Chapter 43: Marked
Scars in Silver
The gossip erupted like wildfire—Tasiya Losar's nape now bore a second contract sigil, stark against her pale skin.
"Two demons?" whispered a novice in the chapel. "Or did she discard Nathaniel?"
Amos preened in the shadows, convinced he'd orchestrated a masterpiece. Matchmaking suits me, he mused, already drafting mental lists of eligible widows for his perpetually sour father. Gemma, trailing behind, prayed to every saint that her master's newfound hobby wouldn't end in arson.
In the training yard, Redthorn's voice cracked like a whip. "Attunement isn't a dance!" She kicked a trembling student's blade aside. "Your demon's essence should fuse with your veins, not drip like spilled ale!"
Tasiya watched Sigrid struggle on tiptoe for a reagent vial, the new Saintess's gaze flicking repeatedly toward Nathaniel. He stood motionless, a statue draped in silver. Only when Quonji—ever the oblivious knight—handed her the bottle did Sigrid's smile tighten.
Pathetic, Nathaniel's voice purred in Tasiya's mind. She reeks of scripted desperation.
Tasiya said nothing. Let the Saintess play her games.
Gifts in Straw
The winter parcel from the convent smelled of rosemary and regret. Tasiya traced a finger over the clumsily embroidered handkerchief—Nora's work, no doubt. The accompanying letter apologized for missed birthdays, for years of silence.
"They think you crave celebration," Nathaniel observed, plucking a wheat-straw basket from the box. "Shall I drown the chapel in roses? Carve your initials into the moon?"
"Burn it all," she said flatly.
His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Ah, but then how would I prove I know you better than…" He paused, nostrils flaring as Sigrid "tripped" past them for the third time that hour.
Winter's Edge
The mission scroll crackled with frostbite warnings.
"Border of Region One and Eight," Quonji read aloud, his breath fogging the parchment. "Demonic trafficking. Unregistered spawn. Cardiac auctions."
Redthorn's division list sparked fresh murmurs. Quonji led Team One; Tasiya and Sigrid—paired like fire and wet wool—headed Team Two.
Sigrid chose that moment to collapse, her "fainting" arc calculated to land against Nathaniel's chest. He sidestepped, catching Tasiya's waist instead. The Saintess hit mud.
"Sister…" Sigrid blinked up through artful tears, knee scraped to the depth of a mosquito bite. "Could you…?"
Tasiya yanked her trouser hem up, revealing a shin shredded by darkforce shrapnel. "Priorities."
The crowd stilled. Sigrid's porcelain mask slipped, revealing a flash of feral frustration—gone in a heartbeat, replaced by hiccuping apologies.
Nathaniel's laughter vibrated against Tasiya's spine. "Marvelous."
She turned, gripped his collar, and kissed him hard.
Gasps rippled outward. Quonji dropped his sword. Sigrid's nails dug bloody crescents into her palms.
Tasiya pulled back, her stare challenging the gawkers. Mine.
Veiled Blades
Later, in the bone-chill of the armory, Nathaniel traced his swollen lip. "A declaration?"
"A deterrent." She oiled her blade, rhythm steady. "Sigrid's theatrics waste time."
"Jealousy," he sing-songed, dodging the dagger she threw. "Admit it. You—"
"Need you focused." She slammed another knife into the wall. "The border's black market reeks of Serd's schemes. We'll find answers there… or graves."
He stilled. "You think the trafficking ties to his rebellion?"
"Demons don't sell hearts for coin." She met his gaze. "They collect them for war."
Chapter 44: Whispers of Rebellion
A Kiss in the Gathering Storm
The air crackled with unspoken tension. Tasiya stood motionless, her expression as unreadable as ever—yet the way Nathaniel's shadow curled toward her betrayed everything.
When she reached out, he mistook it for a request to be held. Silver lashes fluttered in surprise as her lips met his instead. A gasp rippled through the crowd.
Too long, he thought, hands hovering awkwardly. Human intimacy still baffled him. What was this ritual? A claiming? A prelude to shared warmth? Yet as her teeth grazed his lower lip, something primal stirred—not desire, but the ache of a creature starved for light.
Sigrid's laughter cut through the frozen moment. "Well," she drawled, yanking her hair into a merciless bun, "guess the betting pool's closed." Students gaped as she strode away, the clatter of her discarded silver dagger echoing her contempt.
Judging Eyes
"Her nose is too sharp for classical beauty," sniffed a third-year alchemist.
"Nonsense!" countered a scribe. "It's the contrast—that ice-princess glare paired with—"
"—with a demon who looks like moonlight given form," sighed a kitchen maid. Comparisons to the golden-haired bubbled up, venomous and sweet.
Unseen in the shadows, Kunji's claws dug into stone. Fools. They dissected Tasiya's face like butchers portioning meat, blind to the tectonic shift occurring before them. A human and demon, not master and servant, but equals—and the Church's walls trembled with the heresy of it.
Council of Desperation
King Ignatius slammed his fist onto the war table. "Your 'elite' teams vanish like tavern drunks! What good are rituals older than my grandfather's corpse if we can't—"
"Patience, Your Majesty." Cardinal Reynold's smile could frost hell itself. "The Mother Pool births three new demons per hour. Surely… adjustments can be made."
Ignatius recoiled. He hated that pulsing abyss beneath the palace—the way it whispered of his ancestors' bargains. Now this sanctimonious prune suggested feeding it more souls?
"Or," the Cardinal continued, "we could recall Lady Renné from Sector Six. Her… collaboration with the Archdemon Sykes has proven… innovative."
The unspoken truth hung like smoke: Nathaniel's bond with Tasiya had broken rules older than the crown itself. And the Church feared nothing more than a good example.
Chains of the Past
Midnight found Tasiya tracing the scars on Nathaniel's wings—raised lines where holy chains had once bitten deep.
"They'll come for you," she murmured, not as warning, but fact.
He caught her hand, pressing it to the rune over his heart. "Let them." Centuries of kneeling to priests hadn't saved his kind. Perhaps defiance would.
Outside, the first snow began to fall—white on black, like ash from a distant fire.
Sector Three's Lament
Deep in the volcanic maze, Captain Terence gnawed moldy bread. His missing teams' names haunted the cavern walls: Jaster. Lila. Thom. All swallowed by the Archdemon Serth's laughter.
A scout stumbled in, eyes wild. "The lava—it's forming letters!"
Terence followed to a cliff's edge. Below, molten rock writhed into words:
YOUR KINGDOM BUILT OUR CAGES
NOW WATCH THEM MELT
Ephemeral Peace
Back in their quarters, Nathaniel hovered over battle reports. Tasiya draped a quilt around his shoulders—a human gesture, absurd and tender.
"Will it be war?" she asked, already knowing.
He pulled her into his lap, wings cocooning them both. "Yes."
But for this heartbeat, stolen between sirens and scheming, they breathed.
Chapter 45: Flames and Shadows
Inferno at Dawn
The dormitories burned.
Stone walls groaned under licks of flame, wooden beams collapsing like kindling. Smoke choked the corridors—thick, acrid, strategic. Tasiya hovered above the capital with Nathaniel's claws digging into her ribs, counting the blazes blooming across the city.
"Not random," she hissed. Firelight flickered in her pupils, mapping patterns. The granaries untouched. The armory pristine. "They're herding panic."
Nathaniel dove. His wings snapped shut an inch above cobblestones, depositing her barefoot beside a water brigade. Students scrambled with buckets, their faces smudged charcoal-black.
Like the battlefield visions, Tasiya realized. The ones where she'd died young.
She ripped her cloak, wrapping shredded velvet around blistered soles. A hand seized her elbow—Maela, trembling, shoving boots into her arms. "Take these! I'll—I'll pray instead!"
The lie hung unspoken: You're the one who needs to survive.
Demons wove through flames, their silhouettes warped by heat haze. Nathaniel emerged from a collapsing archway, two coughing first-years slung over his shoulders. His gaze locked onto Tasiya's bandaged feet.
A demon's rage, cold and precise.
Smoke and Mirrors
The throne room reeked of lavender polish and fear.
King Ignatius IV watched Nathaniel land on his Persian rug without flinching. "You've aged poorly," he drawled, eyeing Tasiya's soot-streaked face. "Last portrait showed you with fewer… scorch marks."
Tasiya's toes curled into the carpet. "Your Majesty, the fires—"
"—are a distraction. Yes." The king flicked a hand toward stained-glass windows. Beyond them, the Sacred Pool glimmered, untouched. "They want us frantic. Divided. Easy to gut."
Nathaniel stepped forward. Shadows pooled at his feet, ink-black and hungry. "The Library."
Ignatius froze.
By the time they arrived, the archives' lower floors had melted into a funeral pyre for knowledge. Charred pages spiraled upward like ash moths. Reynard, the High Confessor, knelt beside a shackled demon—its horns sawed to stubs, eyes leaking oily tears.
"He did this?" Tasiya whispered.
Nathaniel's hand closed around the demon's skull. Memories bled into the air:
A cellar reeking of rot. Whispers from a shadow with too many teeth. "Burn their history… make them forget…"
The demon whimpered. "Lord Serath said—said if we erase their past, they'll… beg us to rule…"
Reynard snorted. "Serath? That overgrown tick? Since when do mid-tier lackeys think in metaphors?"
Cracks in the Abyss
Midnight pooled in the library's ruins. Nathaniel paced the scorched philosophy aisle, his boots crunching on glass.
"He's right," Tasiya said. Moonlight cut through smoke holes, sharpening her profile. "This reeks of higher demons. Serath's a pawn."
The High Confessor adjusted his monocle. "Ah, but pawns win games when the board's tilted. Our… problem," he gestured to the shivering arsonist, "is that Serath's faction isn't alone. Every mid-rank demon with a grudge now thinks rebellion's fashionable."
Ignatius leaned against a half-melted bust of Saint Livia. "So we offer better fashion. Incentives. Three annual tributes, perhaps? Volunteers to—"
"No."
The word hung frozen. Nathaniel turned, amethyst eyes reflecting the king's startled flush. "You misunderstand. They don't want meat. They want fear."
Tasiya's palm found his sleeve. A silent plea: Don't say it.
He said it anyway.
"Appoint me as Archon of the Third Territory."
Reynard dropped his prayer beads.
The Price of a Crown
Chaos erupted.
"Preposterous!" Ignatius roared. "A demon governing a zone? The treaties—"
"—were signed when your great-grandfather wore diapers." Nathaniel's smile showed fangs. "Appoint me, and within a week, every demon flocking to Serath will kneel to me instead. Their hierarchy's simple: bow to the strongest."
Tasiya's nails drew blood through his shirt. "You can't. The corruption—"
"I've swallowed worse."
The confession hung between them, sour as poison. She saw it then—the truth he'd buried in shared memories. Every time she'd died, he'd gorged on demon hearts to maintain strength. To keep chasing her soul.
Reynard cleared his throat. "There's… precedent. The First King's journals mention a provisional—"
"No." Tasiya stepped forward, ash swirling at her heels. "We find another way. One that doesn't require him to become what we're fighting."
Nathaniel caught her wrist. "Little saint," he murmured, too soft for others to hear, "when will you learn? I've always been worse."
Embers of Dawn
They argued until sunrise.
In the end, Ignatius conceded nothing. Reynard scribbled compromises. Tasiya stared at the dying fires, wondering when smoke became inseparable from air.
On the flight back, she pressed her cheek to Nathaniel's chest. His heartbeat thudded slower than humans—a glacier's rhythm.
"Would it be so bad?" she asked. "Ruling them?"
His wings dipped, skimming treetops. "I'd have to kill thousands. Millions, if they resist."
"And if you refuse?"
"Then Serath wins. Your sisters die. The Third Territory collapses."
She closed her eyes. Somewhere below, a new fire sparked.