Valiant: The Covenant Chronicles

[Covenant #14: The Favor]

Log Date: 1/10/12764

Data Sources: Raikaron Syntaritov, Jayta Jaskolka

Event Log: Raikaron Syntaritov

The House of Regret: Sitting Room

4:42pm SGT

There is something about winter.

Something about the season invites reflection. Perhaps it is the cold, though that is more a nuisance than anything else. Perhaps it is the dearth, a natural time of scarcity and austerity, which invites worried contemplation. Perhaps it is the death, as forests become jagged, skeletal ghosts of their summer glory, and which often prompts living creatures to reflect on the fact that they, too, shall one day become such skeletons. Mere phantoms of their former glory, eventually forgotten in death.

Whatever the case, I had always found that winter put me in a nominally less charitable mood than of the rest of the year.

“He is entering the grounds, my Lord.” Danya says from where she’s studying her phone by the door. Though she’s dressed in the same pinstripe suit that she always has, her expression today is more severe than usual, and with good reason.

“Is that so.” I murmur. Seated in an armchair by the fireplace, I’m watching the embers glow and flicker, sparse licks of flame jumping every now and then from the fresh log that’s been thrown on the fire. The room we’re in is one of the House’s spare sitting rooms, small as compared to many of the other rooms. There are no windows, and the fire is the only illumination in the room, casting dancing shadows on the walls.

“Would you like to have the harpies detain him?” Danya asks.

“No.” I softly decline. “I will handle this myself. You are dismissed, Danya.”

Even though I am not facing her, I can feel her gaze on me. “My Lord—”

“Do you doubt my ability to deal with my subordinates, Danya?”

There is hesitation before she answers. “No, my Lord.”

“I know you wish to be present for his excoriation, but it is not your place. You will have your turn with him later. Now go, and remember that softness should not be mistaken for mercy.”

“Understood, my Lord.” The sound of Danya’s heels thumping over the carpeted floor shortly disappears with distance, and only after it has fully faded do I close my eyes. Taking a deep breath in, I let my presence expand and flow through the House, traveling amongst the floors, the ceilings, the very walls. And once I have sensed my way through every corner of my domain, I settle into place, waiting for an all-too-familiar bootstep.

It comes not at the front door, as expected, but one of the side doors used by the groundskeeping staff. An attempt, no doubt, to evade attention and detection for as long as possible. I waste no time addressing this attempted evasion; I immediately will the door to close and lock behind him. At the same time, I start shifting the rooms and the halls within the House like a 3-D puzzle, bending and twisting physics to create a hall that only leads from that door to this sitting room, with no other halls or exits adjoining it. A single long walk that can only end in one place.

And once that is done, I open my eyes again and go back to waiting.

In time, I hear his footsteps in the hall; can sense him round the corner and pause in the doorway to the room. He acts calm, but I can feel the faint stirrings of fear radiating from him, even from where I’m sitting. Rather than the vague, indefinite manifestation of fear, what I sense from him is different — a fear that is sharp. Focused and specific.

The fear of someone that has something to hide.

“Like what you’ve done with the place.” he remarks nonchalantly. “So what, am I not allowed to use that door anymore if I want to actually get into the rest of the House?”

“Where is she, Harro.” I ask softly, without turning around and without taking my eyes off the fire. No mincing, no games; just straight to the point.

“Look, I don’t mean to be offensive, but you got a lot of women in this House.” Harro begins. “So if you could like, narrow it down a little—”

“I will say this only once, Harro, by way of giving you warning while also demonstrating my mercy.” I interrupt him, lacing my fingers together. “I possess neither the time nor the patience for empty loquacity tonight. Answer my questions truthfully and directly, and the magnitude of suffering you are about to endure will be reduced by some measure. Fail to do so and your suffering will immediately commence, and will intensify by degrees until I find your responses satisfactory. Now: where is my avenger?”

Harro’s silent. Perhaps he can tell that I’m not in the mood for putting up with his antics this evening. After a moment, he comes into the room a few more steps. “She’s got a name. What, are you afraid to use it? ‘Cause if you say it, you’ll be admitting that you actually care about her?”

Those words hit closer than I like to admit, and unfortunately for Harro, it is exactly the kind of needling that I have no patience for tonight.

“You have a remarkable absence of self-preservation instinct.” I murmur as the shadow cast by my chair stretches across the floor, deforming and twisting into the outline of something older and more monstrous than the form I presently wear. “So, once more with feeling, Mr. Garkia.”

With that, my shadow seizes upon Harro’s, grabbing it by either end, and starting to bend it like a piece of celery. Harro grunts as he’s lifted off the floor, his back starting to bend in the same way that his shadow is; he swings his arms as if to struggle against a force he cannot touch, and all to no avail as my shadow begins applying pressure. Had I elicited for the slow route, I am sure he would’ve had no end of swearing, but I am not interested in sitting through that tonight. I instead skip straight to the point where his spine is being pressured to breaking point, and any vocalizations he makes are wordless, breathless, and agonized. After about forty seconds of this, I feel like I’ve gotten my point across, and I ease the pressure off, only slightly, before turning my head to look at where he’s still hanging in the air in the middle of the room.

“Where is Jayta Jaskolka?”

Harro is panting, sweat starting to bead on what skin he has visible. “Vinnei. She’s in the Vinnerheim System on the planet Vinnei last I saw her. Northern latitudes. In the mountains near a ski lodge.”

“Oh really.” I say quietly. “And tell me, how did she get there?”

“You’re wasting time—”

I don’t wait for him to finish, my shadow applying pressure to his spine once more.

“—hhhauah! Okay! Okay! She came with me! I’m just saying, you keep this up, I don’t know if she’ll still be there by the time you get there!”

“Your assumption that I am pressed for time would be amusing, were it not an obvious attempt to turn my attention elsewhere so you can obtain relief.” I reply, reaching into my vest and digging out my pocketwatch, popping the lid on it so I can check the time. “Tell me, Harro, why you were visiting Vinnei. You have had no recent assignments that would take you out that way, so this must have been a personal endeavor, funded with your own resources.”

“Got a tip. Kolob doing a miracle transfer. Get the picture now?” he grunts through gritted teeth.

I raise my head at that. “Miracles.” I repeat softly, easing the pressure on his spine. “When was this?”

“Two days ago.” he says, breathing a sigh of relief.

“And you have been gone since then.” The picture is starting to come together now, the pieces falling into place. “Had you been successful, your first move would have been to fence the miracles to one of Greed’s agents, or to whoever you wanted to endear yourself to among the higher Circles. You would not have returned here until you had offloaded them, or found a safe place to store them. So you presently do not have them in your possession, or within the House, where I could confiscate them if I found out about them.” As the pieces finish clicking into place, I realize that a few are still missing, and my eyes narrow. “You took Jayta with you. What prevented her from returning with you?”

There’s only silence. Harro doesn’t answer, and I can feel his fear start to return again. That sharp, specific fear of someone that has something to hide.

Running my thumb over the lid of my pocketwatch, I push it shut. The click echoes in the room, the only sound besides the crackling of the fire. “You betrayed her, didn’t you. Notched your belt, even when I explicitly told you that she was off-limits.”

“You could’ve stopped me at any point, but you chose not to.” he growls. “You knew. Don’t pretend that you didn’t. You knew what I was going to do, and you could’ve stopped it, but you didn’t. And since you didn’t step in…”

“Do not mistake my lack of intervention for implicit permission. It is not.” I say, frost beginning to creep into my voice as I tuck my pocketwatch back in my vest. “A lack of someone to stop you from doing something you should not do does not justify the doing of that act. That you fail to grasp this concept is largely the reason that you will remain in Sjelefengsel for the foreseeable future.”

“I don’t even know what the hell you just said!” Harro snaps. “If you’d just drop the high and mighty Mr. Smart Guy act, then hey, you know, maybe she might actually get to like you. I know why you treat her like a princess, you asinine prick. You never had a problem with me notching my belt until now, and it’s because you finally felt something in that desiccated, shriveled thing you call a heart—”

“Consider carefully your next words, Harro—” I start to interrupt.

“—found a pretty little lady that pulled at your heartstrings and wanted her all for yourself, well guess what, you red bastard?” he barrels on, overriding me. “If you want something, you have to go out and take it. And you didn’t stop me, so I went out there and took what you wanted. Because you deserve to suffer just like the rest of us. Especially for what you’re doing to the rest of us. Now I’ve gotten what I want, and you can have the leftovers if you want; I’ll be the first to admit that they’re pretty damn good leftovers, if I do say so myse—”

There’s a grisly crunch as my shadow places Harro’s shadow against its knee, and shoves down on either end. Harro lets out a single sharp gasp, and then his breath catches in his throat. I count the seconds until he has enough composure to let out a pained scream, and in the minutes to follow, I listen as he alternates between gasping for breath and shouting in agony. It’s only when his voice has started to go, and the screams have turned to moans, that I rise from my armchair, and walk around where he is hanging in the air.

“I do not need life coaching or lectures from someone who views their partners as ‘leftovers’ once he is done with them.” I say tartly. His skin is slick with sweat, his eyes glazed over in pain. “My oversight of your sentence has always been done from a professional distance, despite your many instances of willful insolence, but you have officially crossed a line.”

I pause at this point, searching for the next words, but find that there are none to describe what I want to say, what I feel. Or rather, that there are no words that do it efficiently. No words that adequately capture the rage and indignity that currently burn within me.

“I’d say more, but my eloquence is wasted on you.” I say after a minute of frustrated silence. “You don’t care, you don’t learn, and even if you are capable of it, you refuse to do so. Since words are no use with you…”

At this point I let my shadow retreat back to its normal position and cast, relinquishing Harro’s shadow in the process. He drops onto the floor as a result, writhing and gasping, moaning and shouting; but only his arms and torso are moving. His body from the waist down remains sprawled and inert, a result of his broken back. While I wait for his cacophony of agony to simmer down again, I extend a hand to the fire, drawing down the embers until they’ve gone cold and dead, leaving the room in pitch-black darkness.

“I have no further punishment for you than this, Harro: loneliness, darkness, and helplessness. You are all too familiar with pain and death, but they are the default choice of punishment in Sjelefengsel, and rather overused, if you ask me. Perhaps, in helplessness and solitude, you will have more time to reflect than what a dip in one of the magma pits would’ve allowed you.” Turning, I head for the doorway, walking with surety in spite of the dark. “Should you wish to escape your current predicament, you know what you have to do. I leave the length of your suffering in your hands. Do with it as you will.”

And on that note, I depart the room, leaving Harro to wallow in agony and darkness.

Event Log: Raikaron Syntaritov

The House of Regret: The Library Labyrinth

7:58pm SGT

There is something about winter.

Something about it invites the reading of books, especially whilst curled up in blankets with a hot drink in hand. Perhaps it is the quiescence of the season, the instinct to remain where it is safe and warm. Perhaps it is the increased predisposition to sleep, or to retreat to where one is warm and comfortable. Whatever the case, winter has always seemed a premier time to take up a book and study the lives and wisdom of those that came before, whether fictional or real.

However, my present visit to the House’s library was not in search of reading material, but rather in search of clarity that had thus far evaded me.

My own thoughts, such as they were, were tainted by the emotions that I had struggled to recover prior to the Iron Liver. I could not trust them to guide my actions, because if I did, I may very well act with malice; I had already disappointed myself when I lost my temper with Harro. He had been goading me, granted, but that should not have been an excuse to give in to my negative impulses. And even now, I found that I could not consider Jayta’s situation with a level head, without an intrusive emotion seeping in to color the possible courses I could pursue.

And so down to the library I went, to speak to the only person in the House who I could trust to give me sound advice, uncolored by a personal investment in the issue.

When I arrive to the core of the labyrinth, Mek is in curled into his recliner with a book in his lap. Of course, upon seeing me arrive, he hastily bookmarks it and scrambles to stand up, smoothing out the wrinkles in his uniform. “My Lord, I did not know you were coming— apologies for the disorder, I would’ve taken the time to clean up had I known—”

“Be at rest, Mek. I am not concerned with the state of your quarters.” I say as my slow stride takes me past one of the tables encircling the center of the room. “I take it you are not working on anything at the moment?”

“Ah, just a little bit of research reading, sir, but nothing consequential.” Mek replies quickly. “Is there some service I can render you?”

I pause at that, mulling over the offer. “Your counsel, if you would. Your perspective, in particular. I find… I am plagued with doubt over a matter.”

“Yes sir, I will do my best, although… I will admit that I would not consider my wisdom equal to yours.” he says, his tufted ears flitting uncertainly. “You have several centuries of experience more than I do…”

“Yes, I suppose I do, but there is value in the fresh eyes of youth, and you are a spry young thing at nearly two hundred years here in Sjelefengsel.” I say, considering one of the stacks of books on the table I’m standing in front of. “What do you think of Jayta Jaskolka?”

“Oh.” he says, clearly surprised by the choice of topic. “Well, she… is a pleasant addition to the House, I very much enjoy her company. She is a good conversant, very curious, very much… young, I think, is the word I would use. She has not seen as much life as most of the rest of us have, and as a result, she is not quite as hardened or embittered as the vast majority of demons are.” He pauses to take a breath. “Danya had told me she was missing… is everything alright, sir? She is not in any trouble, is she?”

“She is currently in the custody of Kolob angels, as I’ve gathered from a scouring of Harro’s memories.” I reply, idly studying the cover of the topmost book without actually reading it. “I suppose one might classify that as ‘trouble’ of a severe sort, considering her imprisonment is the result of poorly-executed miracle heist. What I am trying to decide is whether I should leave her to suffer the consequences of actions, or if I should invest effort and resources in getting her back.”

Mek’s mouth hangs open slightly, a look which I can only presume means he finds my words shocking. “Goodness. That’s a lot to process. A miracle heist, from Kolob angels, that sounds incredibly risky. But, ah, to the latter part, whether or not you should retrieve her — I had imagined the conclusion foregone on that topic, sir.”

“Is that so?” I ask, looking up from the book. “Foregone that I would leave her to suffer the consequences of her actions? Or foregone that I would bail her out?”

“That you would bail her out, sir.” Mek answers, knotting his furred fingers together.

“And why is that?” I ask, tilting my head to one side.

“I— well, mind that I mean no disrespect by this, sir, but it is no secret that you are quite attached to her.” he says, working overtime to try and state it diplomatically. “Most of the House is well aware of it. If she got into trouble, as she is in now, most of us would likewise assume that you would go extract her from it.”

“And should I, Mek?” I ask.

“Is there a reason why you would not, sir?” Mek says, reaching up to adjust his half-moon spectacles. “Unless you have decided she is no longer an asset, the amount of effort and resource you have invested in her would be an argument in favor of retrieving her.”

“Yes, yes, that is the logical approach to it.” I say, trying to rein in my impatience as I begin pacing around the room once more. “I am perfectly aware of the rationale of retrieving her, the principle of sunken cost. And yet… whenever I think upon it, there is something within me that feels spiteful and petty, that wishes to leave her there and forget that I ever spent so much effort on her.” I take a hand from behind my back to wave it around. “It’s a feeling that masquerades as righteous indignation, but it’s not; there’s something corrupt about it, hiding underneath a veneer of imagined justification. I’m not complaining about the emotion itself, persay, it’s quite curious and a novel experience for me, but it’s left me rather perplexed and divided on what course of action I should take.”

Mek’s fingers knot together again as he looks away; the bent of his brow seems to indicate he is very carefully picking his next words. “At the risk of speaking beyond my station, sir, you exhibit the indecision of someone that has been spurned by a lover or a good friend. It is the classic divide between knowing what you should do, versus what you want to do. What your state of mind indicates is a desire to punish her for a perceived slight against you, perhaps a spurning either of your advice or affection — this is your inclination to leave her there and let her suffer at Kolob’s hand. It conflicts with your sense of duty and loyalty — that is your inclination to go retrieve her because you know it is the moral thing to do.” His yellow eyes find their way back to me. “What you are measuring, sir, is your willingness to continue investing yourself in her. Whether that be resources, or emotions, or time… she has hurt you, presumably through her dalliance with Harro, and you are measuring whether or not she is worth your emotional investment in her.”

I give him a sharp look. “Gossip around the House, I see.”

He looks down apologetically. “It is no secret, sir, especially when the harpies are there to spread it. They were taking bets on how long it’d be before he betrayed her.”

“Spiteful things.” I mutter, turning my attention to Mek’s kitchenette. Running a finger over the kettle, and a little wire basket filled with tea packets. “Why am I doing this, Mek? I have never done this before. What do I want out of her?”

“There is some irony in you asking me what you want, as if you presumed I knew you better than yourself…” Mek observes quietly.

“Perhaps you do. The question was a serious one, Mek.” I say, turning away from the kitchenette.

“Of course. My apologies.” Mek says quickly. “Well. If I have permission to speak freely, then, what I believe you seek is companionship. Your… overtures to her are the attempts of someone that would like to make a friend, perhaps seek a partner, but does not know how to.”

“I beg to differ.” I reply tersely.

“You are not doing it consciously.” Mek again says quickly. “It is an unconscious desire, funneled through the only channels you have available to you — namely, those which are work-related. But it is there. I think you are tired of being alone, sir, and you saw something in her that you yourself don’t fully understand. I say this with the benefit of having known you for almost two centuries now, and speaking with others that spend much of their time around you.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Ah. So Danya is of the same mind.”

Mek sucks in a sharp breath between his teeth, looking away. “I mean, I was trying to avoid throwing her under the bus…”

“It is fine, I know you two enjoy your teatimes.” I say, folding my hand behind my back once more. “So, what should I do, Mek?”

“Well, given how you long for her—”

“I still do not prescribe to that description of my motivations, Mek.”

“Yes, of course, of course.” he says, backtracking quickly. “Well, in that case, even absent the motive for courtship, I would make this argument: leaving her at the mercy of Kolob will undoubtedly teach her a lesson. But it will show her only that the universe is cruel, both in life and death, heaven and hell. If you go retrieve her, it will teach her a different lesson: that your care for her exceeds the slights she has done to you. That unlike Harro, you will be there to gather her up in her time of need.”

“A rather ineffectual lesson, don’t you think?” I mutter, starting to pace again. “With action deprived of consequence, I don’t imagine she’d be learning much of anything.”

“We learn as much from mercy as we do from punishment, my Lord.” Mek says, turning ever so slightly to continue facing me as I pace. “And you have always told me that your purpose here in Sjelefengsel is to return souls better than they were when they came into your care. It is why you are so meticulous in crafting their sentences, like the one you’ve crafted for me. A good shepherd does not leave his sheep to the wolves, even when they have strayed.”

“For the health of the herd, I might very well do so. Let those that cannot be saved or cannot learn be picked off.” I reply just as quickly.

“Yes, fair enough.” Mek says patiently. “But is Jayta one of those, sir?”

I don’t answer right away, pressing my lips together. In fact, I don’t answer at all, but I don’t need to. I know the answer, and I think Mek can see it in my face as well.

“Go gather your lost sheep, my Lord.” he says quietly. “This is one regret I do not think you want to bring upon yourself.”

I nod, starting to walk again. “Thank you for your counsel, Mek, and for indulging my indecision.”

“The honor is mine, sir.” he says, giving a bow as I make my way to the core’s threshold. Departing back into the curved labyrinth, I begin to pick up the pace, casting my mind forward in preparation for the trip I’m about to embark upon.

Though she vexed me terribly, I was not yet ready to cede the little demon to the judgement of angels.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

Vinnei: Angel’s Peak

1/11/12764 9:52am SGT

It was cold. So terribly, terribly cold.

I was used to the cold, but not for long periods of time. I was used to spending a little time out in the cold, and then coming back inside. Enjoying the warmth of one of the House’s crackling fireplaces, or the heated interior of one of the cars. I’d get cold when I was outside, but the House was never very far away. I could always head back inside when it was starting to get to me.

But not here.

After I was captured, they’d brought me to the outpost up at the peak of the mountain, carved into it and hidden away from mortal eyes. It seemed new, lots of boxes still out, the rooms sparse and largely unfurnished — at least the ones I saw. The first thing they did was get me into a wide, open room and put me in the center of it. And then they’d cast some sort of divine seal on the ground beneath me, surrounding me with a barrier that burned me every time I tried to go beyond it. 

They’d interrogated me at first. Never laid hands on me, but asked me all the questions. Who I worked for, why I was stealing the miracles, where Harro had gone. I was a mess; I didn’t even try to lie to them, told them everything. Everything that I knew, at least. They didn’t seem satisfied with it, but I didn’t have anything else to give them, and I think they could sense that.

So they’d left me alone in that cold, empty room.

The walls and the floors, they were all stone, as if the outpost had been carved straight into the mountain. It probably was. There was no insulation, no heating, nothing to help retain the heat. The stone beneath me sucked the warmth right out of me, and I got used to curling up in one place, just to keep that one patch of floor bearably warm. I tried to avoid shifting as much as possible, since I’d lose heat if I shifted off a patch of floor I’d been laying on, and I’d have to warm it up all over again. But lying still isn’t the best for staying warm when you’re in a cold room underneath a mountain, in the middle of winter.

None of this was made any easier by the fact that I couldn’t switch out of my demon form. I was stuck in it, despite my attempts to switch back, and I think it was the seal that was keeping me from reverting. Or the fact that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t summon any happy memories to help change back to my human form.

All I could feel was grief and sorrow and self-pity.

There was no way to get away from it, the feeling of being betrayed. I couldn’t banish from my mind, the look on Harro’s face as he looked back at me when I’d called out to him. Like he wanted to come back, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. As if he’d weighed his life against my own, and decided his was more valuable.

And me, wretched little me… I was abandoned again. Just like my ex had abandoned me for the new girl, Harro abandoned me for his escape.

I just wanted to curl up and disappear into nothingness.

Though I wanted the hours to breeze by, they instead crawled like molasses. The cold and the pain probably contributed to that; it was impossible to sleep for very long simply because I started shivering whenever I got too cold, and it’s impossible to sleep when you’re shivering. The aching from my notched wing also kept me awake; a dull, pulsing pain that I could feel with every heartbeat, every pulse of blood through the veins in my wing. It was scabbed over now, but I had lost a lot of blood through it earlier, and even now it hurt just to move it.

So the hours bled by in a carousel of cold and pain, sorrow and self-pity. Through the doorway leading to my room, I could see another room where the angels had set up something akin to a break room, with a table and a fridge and a couch or two. I could see them coming and going, sitting down and relaxing or talking; there were four of them in total, two that were already here, and Brant and Nairon, who had brought me here as a prisoner. Mostly they talked about work things, but every now and then I would hear snatches of conversation, just around the corner, about me. About jurisdictions, punishment, and what arresting angel would come to get me, and take me away. There was no talk about what would happen to me, but given how worried they were about having lost a miracle — it seems that Harro only managed to steal one — any punishment, if it came to me, would be severe.

I lost track of how much time I had spent in their custody, largely because I couldn’t tell time down here. There were no windows in the room I was in, and with my phone cracked and shattered, there was no way to know. It felt like I had been in there for days, maybe a week, by the time the knock on the door came.

Which brings us to the here and now. Here, lying on the floor of my enchanted prison; now, listening to the voices of the angels in the break room. All of them taking a moment to have a break together, have some coffee, and chat idly, until the knock comes.

“Who’s that?” one of them asks. “Were we expecting anyone?”

“Nothing on the schedule for today. Kolob still hasn’t gotten back to us about when they’re sending someone to pick up the demon.”

“Well, maybe that’s them.”

“…maybe? It’s some well-dressed bloke with red hair. Like, redder than yours, Nairon. Dude’s got hair like a summer strawberry.”

“Well, if he managed to find the outpost, he’s gotta be from Kolob. Let’s see what he’s here for.”

There’s the click of the door opening ever so slightly. And the voice that drifts through it is familiar, enough for me to lift my head off the floor.

“Gentlemen. Good day. Would you mind opening the door a bit wider so I can come in? I believe you have something of mine…”

“Oh shit, that’s not an angel, that’s a Sjelefengsel demon!”

“Close it, close it—”

I hear a click, and in the next moment, everything changes. The angels are suddenly seated on the couch and at the table in the break room, which has a steaming pitcher laid out on it. Each of the angels is holding a mug, and Raikaron is now in the break room with them, finishing handing a mug to Brant. They all look as startled as I am; one second they’re all hovering around the door, the next they’re all in different places. Once Brant takes his mug, Raikaron tucks a hand within his crimson longcoat, stowing something away in one of the pockets.

“I apologize for the lack of forward notice.” he says, taking another mug from the table and pouring from the pitcher. It looks like it’s hot cocoa, from the brown hue. “I understand that having a demon within your outpost may come as a shock to you. But I am not here to make trouble, or seek out a fight. I am here to retrieve something of mine.”

“No.” Nairon says immediately, setting his mug down. His halo flares to life over his head, and he grabs it and pulls it down. “You will leave, at once. The demon here is being held for her role in a miracle theft. She will face the courts on high — we are not going to let her go just because you asked politely.”

“I’m not asking you to let her go. I know that’s a decision that’s a few steps above your pay grade.” Raikaron says as he finishes pouring for the mug he has in hand. “I’m going to request that you call the Archangel of Gratitude and ask him to come here so I can have a conversation with him. Tell him the Lord of Regret is calling in a favor.”

There’s stunned silence in the room, before Brant hisses at Nairon. “Put away your halo, dude! This is one of the Lords of Sjelefengsel!”

“I’m not going to let him just saunter around our outpost—” Nairon snaps back.

“What are you going to do with your halo, stub his toe?” Brant hisses. “You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t take it and ram it up your ass! This is way above us, dude, call Gratitude and let him deal with it!”

“Archangels have better things to do—” Nairon begins.

“Actually no, I’m with Brant on this one.” one of the other angels says. “You super do not want to pick a fight with a demon Lord, Nairon. So long as he’s being polite and he’s not trying to pull any shenanigans, I’d say we just keep an eye on him and call Gratitude. Let the Archangel handle it.” Tilting his mug, the angel looks at Raikaron. “This ain’t poisoned, is it?”

“If it was, I wouldn’t be giving it to my demon.” Raikaron says as he turns, heading into my room. I scramble to sit up, letting out a little cry when I realize how stiff the cold’s made me, how my entire body aches.

“Whoa, hey! We didn’t say you could go in there! Hold it!” Nairon shouts.

“Oi, Nairon. Slow your roll.” Brant says, reaching out and catching Nairon by the shoulder. “Unless he intends to kill everyone in the outpost with hot cocoa, his demon included, I’m pretty sure it’s fine.”

“He could be passing her something she could use to get loose!” Nairon protests as Raikaron crouches down at the edge of the barrier.

“Yes, because I’ve hidden some sort of magical lockpick in the bottom of her mug, that she’ll proceed to hide in her mouth after drinking her hot cocoa, which she’ll use to get free later.” Raikaron says, his sarcasm almost undetectable as he sets the mug down on the edge of the barrier and starts to push it through. “This is not an espionage movie, my redheaded friend. The longer it takes you to call Gratitude, the longer you will have to endure my presence here.”

“Alright guys, I’m callin’ Kolob.” one of the angels in the break room says. “If this goes south, I’d rather have an Archangel on the way to back us up. I am firmly in the bracket of people that do not want their asses kicked halfway through next week by a demon Lord.”

“This hot cocoa is actually pretty good.” Brant remarks after taking a sip.

“Stop fraternizing with the enemy!” Nairon hisses at him.

“What?!” Brant protests. “It is the middle of winter and the cherubs still haven’t installed the heating. I appreciate a good hot drink!”

The bickering of the angels fades into the background as I pull myself along the cold stone floor to the edge of the barrier, my injured wing dragging behind me. “Raikaron.” I whimper. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”

“I did not give you permission to use my name.” he says as he stands back up once more. “And you did know. You were warned, many times. You simply chose not to heed the warnings.”

The chill in his voice has me looking up to see there is anger buried within his green eyes; he is irritated, and that irritation is directed at me. It’s something he chose to hide for the sake of being polite to the angels, but it’s definitely there, along with something else, something like… disappointment. It’s only then that I realized that he expected more from me, and I let him down.

“I… I’m sorry, I thought that—”

“You thought that the power of a miracle would dissever the binding contract that you signed.” he cuts me off. “I scoured Harro’s mind; I know what you thought. It is always so with mortals; what they have been given is never good enough — they always crave more. They think they are entitled to it.”

“No, it’s not like that—” I say, panicked when I hear the cold anger in his voice.

“Is it not?” Raikaron demands before I can finish. “I wrote you a contract that was generous above all other contracts I had yet written, generous above all other contracts written by the other Lords of Sjelefengsel. You came into hell as a demon privileged above all others, with rank you had not earned and freedom that other demons could only wish for. And yet you complained, and whined, and murmured of the unfairness of your situation. You are not the only one that ignored Danya’s warnings; she told me I was spoiling you rotten, yet I dismissed her counsel when I clearly should’ve heeded it. Now we stand here at the culmination of your ingratitude, and I am not sure I can save you from the natural consequence of your idiocy. Even if I could, I am not sure I want to. ”

I recoil at the muted fury behind the eloquent words. The suffocating heat of shame rises up inside me; this isn’t how I’d wanted this to go, and it’s made all the worse by the fact that the angels have stopped talking, and are listening in embarrassed silence. I wanted him to come set me free, take me home to the House, where I was safe. I wanted him to tell me everything would be okay, and that Harro would be punished for leaving me behind. I thought he’d be on my side, but he’s seen through me to the disloyal impulse that took me on this path in the first place. And for the first time since he arrived, I realized I’m scared.

Not that he’s going to abandon me, just like my ex and Harro did, but that this time, it would actually be deserved.

“Please.” I whisper, tears gathering at the corners of my eyes as I wrap my arms around myself. “Please don’t leave me.”

“It may not be my choice to make.” he answers, cold and clipped. “And even if it is, it begs the question of whether I owe anything to a demon that would turn to disloyalty after only a moment’s hesitation. Why should I rescue you when you would’ve turned and abandoned your station without a second thought?”

“I made a mistake, I won’t do it again.” I hiccup as the tears slide down my face, made even colder by the frigid temperature of the room. “Just please, don’t leave me…”

An awkward clearing of the throat has Raikaron turning his head. In the break room, one of the angels announces “The Archangel of Gratitude is here, Lord of Regret.” Presumably somewhere out of sight, since I can’t see him.

Raikaron takes a deep breath, turning and straightening his winter coat as he steps back into the break room. “Gratitude. Thank you for coming on short notice; I apologize if I interrupted anything…”

The other angels start shifting around; I don’t notice Brant has crept into the room until I see him crouching down next to the barrier, leaning towards me. “Kyrie eleison.” he whispers.

I just stare at him, tearstreaked and confused. “What?”

“Kyrie eleison. It’s an appellation that means have mercy, Lord.” he whispers hurriedly. “It’s very intimate, a get-on-your-knees-and-beg-with-your-soul type of thing. It’s something angels usually say on behalf of mortals, but demons use it with their Lords as a sort of last resort, to beg for mercy, to ask forgiveness. I hear it’s almost sacred down there in Sjelefengsel — you don’t use it for just anything, you use it only when you have nothing else to give or say to your Lord.”

“Leave us.” The voice comes from the break room; it’s an unfamiliar one, so I can only assume that’s the Archangel of Gratitude that’s speaking. Brant looks back over his shoulder as the other angels start to make their way towards the door.

“Kyrie eleison.” Brant repeats once more, then reaches through the barrier to push the mug of hot cocoa closer to me before he stands and hurries after the other angels. It seems there’s nothing else spoken until the door clunks shut behind them; I reach forward and cup my cold fingers around the mug, holding it to my chest to soak in the warmth as Raikaron and the Archangel start talking, just around the corner of the break room and out of view.

“She participated in a miracle theft, Regret; I cannot just let her go. Do you realize how severe this is?”

“You know I do.”

“Then you know why I cannot turn a blind eye here. If you could find the miracle and make sure it is returned to Kolob—”

“I cannot. It’s already been fenced. Harro may be boorish, but he’s got street smarts. He knew the longer he held onto it, the more danger he would be in, so he started looking for a buyer the moment he got back to Sjelefengsel. I didn’t even know what he’d done until six hours ago; that’s when he finally came back to the House and I caught him sneaking in.”

There’s a heavy sigh from the break room, probably from the Archangel. “So the girl was just the scapegoat.”

“Oh no. She bears some blame for this. The majority lies on Harro, but I’m not letting her off the hook this time. She will be punished when she gets back to Sjelefengsel.”

“Regret, I cannot let you take her. This is a stolen miracle. Someone has to be punished.”

“She will be punished. Just not to the standard that Kolob will be demanding.”

“Therein lies the problem, then. If she’s not going to be punished to the standard Kolob thinks appropriate for this transgression, then I cannot let you take her.”

“And you will not be moved on this?”

“Regret, you know as well as I do that it is not up to me. This would not be another one of your ‘bending’ of the rules. It would be breaking them outright, and I cannot go there.”

It’s at this point I let out a little hiccup from the sob I’d been trying to hold in. Listening to their conversation, it’s starting to sink in now, just how serious this is. I’d always thought of Raikaron as this unimaginably powerful demon, but hearing him try to negotiate with an Archangel, I’m starting to understand his power and authority has limits. And it’s possible that I’ve wandered outside of them.

The conversation stops as my hiccup echos through the doorway. After a moment, there’s the sound of shoes over the floor, and the Archangel walks into view, staring into the room. He’s slightly dark-skinned, and dressed in a typical business suit, a mix of pastel golds and warmer oranges, almost like a splash of sunlight. He doesn’t look cruel or uncaring — instead he’s wearing the frustration of a man whose hands are tied by bureaucracy.

“I don’t take any pleasure in this, Regret.” he sighs. Raikaron steps into view a moment later, standing beside the Archangel.

“Kyrie eleison!” I blurt out the moment Raikaron looks at me.

His brow knits in confusion, but also a flicker of the irritation he showed before. “Where did you learn that?” he demands.

Fear and panic shoots through me; I don’t know if I’ll have any other chance to try and save myself beyond this. I look around trying to figure out what else I can do, but I’ve got nothing but the mug that’s keeping me warm, so I hold it out to him. “Kyrie… kyrie, eleison.” I repeat, my lip quivering as I try not to burst into tears. “Please…”

Raikaron’s lips twist into a frustrated angle, but I can see that his bright green eyes are slowly softening. After a moment, he lets out a sigh, then looks to the Archangel. “I’m calling in that favor, Gratitude.”

Gratitude looks confused. “What favor?”

“The one from the night that I refrained from interfering in the death of that young man on Kasvei.” Raikaron says readily.

“I did not agree to that.” Gratitude says quickly. “You let that soul go of your own accord.”

“It was to your benefit, was it not?” Raikaron asks.

“Whether or not it was to my benefit is immaterial to the fact that I did not request it, and did not promise anything in return for it.”

“Ah. Yes.” Raikaron says, folding his arms behind his back. “So, a demon Lord of Sjelefengsel exhibits mercy and allows a soul to go free instead of tempting it. Meanwhile, an Archangel of Kolob refuses that same mercy to a demon clearly penitent and sorrowing for a mistake she has made. Remind me again, which one of us works for heaven and which one works for hell?”

Gratitude opens his mouth, then closes it, and glares at Raikaron. Raikaron merely raises an eyebrow in return.

“You’re going to be the death of me one day.” Gratitude huffs, rubbing his temple.

“You’re already dead. What have you to fear?” Raikaron snorts.

“If I allow this, Kolob will be livid.” Gratitude protests. “Simply letting a demon Lord walk into an outpost, collect his demon, and leave without anyone being punished for a stolen miracle that’s now floating around Sjelefengsel somewhere? I’d lose my wings!”

“Would it help if we didn’t just walk out of here, then?” Raikaron inquires. “We could instead say that I insisted upon this course of action, and would not take no for an answer. You tried to stop me, and I fought my way loose, and took my demon with me.”

“Do you seriously think anyone in Kolob will buy that story?” Gratitude demands.

“They may, if we take steps to make it a reality.” Raikaron says, looking up and studying the doorway, the room ahead and behind him. “The cherubs wouldn’t mind rebuilding parts of this outpost if it got destroyed, would they?”

“You can’t be serious.” Gratitude says.

“When I said earlier that I would not take no for an answer, I was not positing a hypothetical, Gratitude.” Raikaron replies. “I was weaving a convenient truth into a potential narrative.”

Gratitude shakes his head. “In all my years, I never…” He looks at me, then back at Raikaron. “This much risk, for a single demon. Is she worth all this?”

The brief bemusement that Raikaron had gotten out of toying with Gratitude evaporates as his gaze returns to me. The disappointment is there again, but at least the irritation is gone. When he replies, it’s not a direct answer to Gratitude’s question.

“Lower the barrier. I need to make sure she can leave the outpost on her own two feet. Having to carry her will make this harder if your angels are chasing me.”

I let out a gasp of relief, lowering the mug I’d kept held out. Gratitude motions towards the barrier, and it vanishes, the seal on the floor beneath me disappearing. Once it’s gone, Raikaron steps forward, crouching before me, and I set the mug aside, slumping forward as I try to muffle my sobs of relief.

“Save your tears; you will have something better to spend them on shortly.” he says, his eyes roaming over me. “Your wing. Let me see it; it will need to be mended.”

I look back, gingerly pulling my notched wing forward so he can examine it. His fingers are warm as they glide over the pale, leathery membrane, and examine the scabbed notch, a clean cut for the first several inches, then growing more ragged where it had ripped a little when I’d tried to fly with it. Based on the way his lips draw together, he’s not pleased.

“It will not recover properly like this. The scab will need to be removed, and the two sides stitched back together, so the membrane will heal back together.” he murmurs, taking the hem of his longcoat and starting to fold it up. “Put this between your teeth so you have something to bite down on. You may lean into me if you need.”

“You’re not even going to numb it?” Gratitude asks as Raikaron reaches around my shoulders to grip the bony upper edge of my wing and hold it still.

“You know quite well that restorative and palliative abilities are quite sparse in the repertoire of demon privileges, Gratitude.” Raikaron says as I fit the folded hem of his jacket between my teeth, and take a deep breath through my nose. “So unless you would like to commit some of Kolob’s capacity to this instance, I would ask that you refrain from armchair doctoring.”

Seconds later, I feel two of Raikaron’s fingers starting from the top of the notch in my wing. The pain is nearly instant, like a razor is being dragged along both sides of the notch, carving away the scabs and a paper-thin layer of the wing membrane underneath the scabs. I can’t help but gasp, biting down on the folds of coat between my teeth; as Raikaron’s fingers continue down both sides of the notch in my wing, I can feel blood starting to slide down the inside of my wing from the reopened wound. At least when Nairon had notched my wing in the first place, it’d just been a brief flash of pain; this is slow and agonizing, and I can’t help letting out a muffled scream I struggle not to writhe and twist.

“For god’s sake, Regret—” Gratitude starts.

“It needs to heal properly or she will not be able to fly again, Gratitude.” Raikaron cuts him off, even as he continues gliding his fingers down the edges of the notch in my wing. His other hand remains gripped along the upper edge of my wing, using a deceptive strength to keep it from thrashing as I grab handfuls of his coat to dig my claws into. “She can’t achieve proper lift with a notch in her wing that’s this large. It’s painful but it will be better for her in the long run.”

“I would call this something a little more than painful!” Gratitude protests as I let out another muffled scream, bearing my head and horns against Raikaron’s chest as I strain my feet against the floor. “Good grief, Regret…”

“If you cannot stomach it, then you are more than welcome to excuse yourself until it is concluded.” Raikaron says tersely, moments before his fingers reach the ends of the notch and the active pain fades away, leaving only the stinging of raw, bloody membrane exposed to cold air. “Take a moment to catch your breath, Jayta. We still have to sew the notch shut.”

I’m not sure I’d reply even if I could. I let the folded hem of his coat fall out of my mouth as I pant, exhausted by pain. I don’t have the strength to move from where I am, so I don’t; I just stay there, head tucked against his chest, claws still hooked in the tatters of his coat where they’ve ripped through, slumped against his knees. I’ve never been in this much pain before, not for this long. Pain like this is mindblowing. You literally can’t focus, can’t think about anything but the present, the exact moment you’re in, and surviving it.

“Alright, we need to start stitching it shut.” he says after about a minute. I shiver at those words, my claws starting to hook back into the rips in his coat once more.

“No. Regret, stop.” I can hear footsteps over the floor as Gratitude walks around behind me, stepping over my legs, sprawled over the floor. “Alt above. I don’t know how you can be so calm while you’re doing this. You ever considered being a battlefield medic? Because this shit doesn’t seem to faze you.”

“Unless you plan on helping, Gratitude, this is somewhat time-sensitive…”

“I am going to help, because I can’t stand it, watching you fix her like this. I don’t understand how you demons manage to survive without any healing abilities.”

“Recuperative abilities are generally not relevant to a demon’s assigned responsibilities.” Raikaron says. I can feel warmth on my wing as they speak, the pain starting to trickle away. “That being said, you are rendering her more of a kindness than she deserves, after what she’s done.”

“I believe in punishment, not needless suffering.” Gratitude replies. I can feel his fingers tracing down the back of my wing, joining the two sides of the notch, the membrane knitting back together. The sensation is odd; numb and painless, yet I can still feel the flesh and membrane moving on their own. All the way down the notch he goes, until he reaches the bottom edge of my wing. “There. Should be good as new.”

I don’t say anything, just nod, my horns rasping over Raikaron’s shirt. After a moment, he gets to one foot, then hooks his hands under my arms, and pulls me up as he stands. I don’t resist, struggling to find my feet as we rise; my legs are still shaking and shivering from the pain of reopening the wound on my wing.

“You will need to be able to stand on your own, Jayta.” Raikaron instructs as I slump against him, my claws still hooked in the holes in his coat.

“I know.” I mumble, trying again to get my feet beneath me. “I’m trying.”

“We should discuss how we’re going to do this while she’s getting her wits about her.” Raikaron says, turning his attention to Gratitude, who’s stood up as well. “You have to injure me. Make it convincing for the barbershop quartet that’s waiting outside.”

“I will.” Gratitude agrees heavily, a halo flaring to life over his head. “You know it will have to be more than a wound of the body.”

“I am well aware.” Raikaron says, putting an arm around me and pulling me up a little more. “In turn, I’ll need to hit you hard enough to make an argument for why you did not immediately attempt pursuit. Hard enough to blow a hole in the side of the peak, and give us a venue to escape through. Kill two birds with one stone, as it were.”

“You just want to make a mess, don’t you.” Gratitude says, holding his halo with one hand while the other reaches inside of it. After a moment, he pulls out something that’s transparent and white — it looks like the ghost of a sword, if weapons could have ghosts.

“A mess is more convincing, no?” Raikaron replies.

“Well, it certainly doesn’t do me any favors, so yes. I’ll admit a mess can be a compelling alibi.”

“We’re agreed, then.” Raikaron says, looking around the room. “Positioning. You should come around over here, a little ways, so your back is to this portion of the wall. That’s where the rock feels narrowest between this room and the exterior of the mountain.”

“It’ll have to be a narrow-angle blast. If you go wide-angle, you might take out too much of the wall and the roof will collapse.” Gratitude cautions as he moves over to where Raikaron’s pointing.

“Narrow-angle means there’s going to be a lot more force concentrated into a smaller area.” Raikaron warns. “It’s going to hit a lot harder.”

“Yes, well. What are friends for.” Gratitude says as I finally get my feet under myself and stand steady. “Is she ready?”

“She’ll have to be. She doesn’t have a choice.” Raikaron says, looking down at me. “Jayta, you will need to stand behind me. Gratitude is going to wound me; I am going to blast him through the wall, and we will escape through the resulting hole. Since the side of the mountain is sheer, you will have to fly, and you will have to carry me while doing so. Do you understand?”

Panic flutters in my chest as I stare up at him. “B-but I’ve never flown before—”

“If you need, I will help you, guide you, and direct you.” he says. “But this is the only way we will escape from here. I will not be in a condition to fight or flee after Gratitude wounds me, so our escape relies in part on you. This is not a request; it is a necessity.”

I do my best to swallow my fear. “Okay.” I say quietly, removing my claws from the tatters of his coat as I push off him, and unsteadily make my way around to stand behind him.

“Alright, Gratitude.” Raikaron says, straightening up. Manacles flare to life around his wrists, though his are more elegant than even mine - they resemble translucent orange armguards with chains attached, rather than actual manacles. And Raikaron’s chains are crazy long — each manacle has dozens of feet of chain attached to it. Possibly hundreds of chainlinks, each one standing for one of hell’s powers. “Ready when you are.”

“Any preferences of how I make this cut?” Gratitude asks, raising his ghostly blade. “Shoulder to hip, across the ribs, down one side?”

“Shoulder to hip seems a little melodramatic, don’t you think?” Raikaron says. “I’ll let you choose.”

“Alright, but you’re forfeiting your right to complain about whether or not I gave you a cool scar.” Gratitude says, raising his blade a little higher. Both of them fall silent at that point; Gratitude reaffirms his grip on the hilt, as if deciding where to make the cut. Then without warning, he steps forward and slashes the blade against Raikaron in a single quick, heavy motion that cuts a short, shallow diagonal from his left shoulder down across his chest.

Raikaron staggers back from the force of the hit, a pained shout escaping him as he almost loses his feet. I have to catch him to keep him from falling, and draw a sharp breath when I feel his blood dripping onto my hands, wet and warm. He gets his feet back shortly after that, hunching over with a hand clamped to his chest.

“Went for… the diagonal, I see.” he pants as Gratitude lowers his sword.

“You said you didn’t want shoulder to hip, so I brought it up a little to end at the ribs instead of the hip.” Gratitude says, puffing out a breath. “Alright, now it’s your turn.”

“Yup.” he pants, raising his free hand. A circular heptagram flares around it, further ringed around the edges with unfamiliar runes. “No hard feelings, right?”

“That depends on how hard you hit me.” Gratitude says, starting to wince.

“You’ll get over it, I’m sure.” Raikaron says as his heptagram brightens.

I’m not ready for the flash of orange light that fills the room, or the deafening sound of mountainside getting absolutely pulverized from the inside out. When I can see again, the last vestiges of an orange beam are fading away from Raikaron’s hand; there’s a gaping hole in the room’s wall, about seven feet long and five feet wide, glowing with molten rock. Through it, I can see the snowcapped mountain range beyond, and way in the distance, an orange speck leaving an arc of black smoke through the sky.

“How… how is he not dead?” I say, watching over Raikaron’s shoulder in disbelief.

“Archangels are remarkably durable. And he’s already dead; that’s a prerequisite of being a Kolob angel.” Raikaron wheezes, hunching forward again. “We need to go.”

“But you’re bleeding—” I begin, then twist around when I hear the door to the outpost being banged open. The explosion’s gotten the attention of the other angels.

“Jayta, we need to go! NOW!” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Raikaron raise his voice and shout, and the urgency flicks my brain over into fight-or-flight mode. Lunging forward, I wrap my arms around his chest and hug him close as I unfurl my wings. Focusing on the hole in the wall, I kick off the ground at the same time that my wings give a single, powerful sweep, launching me straight towards it. I fold my wings in close so I can fit through, shooting clean through into the howling winter wind outside.

And then I start to drop…

Open your wings, slowly. If you open them too suddenly, you’ll end up braking and stalling out.

Raikaron’s voice breaks through the terror in my head, terror that comes from seeing the mountain slope below, and how fast we’re falling towards it. Following his instructions, I open my wings in fits and starts, feeling our descent start to slow; I flick and twist my wings, starting to level out. At least until a gust of wind nearly flips me over.

Don’t fight the wind. It is bigger and stronger than you. Ride with it, and if you need to move against it, use it to climb, then dive in the direction you need to go.

I kick my legs a little, struggling to get my balance back, and angling my wings so I can start to turn and move in the same direction the wind’s going. Having to carry Raikaron helps, since he acts like a weight that keeps me stable, but I can also feel that I’m losing altitude quicker than I would be if I wasn’t carrying him. For now, though, the spear-like tops of the pine trees below remain far away.

Good. Keep moving in this direction, and don’t look back.

“Why not?” I shout over the wind.

Because all Kolob angels have wings.

“Wait, are they…” I say, looking over my shoulder. Sure enough, I can see flashes of white against the blue sky — sets of angelic wings unfurling as the angels lunge from the hole in the side of the mountain. “Oh shit!”

Remain calm.

“How am I supposed to remain calm? I’m carrying a deadweight and there’s four angels coming after me, and you keep shoving your voice in my head!” I howl into the wind.

The wind is moving in the direction of the lodge, and we have altitude and a head start. If you follow my instructions, we will get there well before they do.

“Alright then, well instruct me!” I shout, shaking my head to get my hair out of my face. It’s hard to see when the wind’s blowing it around like this.

Lean forward, then fold your wings, but not all the way. Keep the edges out to control your descent. This’ll drop you into a dive, and will allow you to build up speed that you can coast on when you open your wings again. You may need to repeat this a few more times as we head further down the slope of the mountain.

I feel like complaining, but it’s killing me to have to shout into these high winds. Figuring we’ll be better off the sooner we get back to the lodge, I follow his instructions, dropping into a shallow dive. I don’t know when to pull out, so once I’ve picked up enough speed that it scares me a little, I flare my wings, locking them in place so I can coast along on my momentum. Down below, the snowy meadows and patches of pine trees rush by at a surprisingly quick pace. At this rate, we could be at the lodge in a minute or two, since we don’t have to follow the twisting and winding roads through the hills.

It’s… actually working.

Bank to your right.

The order strikes me as odd; I look down at the back of Raikaron’s head. “What? Wh—”

DO IT NOW, JAYTA

There’s a level of urgency to it that I can’t disobey; hugging him tighter, I lean to the right, swerving in that direction. Not more than two seconds later, something goes hurtling past, just barely missing me; staring at it, I realize it’s one of the angels… who shortly disappears in a pluff of feathers as he gets hammered in the back by a beam from Raikaron’s outstretched hand. There’s an explosion and a geyser of dirt and snow from one of the meadows below as the angel gets slammed into the ground.

The others may try to dive us. Keep flying towards the lodge and follow my orders as I give them.

I grit my teeth, folding my wings in as I dive again. The blood from the slash on Raikaron’s chest is starting to seep through my duster, dripping down my arms and along my knuckles. I can see the lodge up ahead, and I know it’s close, but it seems so far away when there’s three angels chasing you.

Angle for the maintenance shed on the edge of the lodge property. That is where the gate back to the house is.

Before I can start looking for it, an image of the shed flashes through my head, and can immediately pick it out among the other buildings at the lodge. Flaring my wings, I start coasting again, the tops of the pine trees racing by just below my feet. Then I realize—

“Wait, how do I land?” I shout in panic.

You’ll start to tip your wings up, bend and cup them so they’re catching more air. It will slow you down and angle your body so that your feet can touch down.

“But I’ll have to dive to do that, right?” I shout, studying the edge of the treeline as we come up on it. This is gonna be tight.

Not necessarily, but—

“I’m diving!”

WAIT

It’s too late to stop; I’ve started to tilt forward, folding my wings in as we come over the treeline. We start to hurtle downwards, and I flare my wings when we’re about twenty feet from the ground, gliding low over the pristine white snow. We’ll be at the maintenance shed in seconds…

…which, I now realize, means we’re coming in too fast.

I twist my wings up, bending them and cupping them, trying to brake and slow down as much as I can. But there’s only so much I can do when my feet aren’t touching the ground, and they don’t touch the ground until we’re about ten feet from the wall of the shed. I dig my feet in to try and slow us down further, but my heels just plow up the layer of snow on the ground, offering no resistance. Raikaron throws his arms up at the last moment, trying to shield his face.

Then we hit the wall with the resounding whud of Raikaron getting pancaked between me and the shed.

The impact knocks the breath out of me as we bounce off the wooden wall, sprawling in the snow. I simply lie there for a moment, stunned and breathless, until I feel Raikaron moving, pulling free of me. As he grunts and starts to get upright, I let go of him and start fumbling to do the same, struggling to pull my wings in and get them folded close to my back so they aren’t dragging me backwards. By the time I’m on my knees, I can hear snow crunching heavily beneath feet, and I look over my shoulder to see the other three angels have caught up, and are landing not far off, and much more gracefully than we did.

“Raikaron, they’re coming—” I start to shout, scrambling to get to my feet.

“I know.” he wheezes. There’s the sound of a doorknob being turned, and in the next moment I feel him grab the back of my jacket and haul me through a door that’s appeared in the shed’s wall. Both of us fall through it as halos start chipping the door and bouncing off the shed, Raikaron yanking the door shut behind us.

Both of us go sprawling onto a carpeted floor in sudden, jarring silence. As I lie there, catching my breath and looking around, I realize the air’s much warmer, and the chairs, the couches, the horrid wallpaper are all familiar.

We’re back in the House.

I huff out a relieved breath, letting my head drop down, my horns resting in the carpet. I’m back. I’m safe.

I’m home.

As the pounding of my heart starts to slow down, I realize I can hear something else: slow, labored breathing. Lifting my head, I look to my left to see that Raikaron’s lying on his back next to me, his eyes closed and his chest slowly rising and falling. I can see the slash across his chest properly now, how it cut clean through his coat, vest, and shirt, deep into the flesh underneath. All of it is stained a vivant red.

“No, no no no…” I murmur, pushing up on my hands and knees and scrambling over to him. Blood is still welling up out of the slash; I grab the edges of the coat, trying to pull it over the wound and press down to stem the flow, but it won’t do anything; his coat’s already soaked with blood. Letting go, I press the back of a hand to my mouth, trying to fight down the panic that’s starting to return. I’ve never dealt with an injury this severe before. I don’t know how to fix it, what to do. And there’s so much blood coming up that I think he’s going to die if he doesn’t get attention soon.

Let him die.

The thought drifts through my mind — one of my thoughts, not Raikaron’s. He was the one I signed the contract with, and from what I know about legal and binding agreements for work arrangements, if one of the parties dies, then the other party is released from the terms of the contract. I don’t know if that’s the way it works here in Sjelefengsel, but there’s a chance that it might. That if I just sit here and do nothing, and let him die, then I can walk away free. I no longer have to be chained to this place, to this House. To him.

It would be easy. He looks unconscious. I would just have to sit here and wait until he stopped breathing. This is perhaps the most vulnerable I’ve ever seen him; a Lord of hell, weak and bleeding out on the carpet in his own House. He deserves it, for manipulating me, for tricking me, for turning me into a murderer and slaving me to his will. He deserves it, for everything he’s done to me, and yet, and yet…

He came back for me.

After I ignored the warnings I’d been given, after I got into trouble I couldn’t get myself out of, he came back for me. He’d called in a favor to secure my freedom, and when the Archangel had asked if I was worth it, he’d doubled down. When I was abandoned, he’d come back for me.

I clutch my hands to my chest, starting to rock back and forth as I fight to hold in a scream. Tears well up at the corners of my eyes as I bite my lip at how unfair this all was. I just wanted my world to be black and white. Good and bad. None of this confusing, in-between stuff; this grey, moral fog where there was a maddening overlap between the two. Hunching forward, I touch my forehead to his, letting out a sob as I do so.

“I hate you.” I whisper. The only time I would dare say it to him, knowing that he couldn’t hear me. “I hate you so, so much.” Grabbing the edges of his coat, I try to pull them over the slash in his chest again, as if hiding it would somehow make the wound less severe, or help it heal. Then I start to push to my feet, my legs still shaky from everything I’ve been through, as I start shouting. “Danya? Danya! I need you! Anybody, I need help!”

I start to stumble towards one of the doors, out into one of the halls, picking up speed as I lean forward into a half-run, shouting as I go. Calling Danya’s name, calling for Mek, trying to find anybody in this stupidly large House. I just keep running, belting up the stairs until—

“Jayta!” The sharp bark startles me as I’m rounding the curve on the set of stairs I’m on, and the clack of heels over hardwood is familiar. I look up to see Danya descending the stairs at a rapid clip, a furious scowl on her face. “How dare you return to this House, shouting and screaming like a banshee after everything you’ve put our kind Lord through—”

“Danya— Danya, I need your help, he’s injured—” I blurt out, my voice cracking as a fresh set of sobs starts to work their way up from within me. “He— he was injured on the way back, the Archangel got him—”

Danya stops on the stairs, her irritation immediately morphing into consternation. Then she starts coming down the stairs so rapidly her heels sounds like machine-gun fire on the steps. “Where is he?” she demands, the reprimand in her voice replaced with a commanding urgency.

“In— in the lesser common room, I think, I can’t remember, we just got back, there were angels chasing us—”

Danya doesn’t say anything more, marching right past me and down into the hall proper. I turn and follow her as she starts making her way back through the House; some of the harpies pop into the corridor along the way, having been in search of my earlier shouting. It’s only when I see their nightclothes that I realize how late it is, and the reason no one was answering me is that everyone is probably asleep — it might’ve been day on the planet we were just on, but it’s night here in Sjelefengsel. At any rate, Danya shoos away the harpies without breaking stride, and they start following us once we’ve passed by them.

It’s not more than half a minute before we’re back in the lesser common room, only to find that some of the harpies have already found Raikaron and are clustered around him, wailing daddy, daddy at each other. A single harsh snap from Danya has them scrambling away as she marches over to him and kneels down, peeling back his coat to study the wound underneath. Her brow furrows, bent and ominous like a gathering storm as she assesses the severity of the damage, and she stands up, taking a step back.

“This is beyond my skill.” she murmurs as the crowd of harpies continues to grow. Turning, she extends a hand to a patch of the floor beyond Raikaron’s head. “Mek Yngersol, on my authority as a demon of the Sixth Circle, I grant you a temporary reprieve from your sentence. Come forth. Your Lord has need of you.”

The seal of the House of Regret flares on the ground, scattering some of the harpies nearest to it. When it dims and fades away again, Mek is standing there in his pale pink pajamas, looking rather bewildered to find that he’s no longer trapped in the library.

“Oh my goodness, Danya! This is highly unusual.” he stammers, staring at the crowd of harpies, then seeing me, and finally Raikaron lying on the floor. “Oh my…”

“Jayta says that he was injured while fighting an Archangel.” Danya explains. “Can you mend him? Or at the very least, stabilize him?”

“Let me see.” Mek says, shuffling forward to kneel beside beside Raikaron, gingerly peeling back the layers of his clothes and studying the slash across his chest. Reaching up, he adjusts his spectacles, studying over the length and depth of the injury. “This is more than a mere mortal wound. It has cut deeper than the body. It will not kill him; our Lord is not so frail, and this mortal frame is merely a polite vessel for something more grand by far. Nonetheless, it is a serious injury.”

Manacles start to manifest around Mek’s wrists, with chains dangling from them that have no small number of links. He continues talking as he holds both hands over Raikaron, a crimson nimbus starting to coalesce around our unconscious Lord. “I will place him stasis and see what I can do to mend the damage to his mortal frame, though as demons, you know we’re quite limited in that regard. I can salvage the body, but it may require further convalescence that only time and rest can provide. The spirit will have to heal on its own — there is nothing I can do to accelerate that.”

“So he’s going to be alright?” I ask, cautious but also hopeful.

“He will survive, yes. But he may be in recovery for some time.” Mek says, his hands moving apart to continue covering Raikaron in the crimson nimbus. “We need to get him to his room, where the relevant tools for handling this sort of situation reside. Danya, I will need to borrow the girls to get him up there, and to provide me extra sets of hands while I am tending to this wound.”

“You heard him.” Danya orders to the harpies. “Your Lord needs to be carried to his quarters. Quickly now! And be gentle about it!”

The harpies burst back into motion with that, flocking to Raikaron and carefully getting their arms under him, lifting him up. Mek moves around so he’s cradling Raikaron’s head, keeping it level, and starts directing the harpies on where to go. The procession leaves the room with spare harpies trailing behind, still fretting daddy, daddy as they go. In the subsequent silence, Danya and I are the only ones left in the room. I can tell from the way she looks at me that she’s about to let me have it.

“Did I not warn you? Time and again, did I not warn you?” she hisses. “Lord Syntaritov ought to have left you to your fate, written you off good as dead. That is exactly what any other Lord would have done if one of their demons was captured in a botched miracle heist. It would not have been worth the effort expended to rescue a demon, especially one so callow and inexperienced as you. In fact, speaking objectively, it would not have been a great loss to our ranks; there are several demons among our Lord’s staff who would perform your position far better than you yourself do. I very much doubt your absence would’ve been noticed but for—”

“I know.” I burst out at this point, unable to hold it in any longer. After what I’ve been through over the last three days, I can’t take it anymore. I break down, hiccuping great big ugly sobs, and using my sleeves to wipe my eyes, even though they’re covered in Raikaron’s blood and now I’m getting it all over my face. I hate that I’m like this but it’s just coming out of me and I can’t control it. “I know. I know. I know I should’ve listened, I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to end up like this, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

I don’t know what else to say, don’t know what else I can say, and so I just dissolve into wordless crying at that point. Danya stares at me, then lets out a long sigh, and does something unexpected:

She puts her arms around me and pulls me into a hug.

“If you would let me finish.” she says quietly. “What I was going to say, was that I doubt your absence would’ve been noticed but for the fact that we would’ve missed you.”

I fully break down at that, and she holds me while I cry, letting it all out. Feeling it all crash down on me; Harro’s betrayal, Raikaron’s mercy, Danya’s concern. I have too many emotions to feel; sorrow and guilt but also gratitude and relief. I might’ve been betrayed and abandoned, but there were those who still cared for me and came to get me. I had a family — not a great family, but a family nonetheless.

“There there, little one. Let it all out. Now let’s get you upstairs to your room; you need rest and you’re cold as ice…”