by Rhyll Biest
‘Before I go …’ Lore’s voice was a dusty whisper and Valeda had to bring her ear close.
‘Yes?’
‘Horror birds have the longest tongue of any mammal in Hell relative to body size. Their long, narrow tongues can reach deep into the bodies of prey and suck them dry. When the tongue retracts, it coils up inside its rib cage.’
Valeda laughed. And while she was still laughing, Lore died. That was a thing. How many she-demons had an archdemon die in their presence?
She stared at Lore’s face, which was as frozen in repose as it had been in life.
Is that what would happen to her if she took on more maleficence? Would it freeze her from the inside out, killing joy, fear and happiness? Would it reduce Adriel and her derby friends to mere memories?
But we want it, her inner voices whispered. We can all be together.
Valeda shuddered to think how many voices there’d be in her head once she took Lore’s maleficence. The coldness of the silver ring burned her hand so she rested it on the fragile bed of bones serving as the floor. She picked up and studied the gold ring with her heart set in it. Such a tiny thing and yet so important. And soon to be lost to her forever.
The bones carpeting the floor stirred as Lymenia reappeared, her heels scorching the white carpet of osseous tissue black.
One look at her sister’s face and Valeda knew something was wrong. ‘What is it?’
Concern darkened Lymenia’s gaze. ‘My legions took the tower from below, and the captain’s forces secured the upper battlements, but he was taken captive.’
No. Her hand clenched around the ring with her heart set in it. ‘How?’
Lymenia gave a sharp shake of her head. ‘I don’t know, but Paimon is demanding the unconditional surrender of the king and our mother for the safe return of the captain.’
The queen would never surrender to her son. Never. Pain, cold and cutting, sliced through her brain as she pictured Paimon killing Adriel. No, not again. Anything but that.
‘Valeda?’
‘What?’
‘Did you hear what I just said? They’re holding Adriel hostage. Unless both armies surrender, they’ll kill him. And Paimon wants to speak with you.’
Of course he does.
Valeda glanced at the silver ring on the carpet of bones. The extra maleficence in her veins, so cold and cutting, sliced through any sentimentality, reminding her that she already knew what she had to do.
She raised the gold ring and handed it to Lymenia who stared at it.
‘Thanks, but you know I’m not really into bling, right?’
‘That’s my heart. Don’t lose it.’
Lymenia raised an eyebrow. ‘Shouldn’t you hang on to it then?’
Valeda picked up the burning cold silver ring and tried to ignore the drooling excitement of her imaginary friends. ‘There’s something I have to do first.’
Chapter 17
Valeda looked up at the three moons dripping blood.
An optical illusion caused by the millions of corpse flies swarming, that was all.
But it was unsettling.
Almost as unsettling as the carnage around her. The mass surrounding Paimon’s fortress had filled with blood, while a knee-deep shag pile of trampled corpses adorned the battlefield.
There was no avoiding the mess. Her feet skidded in the mire, and only the balance she’d honed through roller derby training kept her from falling face-first into the filth.
A dead hellhound caught her eye.
She crouched by it as a mournful wind ruffled its black fur. Already misted over with a milky caul, the creature’s dead eyes stared through her and a moment of memory pierced her—the moment when Adriel had rested his enormous black head in her lap, his hot breath warming her hands. She stroked the hellhound’s muzzle. The shapes of its eyes and ears were wrong, too small. She knew it wasn’t him.
No, he was inside the fortress, her brother’s dagger at his throat.
A fallen dread mare moaned nearby, its suffering as evident as its spilled intestines. Unable to heal it, she froze it solid, an instant, merciful death that would deny any horror birds who sought to make it their meal. She stared across the endless carpet of dead, the expanse of the fallen mocking her. Would she need to do the same for Adriel? Would she need to slaughter him mercifully?
You’ll never find him anyway, the more wicked voices among her new guests mocked her.
Shut up.
Adriel had been taken captive. How? He had so much fire and courage. And oh, how she’d learned to enjoy that fire, his brash, brazen ways.
Lore’s gift burned hotter on her finger and she removed it, turning it this way and that under the light of the bleeding moons, grimacing at its searing touch.
Almost as searing as the realisation that Semya was right. Valeda had walled herself in by trying to protect herself from love, thereby trapping herself more effectively than her brother had. So much for her supposed freedom. Adriel had spoken the truth—his love was nothing like her brother’s. He’d respected her decision to face Cadere without him, and he had instead fought her brother as she’d asked. Those were not the actions of someone determined to control another.
She could have loved him and been free if she’d helped him earlier. If she hadn’t been afraid. Her throat tightened.
Closing her eyes against the haemorrhaging moons, she opened her mouth wide, dropped the ring into it and swallowed Lore’s last gift.
A shower of sparks flew up behind her eyes as frozen power more bitter than a thousand loves lost exploded on her tongue. It slid all the way down her throat, rattled her ribs and stabbed at her stomach before resting, cold and gloating in her belly.
She opened her eyes to a new world.
A billion colours and lights were revealed for the first time, winding tendrils of chemical trails and rivers of scent. Her skin was a pulsing network of sensors now truly aware of the strange currents in the air. Within her was a song of caution, a lament of betrayal with Lore’s voice uppermost in the aria, warning that although Valeda was powerful, an archdemon, enemies lurked nearby, lurked everywhere. They wanted to hurt her, to take from her.
Enemies.
Who were they? Who was she?
The sensual world swirling around her made it impossible to remember, as did the clamour of voices in her head. And yet something called to her …
It was distant and yet close enough to run to.
It was something lovely. You smell of freshly fallen snow.
She looked up at the fortress battlements.
Her beloved was up there. Or was it her hellhound? No matter, if it was precious to her then she would find it, reclaim what belonged to her.
With a thought, she air-walked to the top of the fortress battlements, her boots absorbing messages from the stone. A fierce battle had been waged upon it, blood spilled. A weeping worm wriggled at her feet.
Vile thing. She squashed it under her boot to focus on the she-demon with yellow hair leaning against the ramparts, the wind pulling her mane into a streaming banner.
Was the she-demon hard of hearing? Perhaps she had been deafened by whatever had scorched the stone around her. A dead soldier vaguely familiar to her lay by her feet, his face turned blue from poison. Ipoh? Ion?
It didn’t really matter. He wasn’t the one she sought.
Valeda took one silent step towards the she-demon, another. To her it was odd that the yellow-haired she-demon didn’t sense her; she felt so alive, like a beacon of energy. No, she was a walking solar flare. And the yellow-haired she-demon’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. The thunder of life. She liked it.
She stood directly behind the stranger and admired her amber aura before speaking. ‘Hello, who are you?’
The she-demon whirled, her yellow eyes narrowing as she looked Valeda up and down with disdain. ‘You should remember me. I helped feed your lover’s heart to you.’
Deep within Valeda’s mind a memory trembled, then
fell like a droplet into still water, setting the meniscus trembling. ‘Ursus.’
‘That’s me.’
‘And you’re my enemy?’
‘You could say that.’ The she-demon spat a mouthful of venom in Valeda’s face.
The green ooze dripped down her chin to land on her ice armour, burning a hole through it.
Valeda blinked and wiped the spit from her face with distaste, self-repairing the low-level damage to her skin and pushing the toxins out in a harmless green sweat. ‘Spitting? Really? What finishing school did you go to?’
The she-demon’s eyes widened, sulphur depths filled with alarm.
Valeda laughed. ‘What, am I meant to fall down dead from a bit of skank spit?’
Ursus edged away, and as Valeda stalked her all the voices inside her clamoured, jostling for a better look through her eyes. We love to hunt. Strike her down, drink her blood and then she’ll be part of us.
Yeah, just what I need, another voice to nag me.
She cocked her head as Ursus backed away. ‘Scurtbeast got your tongue?’
Ursus reached in her pocket, withdrawing a small pouch. ‘I hope you surrender to Paimon so we don’t have to kill the captain. He’s too pretty to kill.’
Valeda shrugged. As far as arguments went, it made sense. ‘I agree. As a general rule we shouldn’t kill the pretty ones, or there wouldn’t be enough left to go around.’
‘I’m glad we agree on that.’ Ursus hurled her pouch and a bile yellow powdery substance exploded in Valeda’s face.
The acid pollen—sarin perhaps?—seared her lungs and forced a sneeze from her, but it didn’t stop her from marching up to Ursus. She punched her in the face. ‘Poison is for pussies.’
Ursus staggered back, nose streaming blood, shaking her head. Valeda followed up with a much harder punch, this one to the chest, her fist breaking ribs so that her hand could dive right through the rib cage and grasp the slippery, wet organ that kept Ursus alive.
Valeda squeezed it. What a weak, mortal balloon is that thing called a heart. Why would anyone keep it in such an obvious place?
She smiled as she ripped it free, still beating, from the she-demon’s chest. Ursus stared at it as Valeda raised it before her eyes. ‘That’s for spitting. Nobody likes a spitter. Why do you think everyone hates spitting spiders so much?’
The she-demon’s jaw dropped before her eyes rolled up and she collapsed in a heap. Valeda cocked her head, staring hard to fix the image of her enemy fallen at her feet in her memory, before she dropped the meat in her fist and absent-mindedly wiped her hand clean on her armour of ice.
It was nice armour.
Mine, a voice from within insisted. Lore’s.
‘No, ours.’ Everyone inside needed to learn to share.
Drink her blood, another voice whispered. The thought made her nose wrinkle. Not now, I’m busy.
She stilled as she listened for more heartbeats. Hearing none, she opened the heavy door leading to the stairwell.
And paused.
She sensed movement and voices, perhaps two levels down. Many heartbeats.
Oh, happy times, we’re hunting again.
The maleficence sang in her veins, rejoicing in the destruction and violence. Eat their hearts, chew their bones, wear their entrails …
Shhh. Focus.
She skipped down the stairs leading to the lower levels and paused at the sight of several bodies littering an antechamber.
Killed by poison.
Curious.
And sad.
Mixed with her predatory joy were memories, memories of every demon that had ever slighted or hurt her house guests, and there were many. Betraying husbands, homicidal siblings, unfaithful friends, enemies turned unexpectedly strong in battle. A thousand unhugged hurts. Someone had to pay for them, those wounds that still stung like slezak venom.
She skipped on, rounded a bend and slammed into a she-demon. A mould green gaze collided with hers and she felt a tug at the cellular level, a compulsion to let her blood cells burst and gush.
‘Oh, no you won’t.’ She laughed before grabbing the she-demon by the throat, holding her there with one gauntlet of ice. ‘Do I know you?’
The she-demon tried to speak but only a gargle came out.
‘Actually, I don’t care. I’m going to rip your tiny head off anyway.’ She did, and she was impressed with the results, considering how small her hands were. It was interesting what could be done to a demon body when one had the strength and will to apply great force.
She tossed the head and it sailed through an already broken window. Bright green blood flew to spatter the jagged glass before running down the panes, dripping to splash on the stone floor. Blood could be so very playful. The next time she clawed a demon open from stem to stern she would take a moment to enjoy the graceful way the innards painted her surrounds. War was impressionist art, and she liked to paint with broad brushstrokes.
Life was lovely. Everything was good.
Humming, she skipped down the hallway, stumbling to a stop when she almost collided with a gold-skinned she-demon with eyes as black as dead pools.
The she-demon smiled at her, but the smile quickly faltered, replaced by a rictus of disbelieving horror as she eyed the gore smearing Valeda’s hands, arms and ice armour.
Valeda cocked her head. The face was familiar to her but she couldn’t put a name to it.
I know her, but I don’t know her.
It gave her pause. Who was this she-demon to look at her like that? And why would the she-demon look at her that way? Unless … unless she had forgotten something important? Impossible, she was an archdemon, an almost god. She did not make mistakes. Not ones that mattered, anyway. She raised a hand to kill the she-demon.
‘Valeda!’ A tall flame-haired she-demon appeared and stood by the gold-skinned one, her red arms covered in a fine, pale crisscross of scars.
Who was Valeda?
The truth hit her like a club. She was. She was Valeda. Carried away by the memories of the others, she’d lost herself. Her eyes took in the gore running down her front. What had she done?
And where was Adriel?
‘Manky mons of a minotaur, Cinna, she doesn’t recognise us, does she?’ Lymenia took Cinna’s hand.
‘I do.’ Valeda’s own voice surprised her. It was the voice of a thousand rushing winds, a bloodstained hurricane, eternal and yet uncertain. Being an archdemon was confusing. ‘Why am I here?’ There was some urgent purpose to her presence, and yet it escaped her at that moment.
Cinna spoke. ‘I think you ate Lore’s maleficence so you could save Adriel from Paimon.’
‘What was that like?’ Lymenia raised an eyebrow.
‘Bitter.’ Paimon. Yes. She remembered Paimon; he wanted to harm her beloved, Marasat. No, Adriel. Hand on her head, she tried to sort out the thousands of lives threading through her mind. Adriel. Where was he? What was he doing?
She extended psychic tendrils and found his energy signature. His maleficence burned, a bright light that called to her and played about her, alighting on her senses like burnt caramel. But under the caramel lay coppery fear and pain, undertones of a body bludgeoned and tortured.
An enraged shriek escaped her, causing a section of stone wall to crumble and smash on the floor below. The two she-demons fell to their knees, faces contorted in pain, hands pressed to their ears, blood trickling through their fingers.
He belongs to me. Valeda scanned her surroundings to find her way to Adriel. Once through with those hurting him, she’d string their innards across the fortress to make the biggest, bloodiest wind chimes Hell had ever seen, and then create an eternal hurricane to play it.
Ice sprang from her palms to form two long swords. She hefted them, getting a sense of their balance, before striding, both swords raised, into a throne room.
Paimon sat, a rotting, empty puppet, with the unconscious Adriel in hellhound form at his diseased feet. Adriel was tied to the ground with ropes.
A prisoner.
Like she had once been.
Black bile, a slurry of hate so pungent it suffocated, rose in her. The others inside her screamed at her to rend Paimon to shreds, but she leashed them, tugging hard on the choke chain of restraint she’d mastered over the centuries, to focus on Adriel. She would heal him before she killed Paimon. Otherwise she might forget.
Memories, her own and those of the others, swirled through her, muddying her purpose. The others snapped and snarled, eager for blood.
Why did the hellhound matter? She was losing her mind and didn’t know why he mattered, only knew that he did matter, was everything.
The dozens of former hosts now living in her fought for control of her thoughts. She snarled at them, lashing out at the ghosts haunting her mind. She was fucking lead jammer, the underpants were firmly on her head, and they had to follow her play.
Her nerves screamed as those within her punished her for resisting by delivering a mule’s kick to her ribs and stabbing a searing hot skewer through her brain. They lashed at her with the viciousness of a cat-o’-nine-tails.
Fuck them, she would prevail. She would have her hound.
***
Pain lanced Adriel all over. For a full second of dread he thought the weeping worms had him again but as he rose to full consciousness he felt the rope nooses tight around his throat, fibres digging deep into his flesh, and a heaviness mid-spine instead of his legs. He tried to get to his feet but his limbs didn’t obey, resting as heavy as meat instead of moving into action.
My spine must be broken.
They’d had to beat him with heavy clubs to tie his rope to the floor, and what did they care if they broke his spine in the process?
As he roused, voices penetrated his haze of pain, male and female. His nose twitched. The smell of snow.
Valeda.
He opened his eyes.
A white figure stood before Paimon—her aura spread like wide, white wings—a dazzling spotlight against the cold, grey stone of the chamber. It was Valeda, slight and valiant in her ice armour, a sword of ice in each hand pointed at Paimon who lounged, at ease, upon his throne upholstered with flayed skin.
