I resisted the urge to ask how she’d found me, as there was only a fistful of options. More than likely, she had caught my scent when passing through the village.
I never knew where she was hunting, and to be fair, I rarely cared.
“Your rage is delicious,” she purred. “A Prince who fights for his kingdom, his people, one whose diplomacy matches his wrath, shouldn’t be so scrumptiously angry in a fishing village. I’ve never tasted it topside before. Do share.”
“I don’t like to be interrupted,” I said honestly. “Your presence is often worth my ire.”
Her chuckle diffused the blood-and-thunder storm brewing within me, if only for the moment.
It was possible that she’d asked around Hell for my whereabouts, but I preferred to believe that my ever-increasing absences had not yet caught the attention of the realm.
“Come now, Amagi.”
She plucked the word for ‘ice’ from proto-Sumerian. Our true names were too powerful to be shared, even among siblings. Ourchosen sibling monikers—Amagi for me, Izi as the counterpart word for fire—fit like bespoke gloves. She’d brought the words back like trinkets from the first mortal language etched into their cuneiform during one of our first visits to the surface, and we’d kept them between the two of us ever since.
I resented the intrusion.
She’d robbed me of a new marvel. How could I focus on bucolic minor chords when I was being haunted by a nuisance?
“Tell me, brother,” she purred.
My lip twitched, souring against her familiarity.
Izi wasn’t my full sibling. Though we shared a father, we neither looked nor behaved alike. She favored her mother, the Queen of Shadows, Weaver of Nightmares, and Mother of Succubi. It was quite the title to fill.
“I appreciate your interest, Izi, but I don’t need your help tonight.”
The First Daughter of Succubi lived and breathed topside. She thrived on mortal attention, sipping her power from their lives like wine from a goblet.
“I’m the expert among humans.” She clucked her tongue.
Izi moved toward Shala and I bristled.
“I’d prefer that you keep your hands off of her,” I said through my teeth.
My sister made a face as Shala continued about her task, face quirked in judgment rather than fascination, as if this visiting a mundane ordeal was below her.
“Why? Are you scared I’ll do something?”
She took a few exaggerated steps toward Shala, dragging fingertips down the length of Shala’s arms.
The human’s lullaby paused. She shivered, shaking off a chill. Her brows pinched as she looked toward the door.
“Hello?”
Izi’s hands clapped together in front of her mouth, face sparkling with excitement. “Oh, my is she perceptive. Is that why you’ve chosen her?”
She expertly baited a question that I refused to answer.
I had no knowledge of Shala’s clairvoyance beyond her brush with death. Mortals pierced the veil in their moments before passing, and as such, she had askedme, not her god, not an angel, butme, to stay.
Her invitation remained an open door.
I had her permission to appear even now.
I wasn’t about to work through the trepidations that kept me behind the veil with my sister.
Shala regained composure after Izi’s frost dissolved from her arms, straightened her shoulders, then returned to her task. She no longer sang.
