Hunting Fiends for the Ill-Equipped (The Guild Codex Demonized #3) - Annette Marie Page 0,57
hidden knowledge, the cunning and savagery, the experience and survival instincts honed from years of struggle and danger. My fingers slid down, brushing across his temple, his cheekbone.
“What is the Naventis that Eterran talked about?” I asked.
His gaze trailed across my face, then down. He tugged at a decorative button on the bottom of my knitted sweater. “It is a gathering of Dīnen. The stories say that once, all Dīnen came to talk, and the payapis would come too.”
“Payapis?”
“The oldest female demons who will have no more young. They are very powerful.”
“Are they queens?”
“They punish females who are too much trouble, but they give wisdom, not commands.” He canted his head, his cheek pressing into my hand. “There are stories that they killed foolish Dīnen who ruled too long, but that was the before time.”
The before time … before the onset of summoning, after which humans stole Dīnen away long before a demon matriarch might need to eliminate unruly leaders.
“What is the Naventis like now?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer. My fingertips drifted to the corner of his jaw, and I shifted closer, standing between his knees.
“Dīnen of the first rank gather to eat and talk and say compliments to themselves. Sometimes Dīnen of the second rank will come, but they are lucky to last a season before they disappear to the hh’ainun world.”
“And the third rank?”
“The Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Houses do not have Dīnen anymore. They are summoned every day, every night. Gone, gone, gone. No one knows who holds the Dīnen power. They disappear too fast.”
I swallowed hard. “And the Twelfth House?”
“We do not go to the Naventis because the Lūsh’vēr and Dh’irath will kill us.”
“But you did.”
He grinned, flashing his pointed canines. “My plan was good. After I warned them, I disappeared and they could not find me. They searched and searched, and I laughed.”
His amusement was contagious and I grinned back. Without realizing what I was doing, I leaned closer—leaned into him, my weight settling against his chest. My fingers had curled around the back of his neck.
His hand fisted around the hem of my sweater, and he pulled my hips into his stomach.
I jolted, my trance breaking. My breath halted in my lungs, my heart surging. Rigid with sudden inner turmoil, I forced myself to inhale—and got a nose full of his hickory scent. His warmth was soaking into me, his body hard and strong as I leaned into him, and I didn’t want to move my hand from the nape of his neck.
Steeling myself, I withdrew my hands and stepped away. My sweater slid easily from his grasp, and he made no attempt to pull me back—though he watched me with strangely somber eyes.
Surprised he hadn’t taken the opportunity to hold on and make me squirm—his favorite pastime—I sidled over and sat on the bed beside him, enough space for a third person between us.
“I want to tell you something about me,” I declared, forcing my brain back on track. “But I don’t know what. What do you want to know?”
“Why does your—”
I shot him a glare. “Not that.”
He snorted in annoyance, then tipped his head back, squinting thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Tell me about your mother.”
“My mother? You don’t want to know about me?”
“Our mothers create us. Knowing her is knowing you.”
An odd flutter rippled through my center. Such a simple concept, yet from the lips of a demon, astonishingly profound. I wondered what he’d make of a philosophy class.
“My mother …” I fought a wave of grief as I was swamped with memories. “She was more optimistic than me. Always cheerful and smiling. Her job was restoring old books and grimoires, and she loved it. She said people put their souls in their books, and she was repairing their souls as much as the pages and bindings and covers.”
His brow furrowed in confusion.
“It’s just a thing she liked to say,” I clarified before he ripped any books apart in search of hidden souls. “She meant that books could be very precious to people.”
“A book is not useful. Why is it valuable?”
“Some books are useful, like grimoires.” My eyes hooded as memories of her face swam across my vision. “She would’ve told you that objects can be part of you and losing them feels like losing a limb.”
He frowned dubiously and I laughed.
“She would’ve liked you, Zylas. I know she would’ve. She’d want to know what you thought of everything, from books with souls to our cities to every silly