mountains around me, jagged and pointing to the sky in spikes. I knew this land: Irkalla. Everything was so dark a black it almost looked like the obsidian of Dis, but it lacked the warmth of the stone of my home, and piles of gray ash had swept up against the crags.
I was on one of those crags. The body in front of me was still warm. A demon, his eyes already glazing over, a ring of small horns circling his brow.
A deep puncture wound had been gouged deep into his chest. The charred marks and burns surrounding it told me exactly what had killed him.
I had. Those were the marks of my light. I took a deep breath, almost wiped my face with my hand, and remembered at the last moment that I still had blood all over me. Instead I blinked the ash away.
I didn’t remember doing this. I didn’t remember much of anything from the last… how long had it been? Days? Weeks? I remembered plunging into the Pit, breaking the barriers between Satan and the fury of Dis, and then… agony.
Blinding agony, and nothing else.
For several long minutes I just stared at the corpse, willing the memories to resurface. They were faint and foggy, but I knew why I was here, mutilating this demon…
Because he was a puppet. A flesh-and-blood glove for Satan to wear. My father’s might was massive, but he was ungainly in his draconic form. He was easy to find, harder to hide while he licked his wounds.
He’d wanted a new body to wear.
Because there was someone else with us.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut for a moment, my hands shaking as another memory surfaced.
I’d attacked Melisande. I still felt the vibration of my spear crushing through the delicate bones in her wing. My stomach heaved and I swallowed hard, replaying the image of her tumbling into the abyss, her face frozen in shock and pain.
One of them would’ve caught her. They had to have caught her. There was no possible way she was dead, because I could’ve sworn I’d felt her since.
I’d seen her in front of my eyes. Of course I’d reached out, intending to remove her from the world permanently as instructed, but she’d been standing here, in Irkalla, her eyes huge and the violet of her hair like a beacon in the darkness.
It wasn’t possible, but… I’d still seen her. I’d swear on it.
She was alive.
I clung to the thought like a talisman. If Melisande was still alive, then I had something to live for. Because the idea of taking the knife in my hand and driving it into my own neck, depriving my father of his toy, was all too appealing.
I sat back on my heels and wiped as much blood off my arms as possible, revealing the spiraling marks on my arms.
They were darkening, the scarlet fading into black. It was too much to hope for that Satan had just suddenly dropped dead, but for a little bit, I had my own mind back.
Which meant I had work to do.
He wanted this body as a puppet to live and play in. I’d give him a new puppet, but it would be an unsatisfying shell to live inside.
I gripped the knife and climbed over the demon’s body, maneuvering his stiffening limbs.
Then I started slicing.
When I was done, I leaned back on my heels and looked at my handiwork. I’d cut away everything he might use to harm Vyra: the claws ripped from the fingertips, the forked tongue, but the largest wound was where I’d cut away his cock.
I dropped the knife, cupped my hands, and summoned my burning light into existence before pressing it to the corpse’s wounds, cauterizing them.
By the time I was done, the body looked nothing like the demon it had been before. It was a disgusting charred mess.
And to think this monstrosity would be even worse once Satan’s darkness infected it.
I sheathed the knife, picked up the corpse, and flung it over my shoulder. I had a few memories of traversing this way while in the grip of the soul-bond, laying traps for demons all over the mountain range, so I knew exactly which way my father and Vyra waited.
I flew up over the mountains, cutting through the ash that caked my wings and turned them dusty and gray, and it was easy enough to find the crevasse where my father had taken refuge from the sun.