowed like the rarest of precious gems. She was clad in sealskin furs, strips of leather holding her warming coat together. Her hair was as dark as it had been in past lifetimes, with wind-burnt cheeks, full lips, brown eyes and…
My immediate urge upon discovering her was first to weep for joy. Hope and light exploded within me, a magnet once more drawn to its purpose.
My relief was fleeting.
I spied the milky glitter shining around a young girl wrapped tightly in furs as if she were the sun itself. The excitement ceased before I could savor it. Shala—Eleni—Love—hadn’t even seen me, and she was already terrified.
I had not arrived in a moment of peace.
The northern wilds and its people were unfamiliar to me, but I knew humans, fathers, and men.
I recognized a fist raised in violence when I saw it.
One foot in front of the other, I sprinted toward them, jaw clenched, ready for battle. Iswung for the man, bracing for the crunch of bone, the ripple of flesh, the bloodied teeth that would stain the snow.
Instead, my hand passed through the attacker as if he were little more than smoke.
Panic wouldn’t serve me.
I lifted my hands before me, wondering who I could call upon. What god would permit me to be seen? What form could I take that her eyes might perceive? How could I save her?
Another step back, rattled, frantic, desperate.
I understood from her cowering posture, and her place on the snow, that this was not the first time she’d been hit. From the hands raised to protect her face, her flinch, her meek cry for mercy, I knew she didn’t expect this to be the last.
I needed to do something.
There had to be a way.
A weapon.
A loophole.
His fury goaded me into action. This man could be their king for all I cared. If he struck her one more time, I didn’t care where we were, who she worshipped, or who this inferior mortal was. If he hit my human, I would savor the popping socket as I ripped his arm from its shoulder, salivating as his blood drained onto the permafrost.
Maybe her eyes were closed tome, but there were other things her people could see. Their totems, their guides, the animals that stalked the snow dunes…could it work?
Fuck. I was the Prince of motherfucking Hell. If I said it was, then it was so.
Fury took shape, and I let it overcome me. It ripped my clothes, it fractured my jaw, it turned my fingers to claws, itsalivated with the threat of an apex predator as I unlocked raw, unadulterated power.
Time moved differently for me than I did for the mortals. I processed everything in the time it took for four distinct, thundering footsteps to hit the snow. I tore myself from the space behind the veil, springing forward with no regard for the consequence. With it came a lifetime of emotions.
I meant to shout, but a guttural, rumbling growl came out in its place.
Rage became me as I tore from the unseen land, snarling with the fury of a thousand monsters. This time, I knew before my corporeal form crunched against ice and snow that I was not landing on the frozen tundra with the feet of a man. I had no idea what shape I’d taken, demon though I was, there was nothing human about my build.
Shala—Eleni—Love—stood behind me.
My jaws snapped together, frothing with intent as I stared into the face of hate.
The man yelled something new, something I couldn’t interpret, though it sounded like a stream of curses.
Biting wind whipped ice-sharp snow from the endless expanse, tousling hair in places I’d never felt before. The fur-trimmed coat of the man before me moved with the howling air as his eyes darkened, teeth bared.
Another lifetime passed for me in the heartbeat it took for the mortals to react.
