Daemon: A Reverse Harem Fantasy (Airshan Chronicles Book 2)

by Nhys Glover

  “After the war, she was encouraged to leave her cave and become an acknowledged Elemental Mistress. But she chose not to, and Moyna did not push the issue. Understandably. She is quite a sight. And that is coming from someone who was, and probably still is, quite a sight.”

  “But how did she know exactly where we were?” I asked, not much more enlightened than I was before he started telling her story.

  “I do not know. We went to her cave and asked about you. She told us where to find you. That we had to hurry because the evil ones were coming for you. Luckily, we were close enough that we simply flew in the direction she told us, fanning out to cover as much ground as we could. Your Spot saw you first, and the other airlings came at his call. I assume that is what happened.”

  “Aye, they can mentally communicate with each other over long distances,” I answered absently, my mind on the woman. “We need to talk more with this seer. If she knew about me and could thwart the Devourers so effectively... we need her on our side.”

  Landor shrugged. “We can try, but she’s... not quite sane. Filthy dirty, skin and bones, sores and bites from gods knows what. And a vague look in her huge mismatched eyes that makes you realise she’s not there with you, even when she’s talking to you. She was useful this time, I am not sure she will be again.”

  His description appalled me. Yet I couldn’t let myself be dissuaded. This woman knew enough about the Devourers to predict their actions. We needed her.

  Landor reached up and cupped my cheek, his hand cool and dry. “I worried for you, sweet warrior. Zem was not the only one who was close to breaking when he learned you had gone missing.”

  “I knew he would be. I just hoped you could keep him from going off the edge.”

  “We all kept each other from going off the edge at first. And having something to do, a goal, made it easier. The Chancellor was Goddess sent, telling us about this girl at just the right time. I would like to say I was the voice of reason and held the other two together... but it would be a lie.”

  “The other two? Prior wouldn’t have fallen apart when I got taken. He feels nothing but lukewarm regard for me. ”

  Landor looked at me pityingly, as he shook his white head. “You really do not see what is right in front of your face, do you? Zem has said as much, but I had not realised just how determined you are to look the other way to suit your own ends.”

  My back went up, and I sniffed. “I don’t have a clue what you mean, and I haven’t the time to work it out. I need to drink, eat and rest before visiting this crazy woman.”

  Landor just shook his head and smiled.

  Chapter Eight

  We were given a tent to share, and after eating and drinking our fill we settled in early for the night. After discovering the army was moving to attack the Clifflings the next morning, I knew we had to get to the seer before the soldiers discovered her and took her for the enemy.

  I didn’t like the position the generals had taken. They were attacking villagers not soldiers. Aye, they were vicious villagers, the dregs of society, but there were children there too. And though the soldiers had all been told they were not to make war against unarmed Clifflings—that they were only after the Godling and his generals—I knew that once any kind of fighting broke out, innocents would be hurt too.

  And this Lady Shardra would be one of those innocents if we didn’t get to her first.

  As if it was as natural as breathing, we settled in to sleep with me in the centre, flanked by Zem on one side and Landor on the other. Laric lay beside Landor and Prior beside Zem.

  Zem had come around not long after I went in search of food and water. He could never stay angry with me long; too many arguments over the suns had proven that to me. But things were different now. It felt like our bond was growing thinner and more tenuous, no matter what he said, and just one more tiff might sever it completely.

  For now, though, all was well again, and he lay at my back, spooning me. If his arms were a little too possessive around me, I could ignore it. Small steps. We had to take small steps.

  I woke to the sound of movement outside. It was still dark, but I assumed dawn wasn’t far away. The soldiers were preparing for battle.

  I nudged Zem with my elbow and leaned across to whisper in Landor’s ear. “Wake up. It’s time to go.”

  Laric and Prior came to wakefulness as soon as the three of us started to move. Laric seemed almost back to normal as he clambered up off the hard ground and stretched as best he could in the confined space of the tent.

  “Why do armies always have to start their days so early? It’s not even dawn yet,” he complained in that superior, annoying way of his. Which had been designed to intentionally annoy me, I now knew.

  “The early featherling gets the horreybug,” I told him sweetly.

  The amused glance he cast my way warmed my heart. Oh, aye, we were past insults and jibes now. And it felt good. If he wanted my attention, I would give it to him gladly.

  After breaking our fast with a quick meal of day-old bread and last night’s meat, we headed for the open grassland where our mounts could be found grazing. Dawn was just tinting the sky pale rose as we stood watching the airlings hopping toward us.

  “I never would have thought flying was for me. But Patch has won me over,” Laric said cheerfully.

  “Because he’s saved your skin from the Devourers more than once?” I asked.

  Laric wrapped an arm over my shoulder and kissed the side of my head. If Zem noticed, he didn’t comment.

  “I’m not keeping score anymore. Are you?” he asked, rubbing his beard-roughened cheek against mine.

  “No. When you’re a team you don’t keep score,” I replied with a laugh, breaking away to go to Spot.

  “You did well,” I heard Landor say to Laric, as I walked away.

  “How?”

  “Saving our girl. We all appreciate it. Even Zem.”

  “I didn’t do it for any of you. I did it for myself.”

  “We know. That is why we approve.”

  And if Laric replied I didn’t hear it because I was with Spot, and he’d become my whole world for a few precious moments.

  Prior wandered over just before I mounted up. He looked as fierce as always. I waited to hear what he had to say. Landor seemed to think I wasn’t seeing the fire mage clearly. Maybe I needed to test the truth of his observation.

  The big black man stood beside me, his hand on Spot’s shoulder. “I did not get a chance to tell you I was happy you escaped.”

  I studied his face closely. The simmering anger was less obvious, I noted, as if he had tamped it down well, just for me. All it did was make him seem less emotionally involved than ever. Like he was talking about some event in the long distant past.

  “Thanks. I’m glad I escaped too. Although in a way I didn’t. Stupid idiot that I was for going into that nightmare Laric created for the priest.”

  I’d caught them all up on what I’d discovered about the Devourers the night before. It wasn’t a lot—not for what it had cost me—but it was more than we had before.

  “It was brave of you. The Goddess chose wisely when she chose you for this task.”

  I looked up at him, trying to read his closed face. Trying and failing to read his thoughts.

  “You do not believe me?” he asked.

  “I suppose I’m surprised, that’s all. I know you said you cared about me, but it seemed as if you doubted the Goddess’ choices, about The Five, that is. That you didn’t want to be part of this.”

  He leaned in and kissed my cheek chastely. “I have spent many years learning to control my passions. Fearing them. I stayed away from you for suns because I feared what you would ignite in me. That is why I fought the Goddess’ Will in this. Not because I doubted your ability. Never that. As much as I can allow, I care for you. And believe in you.”

  I gave him a grateful little smile. It must be so difficult to walk the fine line of his existence. Never caring too much.
Always keeping his emotions under control. Yet the very act of keeping them controlled kept me from connecting with him.

  “Good, then let’s get to this seer before the soldiers do. The Goddess only knows what having a squad of them arriving at her cave entrance would do to her slender hold on reality.”

  The journey to the cave was short. We had barely become airborne and we were coming down to land again. I noted that this part of the mountain range was more sloping. Here there were no vertical cliffs surging out of nowhere to reach for the sky.

  Once we were as close as we could get from the air, we landed, and Zem led the way up the narrow winding path to the cavern home of the seer. The sun had just risen to the east, but the shadows still haunted the deeper ravines and far sides of the crags.

  I shivered, even though it wasn’t cold. Laric’s hand closed over my shoulder. I looked back at him, unsure what his touch meant.

  “She isn’t the Devourer’s Soothsayer. This one is ours.”

  I hadn’t consciously thought of her being the same as the Soothsayer, but now Laric had raised it, I realised that was exactly how I felt about this mad woman. Was she a toothless old hag with milky eyes like that other one? Landor hadn’t told me her age, only that she was skinny and filthy and mad. No... he said she had mismatched eyes, so they weren’t milky and blind like the Soothsayer’s.

  I smiled back at Laric, and kissed his hand. It felt easy to share these affectionate little gestures with him now.

  At the cave entrance, Zem halted and waited for us all to catch up. “I think it would be wise for Landor and Flame to go in first. We don’t want to overwhelm her.”

  Though I agreed with the sentiment, I was nervous to be singled out for this task. Was Zem getting even with me because he’d seen what had happened with Laric? No, Zem wasn’t petty like that. I edged ahead of the others and came to stand at the front, where Landor had now positioned himself. He gave me a reassuring smile and took my hand in his.

  We walked into the darkness and the stench.

  I’d been warned. Landor had told me what to expect. But she was far worse than I could have imagined.

  She wasn’t old like the Soothsayer. In fact, she didn’t look too much older than me. But her gaunt frame made her seem ancient.

  My first thought after determining her age was of her heritage. She was a lighter skinned version of Trace. Maybe she’d have had his colouring if ever she saw daylight. Or maybe she was even paler under the layers of dirt than she appeared. Her kinky hair, another indication of her bloodlines, was a mad woman’s featherling nest, complete with leaves, branches and... bat droppings? It stuck out several hands width from her head before falling in a knotted tangle down her barely clothed body.

  It was her eyes that were most disconcerting, though. Not the vagueness in them, as Landor had described, but their odd colour and size. One eye was sky blue, the other forest green, and neither fitted her lineage, which required some version of brown. And those big sloe eyes seemed abnormally large, dwarfing the rest of her features.

  As we slowly entered, she noted our presence and edged away until she was crouched in the corner of her thin, filthy pallet. One claw-like hand scratched absently at bedbug bites on her arm.

  No one should live in these conditions. Not even someone who was mad. My heart went out to her and all fear evaporated.

  Dropping down so I too was crouching, I spoke softly to her, keeping my voice steady and soothing, the way Landor often did.

  “Hello, Lady Shardra. I’m Fle... Flame. I came to thank you for telling my friends where to find me. You saved my life.”

  “Are you real?” she asked me plaintively. “I have seen you in my visions, and sometimes I thought you were real then. But you were not. Are you real this time?”

  “Aye, I am real. Well, I think I am. Having been caught in one of Laric’s nightmares, I’m no longer so sure.” I gave a little laugh but she didn’t find it funny.

  “Laric’s nightmares? What is Laric’s nightmares?” Her head tipped from one side to the other like a featherling’s might. In that moment, she looked more like a wild and fragile creature than a human.

  Landor had crouched at my side so as not to tower over her. I waved my hand in his direction and at the entrance of the cave where the other men waited.

  “We five are mages. We have magic like yours. Laric... the man who was running with me from the Devourers... his magic is the ability to put someone to sleep with a never-ending nightmare. My magic is mind-reading so when—“

  “That was what they were doing!” she declared excitedly. “I saw them sleeping on the ground, and they were writhing in pain. He put those evil men into nightmares.”

  “Aye, he did. And I went in to see if I could get more information about them. What I saw will give me nightmares for the rest of my days.”

  Her head bobbed up and down like it was on a spring. “Yes. Yes. Yes. It would. I have lived in that world for suns now. At first, just sometimes, but now it is all the time. No. No. Not all the time. I am with my comforter much of the time. It just feels like all the time. I get lost in her world. Lost in the visions she makes me see. Lost in her memories. On and on it goes. What is real? Do you know? What is real?

  “He says I am not insane. That I am too strong for that. But how do I know he is real? But he has to be. If he is not, then I would give up. I stay on this plane only for him. He needs me. But if he is not real... what then?”

  I listened to her babble, only understanding small parts of what she said. But it wasn’t nonsense. I sensed that much. I just didn’t understand. And I needed to.

  “Lady Shardra, do you know about The Jayger? The monster that will destroy the world?” I asked gently, drawing her away from her fevered ramblings.

  Her gaze shot to me, eyes so wide they looked ready to burst from her thin face. “Only you can stop him. That’s what she says. Only The Five can keep him from his holy task of cleansing the world. That’s why I helped you. Because you have to stop him. For him. Because I could not bear it if something happened to him.”

  “Your comforter?” I asked gently, getting a little confused with the different hims she spoke of.

  “Yes. I am all he has. He has waited millennia for me. Eons. So alone and in the dark until I came into the world.”

  “Will you tell us all you know about The Jayger, the Devourers, and all you have seen? Unless you help us we will all die.”

  Her head started bobbing again, though her eyes had become wild with fear. “I want to. I do want to. But I am afraid she will find me.”

  I reached across and placed a gentle hand on hers, which was jittering like an old person’s.

  “I know that fear too well. She has already found us more than once now. But we keep side-stepping her. And, with your help, we can do it more effectively. Will you come with us please? For your comforter?”

  It was a cruel manipulation, and I felt Landor’s disapproval. But I would use anything I could to save us. Even use this mad woman’s love for her imaginary friend, if necessary.

  I coughed a little, the stench getting to me. I knew it came from unemptied slop buckets, rotting food, stale sweat, and bat droppings. It was enough to make my eyes water.

  She nodded again, this time less vigorously. “For him. I will do it for him. But I am afraid.”

  Landor rose from my side and silently helped Shardra to her feet. From the way she clung to him, it was apparent her legs weren’t strong enough to hold her up. How could her parents have let her live like this? It made me so angry I wanted to hit someone or something. It was so much worse than the conditions Landor had lived in. At least he’d been kept clean, given books, and his slops removed regularly.

  Now I’d convinced her to go with us, what was I going to do with her? Take her back to the capital with us? As yet we had no idea whether the offensive against the Clifflings would be successful. We had no idea what our next step would be. But I knew many of the answers were lo
cked away in this poor woman’s head. Could I read her mind well enough to get the answers we required? No... Her mind was a jumble to me. Trying to read her was like spinning on the spot until you became so dizzy you fell over. I had to coax the truth from her bit by bit. With Airsha’s help.

  We were a silent and sombre bunch, making our way back down the mountain path. Landor kept his hold on our newest recruit, but Laric and Prior had formed up in front and behind them as protection. Zem led the way and I followed behind him.

  Troubled. I was so very troubled.

  Chapter Nine

  Landor put Shardra up in front of him. Neither of them was heavy. The airlings had all carried bags of rocks far heavier than those two. My respect for my pale man grew in leaps and bounds. Most people would have kept their distance from someone like her.

  Zem and me had both lived on the streets and had probably been as filthy as Shardra, at different times, so we would not avoid her for that reason. But I wasn’t sure either of us could have done what Landor did, given her madness. Insanity unsettled you. Frightened you with its unpredictability. I was just lucky Landor had automatically taken over her care, and I wasn’t forced to put my compassion to the test. I was just starting to approve of myself, I’d hate to let myself down by rejecting this mad woman for what wasn’t her fault.

  At the capital we found Airsha and Calun waiting for us at the airling paddock, their brows furrowed in concern. For a few moments, I couldn’t work out why they were there or why they seemed so concerned. Had Airsha received a Knowing about Shardra?

  Then it dawned on me. Airsha had been beside herself with worry over me. And Calun not much better. While my abduction the day before seemed like another lifetime ago, for these two it was too fresh an event for comfort. A messenger would have gotten word to them last night of our safe return, but no details would have been given.