Chapter 19: Feathers and Fiscal Policy
Scene 1: Ornithological Negotiations
The memory of Tasiya annotating Gods & Daemons with his shed feathers flickered behind Nathaniel's eyelids—her ink-stained fingers, the sunlit curl of her hair.
"Molting is… personal," he managed, wings twitching under her scrutiny.
Tasiya withdrew her hand. "Forget I asked."
"Wait—" He trapped her wrist against his primary covert feathers, their iridescence clashing with his strained tone. "If we're to travel together, certain privacies must… adjust."
"Then sell me the feathers." She tilted her head. "Price?"
Nathaniel's pinions flared. "Sell? Do I look like a poultry merchant?"
The girl blinked, uncomprehending.
"Never mind." He yanked her toward the sulfurous springs, talons digging crescent moons into volcanic soil. "Focus on not dissolving the drivers."
Scene 2: Acidic Logistics
Cart wheels groaned under necro-colloid loads. Drivers muttered about Fifth District's "peacock envoys" while dumping gelatinous horrors into fuming vents.
"Careful with epidermal remnants." Tasiya demonstrated with a stick. "Splashes cause third-degree hydrolysis."
A driver palmed sweat. "Like that time Sister Agatha tried distilling wine—"
"Focus." Her sickle tapped his boot. "Fifth District's spies are watching. Let them report our… efficiency."
Nathaniel monitored the northern ridge—silhouettes with Fifth District's telltale feathered cloaks. Perfect.
Scene 3: Nocturnal Thermodynamics
Midnight winds gnawed through wool. Tasiya's joints ached, her breath crystallizing.
"Still playing martyr?" Nathaniel inched closer, wings twitching.
"Demons don't freeze." She eyed his plumage. "Nor do they require sleep."
"Fine." His primaries enveloped her in a bioluminescent cocoon. "But if you get drool on my tertials—"
Tasiya buried chilled fingers in his scapulars. "Soft."
The demon stiffened.
"Pity you're not a proper bird." Her whisper dissolved into sleep.
Scene 4: Breakfast Geopolitics
Vincentia's dining hall smelled of burnt alloy and blackmail.
"Fifth District's brothels run on our barley." The Marquis refilled Tasiya's tea. "Every vice-taxed pint of ale—60% profit margin."
Tasiya dissected her quail egg. "But the broken gates—"
"A ruse." He tapped blueprints stamped METALLURGICAL REVISION 19-A. "Your sisters' 'recruits' developed tungsten-carbide plating. We'll install it once the traitors reveal themselves."
Nathaniel materialized behind them. "Speaking of revelations—Seketh's been dumped at the gates. Third District refugees incoming."
Scene 5: Borderland Calculus
The courtyard teemed with ash-coated survivors.
"Third District borders Seventh's reactor zones." Nathaniel projected a holographic map—blight patterns radiating from geothermal plants. "These aren't refugees. They're contamination vectors."
Tasiya activated her crucifix's spectral analyzer. "Necro-colloid residue in their lungs. They'll erupt within 48 hours."
The Marquis sighed. "Quarantine protocols?"
"Already initiated." She gestured to nuns distributing respirators. "But if Seventh District's weaponizing colloid spread…"
Nathaniel's grin turned feral. "Then Seketh's 'capture' was a gift. Let's dissect the package."
Chapter 20: Sacrificial Calculus
Scene 1: Threshold of Desolation
The refugees shuffled through the gates like ash-gray specters, their hollow gazes skimming over bloodstained cobblestones. Lord Vincent's arrival scattered the guards into frenzied salutes.
"Seventh District's gates were besieged," a soldier reported. "They detoured here, my lord."
"Double the checkpoints," the Marquis ordered, his voice glacial. "Cross-examine every claim about kin or trade routes."
Nathaniel emerged from the shadows, his new cloak conspicuously intact. "The bait's over there." He gestured toward the wall where Seketh lay contorted—a grotesque parody of his human form, horns splintered, tail severed at the base.
Tasiya crouched, clinically assessing the demon's goat-skull visage. "Church frescoes got the morphology right for once."
Raynia's glare silenced her. "He's fading. We need solutions, not taxonomy."
Scene 2: Cost-Benefit Liturgy
Nathaniel traced the whip marks seared into Seketh's spine—glyphs only demonic eyes could decipher. "To revive him requires a Cardiac Covenant. One life extinguished to reignite his core."
"Let me—" Tasiya began.
"No!" Raynia and Nathaniel barked in unison.
The Marquis stepped forward. "Seketh sustained my lands for a century. The debt is mine."
"Your political value outweighs sentimental obligations," Raynia countered. "A senior cleric's mana would—"
"Enough." Tasiya sliced through the debate. "He's unconscious. How does the ritual even work?"
Nathaniel's smile sharpened. "Ah, that's the trap. The sacrificer must volunteer with full awareness. No coercion. No loopholes."
Scene 3: Crowd-Sourced Martyrdom
Guards and officials erupted into performative altruism, each vying for the honor of self-immolation. Tasiya dragged Nathaniel aside.
"Why the theatrics?"
"Demonic auditors." He nodded toward crows perched on the battlements. "They expected us to sacrifice refugees. Instead…" He gestured at the arguing nobles. "...we're staging this farce."
The performance shattered when Sister Meraida stumbled through the crowd, her wails slicing through the rhetoric.
"Let me die!" She clawed at her pristine habit. "The Gray Scales—I feel them crawling under my skin!"
Raynia embraced the trembling girl. "Dr. Vossiter cleared you. This is trauma, not infection."
But the crowd recoiled. Gray Scales—the disease that turned neighbors into scale-armored slaughterers—required zero-tolerance protocols. Whispers metastasized: Better safe than massacred.
Scene 4: Love as Currency
Tasiya isolated Nathaniel near the granary. "If I contract with you instead—"
His breath hitched.
"—could you safeguard Vincentia?"
"I don't want your heart," he murmured, repeating their old refrain.
"Then what?"
"Your love." The words escaped like a trapped thing. "Swear to love me, and I'll burn continents for this wretched backwater."
Before she could respond, villagers stormed the gates, pitchforks gleaming.
"Enlightened mercy!" A matriarch shoved past guards. "Let the girl ascend to heaven through fire! Or is your compassion just hypocrisy, Raynia?"
The mob roared approval. Crows took flight, carrying the scene's visceral tension toward unseen watchers.
Chapter 21: Cardiac Calculus
Scene 1: Hagiographic Hostility
Reynia's arrival in Vincent Hollows had been met with papal fanfare—until her disdain for scripture and acid-tongued confessions eroded her halo. The villagers tolerated her only through Lady Vincent's patronage.
But when Daisy's bastard birth scandal erupted, Reynia became the nexus of every conspiracy:
Hypothesis A: Collusion in Lady Vincent's affairs via convent secrecy
Hypothesis B: Ritual sacrifice of past squad members (correlated to 87% fatality rates in her missions)
Hypothesis C: Economic sabotage via plummeting baptism rates
Now, facing a mob weaponizing these theories, Tasiya's fingers twitched toward her dagger. Nathaniel intercepted with preternatural reflexes.
"Counterproductive," he hissed. "Their neural pathways are calcified against truth. Observe."
His wings erupted in a photonic cascade, freezing the crowd mid-roar. Three handmaidens materialized—one retrieving Seketh's comatose form, the others spiriting away the gray-scale-afflicted Melarda.
"Divine verdict rendered," Nathaniel intoned. The mob gaped at his manufactured theophany.
Scene 2: Paternal Algorithms
Lord Vincent's arrival completed the choreography. Soldiers encircled the instigators as he addressed Tasiya with glacial remorse: "Regret matrices cannot recalibrate past vectors."
Tasiya's response was pure logic gate: "Acknowledged. Current governance parameters remain optimal."
The reborn father-daughter dynamic fascinated Nathaniel. He cataloged their microexpressions:
Lord Vincent: 34% guilt, 41% tactical reassessment, 25% epigenetic anxiety
Tasiya: 62% ambivalence, 28% resource-allocation analysis, 10% latent childhood trauma
Reynia's black vestments deepened the tableau—a walking null set amidst the chaos.
Scene 3: Hematologic Theater
The convent's clandestine meeting revealed Nathaniel's endgame: two bound demons, one wearing a soldier's skinned visage.
"Observe the variables," he cheerfully explained. "Demon A: Espionage. Demon B: Murder/impersonation. Both: Delicious."
Tasiya monitored the captive's biometric spikes as Nathaniel's hand morphed into an onyx scalpel. The cardiac extraction was clinical—no wasted motion, minimal hematoma.
"Nutrient-rich," he remarked, forcing Seketh to ingest the still-twitching organ. "Reboot protocols initiated."
The surviving demon soiled itself, babbling about anthropophagic equivalency.
Tasiya dismissed the analogy with a surgeon's detachment: "Taxonomic divergence invalidates your moral framework. Next."
Scene 4: Ethical Kernel
Reynia's crisis manifested as a 0.7-second eyelid tremor. The ethical dilemma—demonic cardiophagy vs human welfare—collided with her crumbling dogma.
Nathaniel's post-op demeanor fascinated Tasiya. Query: Do non-Euclidean biology organs exhibit different tactile properties? Her fingers itched to probe his latent demonic features.
He preempted her with vulpine charm: "Performance review, my lady?"
Tasiya's response was a 12% smirk increase. "Adequate. Pending longitudinal study."
Chapter 22: Cardiac Toxicology & Covenantal Calculus
Scene 1: Silver Servility
Nathaniel bent at the waist, moonlight catching the waterfall of his hair as it framed Tasiya's face. His gaze burned with rehearsed devotion—the hollow perfection of a wind-up songbird.
Tasiya's fingers twitched.
Raynia cleared her throat. "How long until Seketh wakes? What's the cardiac toxicity risk?"
"Variable." Nathaniel straightened, clinical. "Demon hearts carry neurolytic venoms. Survival depends on metabolic neutralization."
As if cued, Seketh convulsed, expelling the still-pulsing heart onto the flagstones.
Maid B fished it from bile with gloved hands. "Third attempt." She reinserted it like stuffing a holiday goose.
Raynia pinched her nasal bridge. "Pain management?"
"Demons don't medicate." Nathaniel's smile turned serrated. "Evolution's joke—immortal yet irreparable."
Scene 2: Aviary Ethics
Tasiya stalked the remaining demon, its wings snapped at the tertials. "Run faster."
The demon zigzagged through timber supports, hyperventilating.
"Here." Nathaniel materialized with a lacquered case. "Armillary spheres laced with necro-colloid."
Tasiya's third throw pinned the demon to a fresco of Saint Caelia. Its whimper harmonized with roof tiles clattering to the courtyard.
Raynia watched through the warped glass, quill suspended. This grotesque pantomime... almost resembles family.
Scene 3: Pedagogical Poison
By midnight, Seketh's thrashing subsided. Nathaniel rinsed gore from his hands, expectant as a praised hound.
"Double dosage?" Raynia eyed the second eviscerated demon.
"Strategic acceleration." He blotted his palms on Tasiya's sleeve. "Consciousness invites cowardice. Let his id metabolize the venom."
The letters materialized with finality.
"For the Academy." Raynia pressed wax seals into twin envelopes. "Tasiya attends the Demonology track. You—" She skewered Nathaniel. "—play her contracted wraith."
"Delightful!" His grin eclipsed the oil lamps.
Scene 4: Gray-Scale Gambit
Meraida's shadow pooled at Raynia's desk. "Recommend me too."
"Even knowing the trials?"
"Better than waiting for scales to crack my skin." The nun's laugh curdled. "Let me die useful."
Raynia's quill hesitated—then slashed crimson across parchment. Let the Academy's crucible temper her ghosts.
Scene 5: Tertiary District Theatre
In Oinefor's obsidian spire, a pink-haired demon stamped her hoof. "Two familiars gone! Your brilliant plan—"
Serd reclined on human-skin tapestries. "Nathaniel's chasing some mortal girl? How pedestrian."
"Should we intercept the Academy convoy?"
"Let the cattle stampede." His claw traced contamination vectors on a war map. "When plague pits overflow, even shepherds get devoured."
Chapter 23: Taxonomic Fallacy
Scene 1: Capital Optics
The cobblestones of Pister District gleamed under a merciless sun, their geometric precision mocking Vincent Hollows' mud-choked lanes. Melarda clutched her threadbare satchel. "Tasiya… everything here looks richer than your manor."
"Threefold inflation," Tasiya muttered, eyeing a jeweler's gilded signage. "We'll need revenue streams."
Lord Vincent's stipend had evaporated into Raynia's coffers and Melarda's medicinal tinctures. Now, facing the Order's neoclassical archway—its layered carvings of angels and sinners glaring in bas-relief—Tasiya marched past the iconography without blinking.
Melarda lingered in the third courtyard's statue gallery. "Aren't the saints magnificent?"
"Overcompensation," Tasiya countered. "Smaller gods need louder propaganda."
Scene 2: Bureaucratic Theophagy
The registrar's quill froze mid-scribble.
"You're the contractor?" Blair's monocle slipped. "But—the demonic aura—"
Nathaniel's laughter ricocheted off vaulted ceilings. "Ah, the perils of physiognomic bias."
Tasiya's bone structure—cheekbones sharp enough to flay heresy, pupils dilated in permanent low-light adaptation—had triggered Blair's demon-recognition protocols. His colleagues erupted in schadenfreude.
"Procedure mandates separation," Blair croaked. "Master to the right wing, contracted entity to the left."
"Define 'entity,'" Tasiya deadpanned.
Nathaniel's wings twitched under glamour. "Shall I disrobe? Confirm tail absence?"
Melarda's arrival with duplicate Raynia-signed documents plunged Blair into existential despair.
Scene 3: Biometric Blasphemy
The medics clucked over Tasiya's clavicle-to-BMI ratio. "44kg? You'll snap during exorcism drills!"
Tasiya ignored them, cross-referencing Raynia's intel:
Order Hierarchy: Divine Envoy Corps (combat), Silent Choir (intel), Hospitallers (logistics)
Melarda's Path: 89% probability assigned to trauma-informed Hospitaller track
When Melarda emerged post-measurements, her jawline had regained 12% rigidity. "I'll survive."
Tasiya's nod carried ancestral approval.
Scene 4: Cohabitational Calculus
The quartermaster tossed them a key. "Double occupancy. Bonding exercises mandatory."
Nathaniel's glamour flickered. "This… contravenes decorum."
Tasiya assessed the suite's security vectors: lead-lined walls, arsenic-laced draperies. "Take the inner chamber. I'll monitor ingress points."
"Monitor me?"
"Contingency planning." She unholstered silver-plated calipers. "Your wing joints destabilized during registration. Requires structural analysis."
He surrendered to the diagnostics—and her clinical detachment.