Days later, when it was over, when I’d healed enough to hobble from my cage, I stole the first moment I could, and fled. Da’mean had left me alone, satisfied I wouldn’t flee. I’d run before and failed every time.
Not this time.
I ran like the wind, burst through the undergrowth, and pummeled the earth beneath my feet. He would not capture me. Not this time. Bruised moonlight spilled over me. Lesser demons stalked the thick vegetation. They would rip me to shreds should I fall. Superheated breaths burned my lungs. Fire licked across my skin. I would get to the shore. The air tasted sweet, like freedom must.
I fell and tumbled into the gnarled embrace of tangled roots. Vines instantly looped around my legs, snaked up my thighs, and knotted around my waist. Fire slithered across my skin, freeing my body of the restraints. I had to keep moving. In the next breath, the next step, he might find me.
A growl bubbled from behind me. I lunged forward, bursting off my back foot, lurching into a run, but something snagged me hard and fast by the wrist. I yelped and spun. The chain coiled around my wrist snapped tight, and my senses finally cleared enough for me to recognize who held me captive. The expression of perverse glee on my owner’s face threw me into a wild panic. No, no! I’d nearly made it this time. Bursts of hisses and snarls boiled up from inside me.
I pulled and jerked, trying to twist the links from my wrist. I couldn’t go back to his cage. I wouldn’t. Fire sparked through my veins, angry, defiant, hungry. Da’mean gave one great tug on the chain and pulled me clean off my feet, dumping me facedown in the dirt. He planted his foot on my lower back, grinding my pelvis into the earth, and laughed. The sound of that laughter clamped ahold of my heart and froze my thoughts. I stilled, breathing hard.
Think.
I wasn’t as strong as him. I needed to reason my way out of this. Turning my head to the side, I tried to get a glimpse of him, but the moonlight bathed him from behind, blinding me to all but his imposing silhouette. His cool hand gripped the rise of my wing, and the glint of a light off a blade plunged fear through my chest, wrenching my breath away.
“I warned you.” Spittle flew from his lips and sizzled on my scorched wing.
Begging wouldn’t stop him. He liked to hear my cries. My only hope was to lay still and accept the assault all over again.
No,
my internal human voice screamed.
Do not let this happen.
Fire spluttered across my skin and pooled outward, but Da’mean was too far lost to the thrill of the hunt to care. My element lashed and spat, a slippery and wild thing. Ahkeel’s instructions abandoned me. In the chamber, making the fire dance for me had been easy. Here, facing Da’mean’s wrath, fear robbed me of control. When his claws sunk into my wing membrane, all thoughts of defiance scattered, and terror tore all reason from my mind.
“No, please…”
The blow from the sword when it came assaulted my senses and threatened to shove me into the yawning gape of unconsciousness. My body blazed. My jaw locked, then a shattering scream tore free. Maddened by the basic instinct to flee, I bucked and twisted, clawed at the earth, and tried to drag myself out from under him, but it was futile. Hot blood washed across my back—so much blood. The air was saturated with the metallic smell of it.
He tossed something misshapen into the bushes. I saw parts of the thing protruding from the undergrowth. It didn’t make any sense. What had he done?
My owner released the pressure on my back. I tensed to run when Da’mean stepped in front of me. The huge curved sword captured my panic stricken thoughts and silenced them. Blood—my blood—coated the blade and dribbled from its tip.
“You. Are. Mine. Muse.”
My vision flooded with darkness. My thoughts swirled. Some horrible inescapable truth tried to make its presence known. My body throbbed with blessed numbness. Heat washed over me, and in the next few breaths I knew I would lose my battle with unconsciousness, but not before the nagging truth revealed itself. I turned my head and rested my cheek against the mulch. There, half tumbled from the underbrush, I saw the thing he’d thrown away: a horrible, disfigured jumble of bone and flesh. I knew before I lifted my head to peer over my shoulder—I’d known the moment he’d brought the blade down, but I didn’t want to believe... I didn’t want to see... My wing was gone. A bloody stump protruded from my back, and I wondered, oddly detached, how I could ever have believed I was strong enough to kill him. The Prince of Greed had given me the gift of hope, but the gift was poison to a foolish mind like mine. As the sweet relief of unconsciousness gathered me up in her arms, I grieved the loss of my wing, and with it, my dream of freedom.
I
lingered on the outer fringes of the feasting hall, cloaked in shadows, breathing in the humid, smoke-heavy air. Elementals devoured their meals, tussled for scraps, snorted, and snarled. Da’mean sat close enough to keep an eye on me as he regaled his kin with stories of the prince who had tossed me aside
My wing was gone.
I had never flown. No beast had taught me how. Short of falling off a cliff, I would never have experienced flight. Besides, it’s tough learning how to fly when you’ve been caged all your life. I’d tried and landed on my face for my efforts. Now though, I would never fly. What little potential I’d had, had been torn from me. Worse, wings were signs of status. Broad wings, proud wings, were displays of power and prestige. As a half-blood, I was already the lowest of the low, further down the order of things than the lesser elementals we ate at gatherings like this one. But now, a half-blood with a missing wing... It was the worst kind of punishment, only matched should both wings be sheared off.
I wept dry tears for my wing, furious with myself. Why hadn’t I fought him? Why didn’t I call my fire as Ahkeel had taught me? He’d made it appear so effortless.
Just gather all the emotion into a little ball, tighter and tighter, until the pressure explodes and the fire lives.
But fear had had its icy grip on me. And then, once Da’mean cut through my wing, shock took over.
Ahkeel was right. I couldn’t kill my owner. I wanted to. No elemental would doubt my conviction, but defiance alone wasn’t going to save me.
Defiance will get you killed.
Why had Ahkeel demanded my presence for three nights? Why did he bother showing me how to control my element and then let me go? What had it all been for? Was he truly so tired of his long life that playing with me simply amused him? I fancied the hate broiling in my gut was for him, but in truth, it was for me. I’d failed myself.
I filled my lungs with the rancid air, curling my lip at the stench of so many elementals. It occurred to me, as I trawled my gaze over the crowd, that I’d never really belonged among them. I stood on the fringes even now, outside looking in. I shared their thrill of the hunt, their savage desires, but it all fell flat. It always had. I’d killed the elementals in the pit with tooth and claw, and briefly, I’d felt alive, but it wasn’t enough. There was more to this life. More to me. I was a shadow, living half a life. My other half, that fleshy, vulnerable thing, had desires too, and wants, and feelings, and dreams… Dreams of freedom.
I lifted my hand, palm up, and curled my fingers gently. I reached inside, seeking that great well of emotion Ahkeel had spoken of. He’d talked of humans and their emotional grievances. He wouldn’t know emotion, not true emotion, like I did. I was half a human. Emotion stalked me.
Tell me what Da’mean does to you. Tell me what you felt…
Fire.
A tiny flicker of flame danced in the center of my palm, sparking to life seemingly out of thin air. My element wrapped me in a comforting embrace, like Ahkeel’s touch the first time I’d summoned my human for him. The infant flame shivered but held. From that sliver of light and heat, an inferno could blaze. One tiny spark could devour this feasting hall and every beast inside these walls. I raked my gaze over them again, seeing them with fresh vision. The water elementals would need to die first. They could douse my fire. The others though, they would not pose a threat. This insignificant flame had the potential to destroy them all. My breaths shortened and quickened. The fire in the roasting pit spat and snarled. They didn’t notice. The torches on the walls flared brighter. The roof was dried grass, the walls timber, the elementals unprepared, and the fire was hungry.
Da’mean’s slate-gray suspicious eyes brought my thoughts to an abrupt halt. I closed my hand around the flame and snuffed it out as our gazes fixed. He’d mutilated me. Cut me down. Used me. Beaten me to within a hairs-breadth of my life and dragged me back from oblivion to do it all over again. His cold gaze told me all of that. It told me to bow my head, to look away, to hunch and beg forgiveness, but defiance was in me now, sizzling through my veins.
He took my wing.
I tensed, breaths coming hard and fast. The elementals still milled about, oblivious to the battle of wills taking place between an air elemental and his half-blood pet.
Trembling, I slid my eyes closed and bowed my head. Not for him. Never again for him. I did it for me. I could not fight him that night. I was not yet ready. But defiance burned brightly in me now, and hope fed the flames. If I died trying to kill him, it would be worth it. If I never saw Ahkeel’s fantastical world of humans or his odd honeyed-skin body that did peculiar things to my human half, I would at least know that I had once held my head high and my wings back and stood proud.
T
rading day. I trudged around the wares behind Da’mean, my single wing limp and useless. My stump had healed. I had hoped by some miracle my wing might grow back. But while the fire in my veins usually healed even the most devastating of wounds, I couldn’t get back that which I’d lost.
During the last moon-cycle, every moment Da’mean had left my side, I’d called the fire, just a little—just a sprites worth—and made it dance for me. Sometimes, when I knew he wouldn’t be back until dark, I’d danced in the flames. Just the two of us. I’d never really known my element. It eluded me, only rushing to my aid in the direst of circumstances, and then only manifesting as chaotic flames with no real direction. But the more I summoned it, the more I understood how it hungered and breathed and hoped, just like me. Fire is ever the optimist.
Da’mean growled ahead of me, coming to an abrupt halt beside a bank of carved items, bowls, plates…
“Da’mean. The Prince of Greed extends an invitation for you and your half-blood to attend a gathering.” I knew that voice. Leaning out around the bulk of my owner, I saw the tree-like form of Samien blocking Da’mean’s path, a brave move, considering Da’mean could crush him inside the crook of his arm.
Da’mean snorted and turned his back on Samien, spreading his wings as he did so, as if to drive home the fact Samien was wingless and therefore lesser. I tried to get a look at Samien’s expression, but Da’mean gripped my shoulders and shoved me ahead of him.
“Do you deny the Prince of Greed?” Samien’s voice sliced through the crowd’s chatter with icy clarity. Several elementals stilled around us and then angled their gazes our way.
Da’mean could not refuse Mammon’s invitation. It would be a challenge, one which I had no doubt Mammon would answer personally. I dared not look at my owner. He’d be raging inside, furious that he had to obey, and before a crowd too.
I heard Da’mean’s wings ruffle as he turned back again and discreetly turned on my heel. Samien stood tall, measured enquiry on his haughty face.
“I do not answer to you,” Da’mean growled, curling his hands into fists.
“You answer to me.” Mammon’s thunderous voice silenced the crowd. He stood behind me. Now that he’d spoken, his undeniable heat washed against my back like waves lapping against a baked beach. My own element bloomed in response, recognizing the great reservoir of power he commanded. I turned, forgetting Da’mean, and found Mammon radiating predatory authority a few strides from me. Instinct demanded I drop to my knees. The crowd expected it. I was half-blood. But Mammon had told me never to bow before him, that I was to always stand tall. His gaze hovered beyond me, most certainly settling on Da’mean. His element appeared to bubble across his midnight skin. I realized his huge muscles quivered just the smallest amount. He’d curled his hands into fists. His lava veins pulsed. Was it fury curdling the flames in his gaze? Fury directed at me?
Da’mean growled behind me, and Mammon’s response was immediate. “Kneel!” he boomed. I dropped, as did every beast surrounding us. If my owner had any shred of self-preservation, he’d do the same.
“Do you deny me?” Mammon’s words had power. They pushed down on me, adding weight to his already suffocating heat. “Bring them.”
Metal armbands locked around my upper arms, and a burlap bag fell over my head. Yanked to my feet and shoved forward, I staggered and stumbled, one foot in front of the other, closer and closer to Mammon’s presence. Behind me, Da’mean’s spluttered snarls and curses peppered the crowd’s murmurs. I expected Mammon to say something as I passed the throbbing beacon of power that signaled where he stood, but he was quiet. His element did reach out to mine, tentatively, delicately, with reverence? Confused, I stumbled on, allowing my captors to guide me. There was no escaping Mammon. That much was clear. But what did he intend to do with us?
C
hains hooked into the metal braces clasped around my upper arms, and those were fixed to sheer stone walls. I slumped on the cold floor, grateful for my internal heat. The simmer of my element across my skin beat back an otherwise complete darkness.
I’d listened hard to begin with, hoping to hear some signs of company, but silence soon robbed me of the passage of time. I wondered if Mammon would kill Da’mean. My owner hadn’t obeyed his prince. He would surely pay for that, or I would. Was that why I’d been tossed into the dark? Da’mean could be persuasive. Would Mammon listen to his words? My tumultuous thoughts came back to the same question over and over. Why? Why was I here? Why had Mammon picked me to begin with? Why teach me how to control my element?