Sympathy for the Demons (Promised to the Demons #1) - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,34
he’s…an avornax. I think that was it. He gets to eat the mice and the pantry moths.”
I stared at the dark crack of shadow under the cabinet. I imagined it was dusty under there. “He was a human?”
“Technically,” Bevan said.
I turned back to my work space, taking a deep breath. Bevan seemed a tiny bit different. I thought he looked a little different. A little…harder. But it wasn’t like I really knew him. Maybe he was like this all along.
Well, it doesn’t matter, I thought. I know how to deal with people who are hard, and people who are hollowed out from the inside, and I bet I even can deal with people who have been turned into avornaxes…or avornaxii…? It’s nothing a little cake won’t fix.
Chapter Sixteen
Lord Variel
It didn’t take me long to find a market, nor had it taken me long to find and slaughter several fat pheasants. Etherium had good game, and they all fell prey easily to a stun spell and then a quick snap of their necks. I was feeling in a much better mood. In Sinistral the prey was smarter and more difficult to catch, besides that I over-hunted my land when I was younger and had been twitching impatiently while waiting for it to repopulate, and now I was living in a land of bounty.
I strode into the market and everyone started screaming and rushing for shelter.
“Calm down,” I said. “I mean no harm. I want to trade these pheasants for a horse.”
No one listened to my words. I suppose my deep voice, which had been described as being reminiscent of the smoldering fires of hell, were all they heard. I stopped in the town square and forced my tail to stop swaying with annoyance. I knew it made me look like a wildcat about to pounce.
The market village was decorated with colorful flags and signs, the booths hawking silk fabrics in bright colors, children’s toys, protection spells for the home in the form of woven tapestries and talismans carved from beautiful wood, and stupidly jaunty hats. A gnomish little man wearing a sort of lederhosen was the only one brave enough to rush for a bell in the center of town and ring it frantically.
This seemed to summon out some Ethereals who shortly appeared at the other end of the little town, two beautiful fair men riding shining white horses. Very nice horses. I should certainly like to have one of those, I thought.
“A demon,” one of them said. “Is that the one the elders spoke of?”
“It must be so.”
“Hark! You have breached our realm, demon,” the first one said. “State your name.”
“I am Lord Variel the Devourer,” I said, with all the pride of my name and house. And yet…I was now aware that many eyes were peering out at me from every direction, and despite the fact that the villagers were the ones cowering, I didn’t like the sensation of being watched. They were afraid of me, and yet, not properly afraid of me. They should have been seizing their children and running for the shelter of the forests, or perhaps on their knees begging for my mercy.
“Well, demon,” the first Ethereal said. He had angelic white wings, while the other man was wingless, and that was about all that distinguished them. “We had just gotten word of a tremor at the gates of the realm, and it was feared that a high demon may have breached our walls. But I sense that you are neutered.”
He was mocking me. “Are you sure that is the word you wish to use? I could show you what ‘neutered’ looks like,” I said.
“He means that your magic is weakened,” Wingless said. “You did not come here of your own will to fight us, did you? You were…banished here.”
“I was not banished.”
But of course, I was. That half-breed creature had banished me here, and he must have known I would be weakened and mocked here. The thought made a fog of fury rise to my head. I certainly didn’t deserve anything like this. I was not a cruel man. I had never picked a fight with Etherium. I had simply been summoned by Piers to do what I did best, and if they wanted to pick a fight with anyone, it should be him. However, it would do nothing for my honor to tell them that and have these two smug, handsome Ethereals poke at a pathethic little avornax.