Cass followed Alyx out of the city. They’d sent Marco and Telis ahead with made-up tasks. It hadn’t fooled either of them, but they also hadn’t argued or pried into why Cass and Alyx were… at odds.
Early evening descended over the city, though the festivities had not lessened with the sunlight. If anything, the city was even more riotous as the sun disappeared behind the buildings.
The noise of the crowds didn’t fade even as they climbed the palatial hill. The city’s revelries carried on the wind far and wide, the lights of the festival shining like stars over a darkening landscape.
By the time they crossed the rope bridge from the palatial hill to Alyx’s mother’s workshop, the horizon was a riot of crimson clouds, the sun dipping below the world’s edge.
Alyx pushed open the workshop doors, holding them open for Cass.
Cass crossed her arms and planted herself in the grassy courtyard outside. She’d humored Alyx enough. “Why here?”
“Just come inside,” Alyx said. “It’s cold.”
“Why here?” Cass folded her arms over her chest.
Alyx sighed, stepping back out of the workshop and letting the door swing shut behind her. “You know why we’re here.”
Cass glared at her. She knew why, but Cass still wanted her to say it.
Alyx met her glare with her own.
The wind gusted between them.
Alyx broke contact first. “Can Salos hear us now?”
Cass shook her head. She didn’t think so. At the very least, he hadn’t remembered any of what he’d missed last time.
“There is that at least,” Alyx muttered. Her hand clenched around her sword. Louder, she said, “Look. I don’t like this any more than you.”
“I don’t believe you.” The false courtesy Cass used with Kohen and his ilk leaked into her voice.
“Do you understand what he is?” Alyx asked.
“You made it clear,” Cass said. “Demons are monsters from your myths.”
“Monster?” Alyx shook her head. “Cass, demons make monsters look tame. Monsters are malicious, but they’re just beasts. Any martial worth their weapon can kill monsters by the hundreds before they’re forced to put that weapon down.
“A demon is a thing apart. Demons devour. They devour everything. They devour what belongs to the gods. And they are never full. Set a demon loose in a city and it’ll slay everything that moves before the day ends.”
“Salos isn’t like that,” Cass said, crossing her arms over her chest. A chill settled over her skin, cold against the heat building in her chest. Her voice was rising.
“You don’t know that,” Alyx said.
“Don’t I?” Cass asked, still not yelling, but only just. “Skip the justification, Alyx. What do you want?”
But she knew.
“You need to get rid of him!” Alyx yelled.
Cass’s hand clenched tighter. “Say exactly what you want. ‘Get rid of him?’”
“Kill him!” Alyx shouted. “Do I need to spell it out for you? He’s only getting more powerful, isn’t he? Wasn’t that the point of the soul piece he threw you into madness to collect? You need to kill him now. Before he claims your sanity permanently.”
Cass’s teeth ground together. There was a kind of sense to Alyx’s words, and she hated it all the more for it.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Salos had power over her. His influence wrapped around her in ways they couldn’t explain and which her Contrary Will didn’t affect. They had no idea when his demonic impulses would rear their head and consume them both in his madness.
Just because it had never happened outside the context of a fragment of his soul didn’t mean it would always be that way. Just because they’d never attacked anyone in that madness before didn’t mean they wouldn’t eventually do so.
Were they just a ticking time bomb? A rabid dog on a breaking chain?
Would this stop if Salos were gone? Or was it too late?
Salos had suggested she was also a demon. Would killing him just throw her off balance, setting off the bloodthirsty madness Alyx was worried about from him?
There was no reason to believe it would. But there was also no reason to believe they’d fall into madness for any other reason, either.
Where did reasonable precaution end and paranoid persecution begin?
“You don’t know.” The words dripped from Cass’s lips. Her chest tightened. “You don’t know any of that.”
“You don’t get it—”
Cass cut her off. “You have legends and rumors and stories told to scare children. You don’t actually know anything about demons. ‘No one believes in demons,’ you said. How can you claim to know anything when you didn’t even think they existed?”
“I don’t need to know the specifics to know what my father would do if he found out!” Alyx shouted. “He’d use it as an excuse to execute me and you. You think my grandmother would protect us from that? You think my aunts would call for less?
“Whether or not he’s a danger—and he is!—my family will draw him up as a threat. Best case, they execute you and call it a day.”
“And that’s enough for you to advocate for killing him?” Cass asked.
“Yes!” Alyx roared.
Should she be happy it was out of concern for her that Alyx wanted to kill Salos? Should she be pleased that it wasn’t just because she feared Salos?
What would Alyx say if she knew their speculations? Would she be just as scared of Cass?
“Is this all you wanted to talk about?” Cass’s voice was frigid because the only other option was raging.
“You can’t just pretend we didn’t have this talk!” Alyx shouted back.
“I’m not hurting Salos,” Cass said. The fire within raged. Her voice rose with every syllable to match. “That isn’t a discussion. That’s a fact.”
“Cass, you need to—”
Cass cut her off again. “Not long ago, I would have said the same thing about you without hesitation. Don’t force me to rethink that.”
She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t keep looking at Alyx.
Cass stormed out of the courtyard and back down the Spire.
Alyx yelled behind her, but Cass ignored her. Her hand wrapped around Salos’s necklace. Its cold leached the warmth from her hand.
Salos would call her an idiot. She shouldn’t have told Alyx. She should have made something up. She should have waited until Salos was back before telling Alyx.
He would have talked her out of it.
That was why she hadn’t waited. Because she hadn’t wanted to keep secrets. She had wanted Alyx to accept her. Accept all of her.
But this was what honesty got her.
He was going to say he told her so when he came back. Her hand clenched harder around the necklace. He would tell her she was na?ve for being so trusting with their secrets. That she was an idiot. That she was going to get them killed.
The wind ripped around her. She wanted to step into it and disappear. If it would just take her home. If it could just take her to Kaye and Robin.
But it couldn’t.
She stopped on the bridge, the wood planks swaying beneath her. To her right, the city sprawled, corralled by the high walls and the roaring river. To her left, the palace waited atop its rising mountain, ringed in floating spires of stone.
Where was she supposed to go from here?
Back to Alyx’s house? Alyx’s family didn’t exactly welcome her. And after everything just now, Cass couldn’t believe Alyx would either.
But if not there, then what?
The clothing she was wearing wasn’t even her own.
Her hands clenched tighter around her staff. Was this what she got for blindly trusting? Stranded in a foreign city?
She was right back where she’d started. Alone again.
The winds gusted, pulling at her clothes and hair, whispering she could run further. She could disappear and never think of any of it again. What did any of it matter?
Alyx was a companion of convenience. There were other people.
Velillia was just a city. There would be others.
There would be other places with answers.
She repeated that to herself, staring down at the city.
She wasn’t stranded. She had money. There were inns.
Even if there weren’t, she could survive in the wilderness for a night.
She would make something work.
Cass pulled her aura cloak tight around her body, the night air like ice. She’d survived Uvana. She’d survived the lower levels of the Catacombs. What was a city, after all that?
