The world screams. It cries out from its hidden seams, groaning into the boundless voids between. Light and dark no longer keep balance. It cannot hold.
Akieryon looked at his brother. A gentle breeze stirred the trees, throwing dancing shadows between them, into the space where another person belonged. Szearbhyn shrugged. “He could be gone for days.”
Szearbhyn’s reply somehow worried Akieryon more than Tempest’s absence did. The uncertainty. Tempest had gone to Seyzharel before, of course he had, but this time was different. This time, the world held its breath while a burst of magic whisked him away. A feeling like desperation started to scrabble up Akieryon’s throat, but he swallowed it down. He struggled for the words to describe his concerns. “The stars are going out.”
“I’m not sure what that has to do with those snobs in Seyzharel.”
Akieryon watched his twin pace away from him. In his human guise, Szearbhyn looked little more than twenty years old, all gangly grace and lopsided smiles. He could be any Lenyr youth. He could embrace joy and family as his driving purpose. He could live like this forever, never aging, never again troubling himself with the perils of other Spheres. Only the Lineage Mark gave away his true nature, looking like a tattoo to any but the most studied of observers. Akieryon’s fingers strayed to the back of his own neck. Until recently, he had worn his hair long to cover his own.
He wished he could feel half so confident as Szearbhyn looked, but…
What if Tempest was wrong?
What if all of existence was in danger because one selfish angel had dared to find his demon brother?
“We need Tempest,” he said instead.
Szearbhyn stood still for a long moment, his head bent forward, resignation written across the line of his shoulders. The warm breeze tossed his auburn hair into his face. His hands clenched in fists at his sides. Then, slowly, he sighed. “Would that make you feel better?”
Marginally.
“I don’t know how to answer that.” Akieryon shuffled his feet as he followed after his brother. Long grasses bowed beneath his steps, and he dragged a trail through a patch of bright green moss. “I feel safer when both of you are here, but…” But nothing could stop the rising dread. Nothing could bring back the stars that were already gone. He placed a hand on his brother’s back. “Can you feel it?” he whispered.
The muscles in Szearbhyn’s shoulders tensed further. “Tempest can’t stop it,” he said, his voice barely audible. A chill crept along Akieryon’s spine. No one—except archangels and Formed Ones—possessed greater magic than Tempest. If Tempest could not turn back this peril, surely they were all doomed.
“I… I know.” So this really was the end of the world. “I just… I thought maybe all of us together…” Words failed him, and he slumped, his forehead falling against Szearbhyn’s shoulder. He remembered this fear, this sense that everything had gone horribly, horribly wrong. The last time he had felt so frightened, he had just unleashed a horrible new power, had just wounded his mentor.
Then he had spent five hundred years in darkness.
Szearbhyn turned. He caught his brother by the hand, and he leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together. “You know I won’t let the angels hurt you,” he whispered. “But this is beyond my expertise. I don’t know what this is. It’s big. It’s hungry. And I am scared to death of losing you to it.”
Hungry didn’t seem like the right word, but again Akieryon failed to find the language to express what he felt. Rather than struggle for it, he merely sagged against his brother, drawing strength from his warmth, his solidity. “You won’t,” he promised, rather recklessly.
“You can’t know that.”
No, he couldn’t. Akieryon burned with shame at his hasty words. He tried to think what to say, how to recover. How to stop the fear.
“I want to go to Tempest,” he blurted instead.
“He’s in Seyzharel,” Szearbhyn complained.
Which wasn’t a no.
Whatever Tempest may have expected of a Hawk prince, Kiile-Kili was not it. His hands and face bore tattoos, he wore the simple attire of a warrior, and a shock of bluish hair tried to escape in every direction from the top of his head. In fact, nothing about him was birdlike at all. No wings. No feathers. Just a vertical line inked down each cheek.
Baleirithys invited Kiile-Kili to sit, and he slid into the narrow chair with mingled grace and distrust. Tharaiyelagh placed a heavy stack of papers on the table between the two princes, and they began to discuss the terms of the agreement. Tempest stood silent behind his demon sire’s chair, observing. Everything seemed to skew in Seyzharel’s favor, so why did Kiile-Kili merely nod along to most of it? Surely he understood how imbalanced any promise of mutual military support must be?
Baleirithys would not bargain with an idiot, so there must be some hidden stakes that Tempest had not yet seen, something beyond the usual power, safety, and wealth driving the Hawk prince. Family, perhaps, or some sense of duty or honor. Tempest had seen all sorts of negotiations, with all sorts of motivations. He had spent most of his human life as the silent left hand of politicians, most often lurking, looking for any hidden threat. It bothered him that these two tiptoed around some unspoken condition, and he was too new to this world to see it. Tharaiyelagh stood close by, apparently unperturbed as he made annotations to his document, but Tempest only watched the Hawk prince. What do you want?
After an hour or so, they turned to the final page. Kiile-Kili looked at the space awaiting their signatures. “One more thing,” he said.
Here it comes. Tempest watched the subtle shift in the set of Baleirithys’ wings. Tharaiyelagh sent them an alarmed glance, which he quickly concealed. This was not part of the plan, but he held his pen at the ready, faithful to the last to his lord’s desires.
“When I make my challenge to my father,” the Hawk prince continued, “my younger brother will be brought here. Without a guarantee of his safety, I agree to nothing.”
Baleirithys stiffened in his seat, allowing offense to show in his posture. “You are not in a position to make demands,” he said, his voice sharp and frosty. Tharaiyelagh held his breath, and Tempest suspected the chancellor longed to flee. How often did demon politics come to blows? Baleirithys liked to behave as though such methods were beneath him, but he had killed Tempest once, and not terribly long ago.
“Nevertheless,” Kiile-Kili replied, his voice flat, unmoving. Tempest wondered whether he should have brought his weapons. Tharaiyelagh seemed to grow smaller, though he had not so much as blinked.
“Nevertheless,” Baleirithys repeated, the edge in his voice softening by the barest fraction, “I can understand the desire to protect one’s own. Prince Iyahi-Ila may seek refuge here.” He nodded to Tharaiyelagh to write one more addendum. Tharaiyelagh leaned forward, relief seeping down the length of his spine as he dipped his glass stylus in ink, and he wrote.
Satisfied with this addition, Kiile-Kili signed the treaty in clipped, businesslike penstrokes that contrasted with Baleirithys’ loops and flourishes. Tharaiyelagh took the great seal of state, applied three shades of ink to it, and pressed it to the page. It was done. Baleirithys beckoned to the guard at the door.
The guard, the young one who lacked visible horns, stepped forward. Tempest wondered at their absence. Tharaiyelagh appeared younger that this guard, and yet his own horns swept back almost to the back of his head. The guard bowed and presented a small ebony chest. He placed it on the table before his prince. Then, bowing again, he stepped back to his position near the door. Apparently satisfied with the proceedings, Baleirithys manipulated the latch on the box with one immaculately manicured claw. It sprang open, and he raised the lid.
A soft silver glow emanated from within the chest. Tempest only just resisted craning his neck to see around the raised lid. Baleirithys would tell him what made Kiile-Kili’s eyes widen, what made his trembling hand fly to his lips to stop a gasp.
“With this,” Baleirithys said, “your people will give you their unwavering fealty.” He snapped the chest shut again, stifling the silver glow, and Kiile-Kili looked as though Baleirithys had slapped him. “Which is why it remains here until your father is defeated.”
His teeth bared, Kiile-Kili started up from his chair. He glanced past Baleirithys to Tempest, and he hesitated. Wise man. Then Kiile-Kili glanced toward the young guard at the door. Slowly, he sank back into his seat. “That was not the agreement,” he snarled. “In that box lies my people’s future. You would make me your servant while you hold everything?”
“Think, Kiile-Kili,” Baleirithys said, unruffled by the Hawk prince’s barely contained outburst. “If you bring it to your people now, your father will command you to surrender it to him.”
The Hawk prince glared, but it was the sour glare of a man who knew he had no argument. Too bad. A brawl would have been just the thing to lighten the mood.
Gavi stood transfixed, peering around the edge of the window frame. A solitary figure paced the crest of the ridge beyond the road. He was not tall, but he moved with the menacing grace of a practiced killer. Two swords hung at his hip. A third rode easily across his back. He turned in a slow arc, his head tilted as though listening to the wind that buffeted him this way and that, tearing at his hair and rattling his blades. But why in Mercy’s name would anyone carry three swords and not bother to dress for the weather?
“You come away from there.”
“But Baaz,” Gavi countered, “there’s someone out there.”
“If they ain’t got sense enough t’come in outta the storm, they’s no business of yours.” Baaz held a broom in one gnarled hand, which she now extended toward her distracted colleague. Gavi ignored it.
“He’s strangely beautiful.”
At that, Baaz finally joined her at the window. The panes rattled at a sudden gust, and she put a hand up to check for bowing. She saw the underdressed man on the ridge, and she scoffed. “Y’would say that. That’s the dragon in ya.”
Gavi wanted to protest, but she had to admit that the strange golden tone of the man’s skin did fascinate her. “I want one.”
“Y’do not.” Baaz frowned at the wailing of the wind. “Pull the shutters, girl. Storm’s gettin’ worse.”
Gavi reached for the chain that would close the shutters, but she hesitated. “What about him?”
“Leave ‘im.”
“But—”
“Too soft, girl,” Baaz snapped, and the sharpness in her voice spurred Gavi to action. The shutters slammed shut with a metallic clang! It resonated in the hollow within her.
“He’ll be lost out there,” she whispered, mostly to herself.
“Good riddance, too.” When Gavi gave her a sharp glance, Baaz shook her head. “Y’never heard of the demon hunters?”
“Stories to frighten children.” Gavi took the broom from Baaz, but she did not move away to sweep the weathered old floor.
“They’s real, sure enough.” Her keen stare seemed to slice right through Gavi. “One o’them, he’s so good at killin’ us, they gave him a special name. They call him Sword of Heaven.”
“He stands this high—” Szearbhyn held his hand as far above his head as he could reach. “And he out-muscles a team of draft horses.”
The children clustered around him gasped and giggled, trying to picture a person so large. Szearbhyn paced faster, gesticulating, whipping his little audience to a frenzy.
“His eyes blaze with an inner fire, which he can use to burn you right up. When he unfurls his six mighty wings, they blot out the sun.” One of the children whimpered, and Szearbhyn bared his teeth in a savage grin. “No one has ever escaped his wrath—”
Akieryon giggled, and his brother shot him a sour look for the interruption.
“You have something to add?”
“Yeah.” Akieryon stepped forward and nudged his twin with his elbow. “Absolutely none of that was factual.”
Szearbhyn grinned. “Correct me, then,” he said, his hands spread wide in invitation.
So he had fallen into a trap. Perhaps Szearbhyn meant to test him, to determine whether the terrified fugitive he had been could now endure a trip to the Fourth Sphere. Akieryon looked at the half-circle of small, expectant faces, and he drew a deep breath.
“The Sword of Heaven,” he said, “stands no taller than I.” Gasps and giggles greeted this revelation. He soldiered on. “He has two wings, same as me, though his do shine faintly golden in the light. And although his eyes are a curious shade of amber, they certainly do not incinerate anything, no matter what the cadets may tell you.”
“Then why’s he scary?” demanded a little girl who wore an impromptu crown of ivy leaves.
Why, indeed.
“He’s scary because no swordsman is his equal. No,” Akieryon continued, forestalling contradiction, “not even Tempest. He’s scary because he is relentless. He never backs down.” He locked me in darkness. “And he is scary because he teaches other angels to hunt and kill demons, just as he himself does.”
A little boy wailed and grabbed for Szearbhyn’s hand. Akieryon walked away without a backward glance.
Szearbhyn would follow. Of course he would. In the meantime, Akieryon could huddle his arms around himself and stand in the shifting shade of an old maple tree. He needed to calm himself. He needed to process his fear.
He was a Demonslayer. No amount of mixed blood, no length of time lived among these vibrant humans could change that fact. He had trained hard and studied harder, and now the turmoil screaming out between the Spheres called on him to do his job.
The job Seikhiel had taught him to do.
Akieryon ached at the thought of what the future may hold. If he failed, the world could end, but if he succeeded? If he proved just how skilled he had once been? People would see what he truly was. Demonslayer, kinslayer, for him they were the same. Perhaps he would lose Szearbhyn, or Tempest.
Or both of them.
“Akieryon.”
The mild rebuke in his brother’s voice chilled him to the bone. He could not turn around, so he looked at the fallen leaves beneath his feet.
“That was a bit harsh.” Szearbhyn’s hand on Akieryon’s back softened his words a little. “Avin wouldn’t stop crying until I brought him to his mother.”
“I can’t do this,” Akieryon blurted, shocking himself with his brazen honesty. “I can’t tell ghost stories to children and pretend everything’s fine. I can’t promise I’ll only be gone a short while. I can’t imagine a future without you, but that’s exactly what might—”
Szearbhyn placed a hand over his brother’s mouth. “Hush,” he chided. “It will take more than a little apocalypse to wrench me from your side.”
Laughing despite himself, Akieryon turned. “A little apocalypse?” he repeated, and Szearbhyn shrugged.
“What’s the worst that could happen? We all die?”
“Oh, now you’re just teasing me!”
Szearbhyn caught the hand Akieryon raised to shove him. “Are you ready to go?”
“What, now?” Akieryon stammered. He blinked in the face of his twin, who wore a faint frown of deepest sincerity. His twin, who had never been anything but good to him. His twin, who had never, ever failed him. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
Szearbhyn pressed their fingertips together. “Seyzharel,” he said, his voice soft but firm. “Fourth Sphere.” He drew their hands apart then, their mingled magic crackling between their fingers, shifting and settling into a portal.
Together, they stepped through.
Seikhiel studied the medallion in his upturned palm. His fingers curled against the wind, an unnecessarily protective gesture. A subtle magic hummed deep within the metal, and as he turned in a slow arc, the vibration grew stronger.
A cursed object had passed this way, and its resonance felt familiar. Too familiar.
The gale rose to a keening fury. To risk flight in such weather would be foolhardy indeed. For now, he had best remain on foot. He pointed the medallion in the direction he needed to travel, and he walked.
He followed the trail that would lead him to Warbringer.