A perverse smile tightened across my lips, a human smile on my elemental face, one that meant the complete opposite of what it appeared to be. This new smile was bitter. Whatever Mammon’s reasons, he wasn’t my savior. His honeyed words and curiously human ways meant nothing. They were tricks, devices to distract me. What did I really understand of Mammon? I knew what he’d admitted to. He was the same as his princely kin. Ruthless. Cunning. I was here because he wanted me dumped in the dark. I snarled at the human in me, as she tried desperately to cling to the silken threads of hope. Foolish creature. Hope was but a dream. Mammon, like every elemental I’d ever known, wanted to use me.
And the Prince of Greed gets his wants.
“There was a time when the princes ruled this land…”
I started. Mammon was here somewhere. A veil of darkness blinded me. I could see no further than my hand in front of my face. But I felt the uninhibited crawl of warmth coil around my ankle and weave its way higher.
“When we did not squabble over scraps, as we do now.” He spoke as Ahkeel, his voice a soothing balm tempering the heat of my body. “We were free to do as we pleased. We answered only to one other beast, and she was…truly magnificent. We struck her down, scattered her elements in such a way to prevent the return of her immortal soul. Her power became ours. Thus began to reign of the Seven Princes. The light has faded from the world ever since. We sealed our fates, or she did. The curse of our Queen. We are destined to destroy ourselves. Elementals, such as ourselves, are weak, Muse. You believe your human half shames you, but what you fail to see is how your humanity is ripe with potential, the likes of which I and my brethren will never achieve.”
I closed my eyes as his disembodied words spun their tantalizing web, and I wondered if he would kill me now. If this was how it ended, what a waste that would be. I had more to give. I didn’t understand what, or how, or why I thought I deserved more, but this didn’t seem fair or right. Fair? Right? These were things my elemental mind shouldn’t care about. I was a being of instinct, driven by the desire to live, by fierce needs and greedy intentions. But if that were true, why did I sit there, listening to him,
really
listening, hanging on every word as though, at any moment, my fragile mortal life might come to an abrupt end, and I would never see the wonderful world of humans where my other half might have a chance at walking with her head held high? Hope. I wanted to be free. I thought I deserved more. I knew this wasn’t all there was. These thoughts weren’t elemental, they were human, and they’d been there all along. My dreams, my defiance, my rage: they were all human vices.
“We are echoes of them or they of us. As ageless as I am, I do not know which.” Ahkeel continued somewhere in the dark, “We resemble their physical forms, and we utilize speech. We exhibit the same hungers. Greed, for instance, is prevalent in their world. Even our landscape mimics theirs in places. Twin worlds, separated by a veil a hairs-breadth thick. We are not so different, and yet we are worlds apart.”
Was my human closer than I’d thought, chipping away at my control, weaving emotions through my instincts… Is that why I’d always longed for a freedom I had no right to covet? “Will you kill me now?”
He hesitated a heartbeat, “Like every single human being born to their world, you have infinite potential. You are tethered only by your own mind. Your freedom is in your hands, Muse.”
I opened my eyes and glared into the dark, toward where I sensed his power. “Why am I here, Ahkeel?” I underlined my words with a snarl. “I cannot
‘stand tall’
while chained.” I gave my chains a rattle. “This does not feel like freedom.”
He loomed out of the dark, his body suddenly aglow, bathed in undulating firelight. The smile playing on his lips was not a friendly one. I’d seen lesser demons smile like that right before they lunged for the kill. Even as human, he commanded a terrifying presence. His element hugged his impossibly sculpted body like a second skin, and those eyes, they burned with hunger. He stood before me, every inch an immortal chaos demon wrapped in sinewy human flesh. “You are not as you first appear, little half-blood deceiver. You will fight Da’mean in the pit, and you will prevail or die trying.”
T
he crowd bayed for blood. The noise of them, like a swarm of hunters, boiled the air beneath Mammon’s fortress. Their many scents hung like a miasmic cloud above the pit. I swept my gaze over their anonymous faces. Fangs glinted, eyes blazed, claws grated. They hurled crude insults. Some admired me like they would their next meal. Others drooled, inspired by their lust for violence. I had no doubt I would die in the pit. If the impossible happened and I somehow defeated my owner, then the crowd would tear into me. Half-bloods did not win. I would not walk away from this. Not this time.
Despite holding my wing high and my chin up, I had never felt so small. It was one thing to fight a hunter in front of a small crowd, but it was quite another to battle my owner before the entire settlement. Only those at the front would see how my fiery veins rippled in time to my racing heartbeat, how my fingers clenched and my body trembled. I couldn’t allow fear to consume me. Fear was only good as fuel should I try to run. But running wasn’t an option. I had to find something else to shore me up and drive me forward.
Dare I believe in hope?
The crowd peeled apart, revealing Da’mean. He had never looked so devastating as he did in that moment. Towering over most, wings spread, curled inward at their tips, as though primed to encircle me, he prowled toward me, slate-gray body quivering with rage. I stole a breath, then another. He controlled air. He could wrench it from my lungs and suffocate me without lifting a finger. Easily twice my size, three times as heavy, ten times as powerful, he could shatter my bones with one blow. I didn’t stand a chance. Better to go out in a sudden rush than to die horribly at a time and method of his choosing. I launched off my back foot and made a rage-fuelled lunge toward him. He struck, hard and fast, giving no quarter, and backhanded me, sending me sprawling face-first into the dust. The crowd thundered. Blood flooded my mouth. I spat it into the dirt, only for more to swell around my tongue. Elements swirled around me, their touch taunting, teasing. Fire tugged while the foreign touches of ice and water sought to distract me. I’d faced many beatings—in the past I’d hoped for death to claim me—but this was different. I didn’t want to die. But here, I would, and this time Da’mean would not be reviving me.
His cool hand curled around my wing and yanked me upright, clean off my feet, then tossed me away from him. Stumbling into the crowd, I felt claws snag my arm, my leg, slicing deep, before the crowd heaved forward and shoved me back into the middle of the pit. Fear muddied my thoughts. Foul air choked me. I knew my own fear crippled me. But knowing it and dealing with it were poles apart. If I didn’t conquer myself, I’d be dead in moments.
I searched the crowd for Mammon. I hadn’t seen him since his earlier revelation. Briefly, it angered me that he wasn’t here. Wasn’t all of this for him? Why wasn’t he here to witness what would surely be my demise?
A roar of glee rippled around the crowd. Some beast had tossed a chain into the pit. Da’mean looped it around his fist and leered at me. A brittle fear—cold, so cold it scolded my veins—spilled through me, unraveling my control, loosening my bladder, and robbing my legs of the strength enough to keep me upright. I slumped to my knees in a pool of my own piss. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t beat him. I was nothing. Weak. Tiny. Insignificant. Riddled with self-disgust and diseased with humanity.
Your freedom is in your hands.
Freedom. I didn’t even know what freedom meant.
You will be magnificent.
I laughed at the echo of Mammon’s words. Magnificent? This?
Defiance is powerful. As is hope.
I was about to die. What good were my hope-filled dreams? Hope was not for the likes of me.
What did you feel when you defied him?
Fire.
The second my thoughts latched onto that one word, fire blazed across my blackened demon skin, lighting me up like a beacon. It came so hard and so fast that it flushed the icy fear from my veins and drove a living, breathing inferno into my soul. Liquid heat flooded my body with power, and beneath the consuming flames, rage simmered; pure, unfiltered, human rage. Behind it thrust a wave of wrath as hot and sensual as the lick of fire across my skin. It wasn’t merely an emotion. For those few piercing moments of clarity, it was my reason for breathing, for living.
I snapped my head back and bared my fangs as Da’mean leered down at me, bowing his arm back, ready to strike.
The passage of time slowed. My hearing deafened to everything but the rapid beat of my heart, and my mind calmed. When he struck, it wasn’t the lightning quick punches I’d received before, but a slow, meandering approach. I witnessed the tension in his muscles and saw his fist come forward with unerring precision. I ducked to the side, clamped both hands around his extended forearm, and planted my fangs deep into his arm.
I am faster than you,
I sneered in my mind. His arm muscles squirmed beneath the press of my lips, my teeth nicked bone, and my owner let out a bellow that shook the cavern walls. He yanked his arm back, taking me with it. I clung on until he tried to launch me over his head. Seizing my moment, I dropped onto his back between his wings and sank my teeth into his neck and my claws into his back, grazing his ribs.
And I fight with the fire of hope in my soul, you worthless lesser beast.
He stilled, and in the next instant, my lungs ceased breathing. Mouth agape, I threw my head back, seeking oxygen in air that wasn’t there. Da’mean lashed his claws over his shoulders, trying to sweep me off him, but my claws were hooked in deep. Even as I struggled to breathe and the suffocating blanket of unconsciousness threatened to smother me, I reveled in the sensation of his blood running over my hands.
At least I’d die trying, just as Mammon had wanted.
He was here. The alluring touch of his element wove around my trembling body. <
Finish him. I cannot intervene>
He spoke the words in my head as though he stood beside me, whispering in my ear. Just how exactly was I supposed to finish my owner when I was about to pass out? My chest heaved, lungs convulsing, body bucking. I’d have clawed at my throat had my hands been free.
I saw him then, a shadow, a darkness, stalking the rear of the crowd, no more than a phantom really with eyes like hot coals. Tangible fury simmered around him, but it wasn’t directed at me.
The fire. Yes. Da’mean had stolen the air from my lungs, not from the cavern around us. My flames still burned. He didn’t know I could wield chaos fire like a weapon.
Slay him. Drown him in our element,
my human-half demanded. The vehemence with which she spoke drilled rods of courage into my elemental body. I thought I was capable of savagery, but her thoughts of murder and mayhem put mine to shame.
He will not hurt us again. End it. And kill them all.
I called the heat, opened my mind and embraced it. Stealing it from the other fire elementals in the room, I ripped it out of them and funneled it all into my arms, my hands, through my claws, and into Da’mean. Wicked glee strummed through my quivering body.
He arched back, thrust his wings outward, and let out the most terrifying howl. Flames gorged on every inch of his flesh, lapped around his calf muscles, slid over his thighs, caressed his back, licked over his wings and kissed his face. I felt it all, as though my hands guided the fire. His skin literally boiled beneath my touch. The stench of burned flesh choked my throat.
He staggered beneath me, stumbled, and fell facedown onto the pit floor. Pleasure trickled up my spine. I threw my head back and sent a triumphant howl into the cavern. He was down. Immobile. I leaned in, my cheek close to his, his flesh rippling beneath the heat of me, and I knew he was dead. I’d killed him. I’d slain my owner. It tasted sweet, his death. Relief cooled my fire. It was over. He would never hurt me again.
Giddy with glee, I yanked my claws free and climbed to my feet, only to find the crowd observing me in silence.
I’d killed my owner. I’d committed the worst crime a half-blood could be condemned for. The eyes of my elemental kin burned with indignation. It was open season on me.
C
haos. Such a simple word for something so unstoppable, something pure, wild, and seductive. Elementals are slaves to chaos. And as the crowd surged, chaos flooded the cavern. The elements of chaos danced above us. Fire entwined, ice lashed, and air writhed. Others simmered and broiled until chaos itself frothed and fizzled them all into a storm of energy. My newly discovered fire gushed through my elemental body, and then the first blow came from behind, shattering the frightful embrace of fear and spurring me into action. Instinct trampled on panic, and I did all I could to fight them off. Pain sparked on my body. Daggers, claws, teeth—all found my flesh. I killed some of them, but their number soon swamped me.
Tumbling to the floor, I realized I would die without seeing the towers of glittering light Mammon had spoken of and the wonders that belonged to my human half. My fleeting existence, my tiny life, seemed so…redundant. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. I knew it in my bones, in my flesh, in my blood. This wasn’t life at all. My half-human mind refused to accept this would be how it would end. How dare they take my dreams from me? What right did these creatures have?
Mammon clasped his hand around my upper arm and dragged me to my feet. He tugged my limp and tiny self against his chest, clamped his arm around my upper body, and pinned me back against him. I caught the flash of blue light from an ethereal blade and smiled as the sword cut through the wave of elementals, slicing them apart with terrifying ease. Mammon hunched forward, curled me into his embrace, and roared. The monstrous sound deafened me, vibrated through my tiny body, and rattled my teeth. I’d have clamped my hands over my ears if he’d unpinned my arms.