it as it burned, their limbs contorting like acrobats, and the wind carried away streams of smoke and red-hot cinders.
I watched the stovepipe hat go up in flames, my heart pounding. It wasn’t real, only a bunch of straw stuffed inside the suit… but God, what I wouldn’t give to watch the real Satan burn now, impaled on a whole and unbroken Sword of Light.
Just the look of agony on his face would feed my soul.
It seemed amazing to me that people could be celebrating at all, with their homes in piles around them, the dead piled by the dozens, the pall of smoke hanging over Dis.
But if I hadn’t lost Lucifer and Vyra, perhaps I’d be out there with them, dressed in veils and glittering with paint.
Only I’d be dancing on the ashes of the true corpse.
Before I left the Circle of Heresy, I caught sight of Prince Leviathan in the distance. He stood over a line of neatly lined bodies, pouring oil over their bodies on a hastily constructed pyre.
He looked up before I passed. Even through the skull mask he wore, I imagined I could feel the deep anger in his gaze.
I shivered at the sight and felt much more at ease as I passed through Sloth, where all of the demons were working slowly but steadily. Many of them yawned, their heads and shoulders bowed with tiredness.
The higher I went up, the less destruction there was. By the time I reached the Second Circle, almost all of the buildings were still completely intact. The only sign of damage was the wind-bent trees and the occasional tilted lamp post, but the upper Circles had been doing their part by taking in the injured. Many of Lust’s buildings seemed to be spilling over with people who needed healing… or people who needed distraction from healing.
I glanced over my shoulder at the lower Circles before I turned Capheira into Asmodeus’s territory, but it was the sky that caught my eyes.
I’d never seen winged demons flying openly over the middle of Dis before. They’d always tended to stay over the Circles.
Now they were flying en masse over the empty Pit. Entire teams of demons were ferrying supplies back and forth, and messenger imps were darting back and forth like dragonflies.
It was an odd sight, all those demons having the freedom to fly where they wanted without fear. And even odder than I’d find that odd at all.
I turned back around, intending to nudge Capheira into a canter, and jerked in surprise instead. A very tall, copper-haired Prince was blocking my way, his fingers looped in my horse’s bridle.
“Look who we have here,” Asmodeus purred. “A little angel without her retinue.”
I frowned at him. “I’m here to see the succubi, not you.”
Asmodeus released Capheira, walking around and taking in my bandaged wing. “How unfortunate, when I’m so happy to see you.”
At least Belial had given me the ebonite dagger. It made me feel a lot better about talking back to a Prince. “I can’t imagine why. You know I’m just going to reject you again, so why don’t we skip that whole conversation and go to the part where we say goodbye?”
Asmodeus just smiled up at me, his amber eyes twinkling. “Why let you go now, when you’ve given us so much fun?”
I sighed and prayed for patience. He couldn’t help but be what he was. “Prince Asmodeus. One of my mates and my best friend in this world are missing. I need to talk to the succubi, so if you’d be so kind, I want to get on with it.”
He tossed his long hair over his shoulder. His muscular torso was oiled and every ridge of it gleamed in the half-sun, but there was nothing appealing about it. All I could imagine was just how many people touched that torso in a day.
Probably hundreds. I preferred my ever-loyal mates to someone like Asmodeus.
“I’ve heard you have the healing touch,” he said, looking up at me from under his eyelashes.
Did he really need to flirt just to have a simple conversation? I nodded. “Yes, to some extent.”
“Well, then. If you won’t come play with me, would you do me a favor? One of the succubi I’m rather fond of took a serious injury in the battle. She isn’t in danger of dying, but my healers are already stretched thin. If you would do this favor for me, I would be in your debt.”
My eyebrows crept upwards. A Prince offering to be