Chapter One

Book One: The Half-Demon's Nature

The human skull was a brittle, fragile thing. The one that Lusya held cracked and crumpled in her grasp before the man she had pinned could make a sound. It was easy to wonder, as flesh and blood splattered onto her hand and the wooden floor, how such beings had managed to defeat Father. That lasted just a second. She knew it was foolish. This family may have been weak, but that did not mean all mortals were so helpless.

She wiped off the worst of the gore on her hand on the man’s shirt and stood, turning her attention to the room’s two remaining occupants other than herself. The woman stood stock still on the other side of the cabin’s main room and kitchen. She held her son to her skirt, her arms wrapped around his chest and his hands gripping her wrists with such intensity his knuckles were pure white.

The crackling, wood-burning stove in the corner that staved off cold and quiet alike had been forgotten, along with the bubbling pot atop it. The boy, who could not have been older than ten, looked at Lusya with teeth bared and rage burning in his tear-filled eyes. She could recognize the sentiment, even if she had seldom felt it herself.

His mother, on the other hand, kept her gaze locked on the limp, mangled corpse of her husband. Her breaths came slow and heavy at first but began to gain speed and volume, her eyes bulging from their sockets. It was a matter of time before her shock gave way to a scream of terror. That was something Lusya could not understand. The function of screaming was clear enough, but it would accomplish nothing here. Even not knowing the full facts, the woman had to know it was futile at best.

Lusya raised a single finger to her lips in a hushing gesture. The movement caught the mother’s attention and she looked to Lusya. Her pallid face seemed to grow more terrified somehow, eyes opening even wider and lips quivering. For some reason, mortals often seemed intimidated by Lusya’s stoic demeanor, in times like this in particular. Another thing she did not understand. Would a smile or a scowl have made the killing less frightening?

Though the woman had turned her gaze on Lusya, the woman’s demeanor did not change. She would still ruin things in short order. Stopping her would have been trivial, but there was something Lusya wanted to try first.

“If you contain your fear, your daughter may still survive,” Lusya said.

Her tone was as unemotional as ever. That, too, seemed to frighten the woman, but she had heard what Lusya said. The woman took a long, deep breath in and held it for a moment before exhaling. Still silent, she looked at Lusya with those wide, moist eyes. Something else mixed with her fear. It could have been hope or desperation. Lusya had found those could look rather similar. Whatever the case, the woman seemed to have calmed and the Malice building within her started to abate as well.

The boy, on the other hand, snarled at Lusya, droplets quivering at the corners of his eyes. He looked to struggle against his mother’s embrace, but she just held him tighter.

“I have need of her,” Lusya said. “If you keep quiet, she will be safe until my business with her is done. However—”

The boy pried his mother’s arms off of him and half-ran, half-stumbled toward Lusya in a clumsy charge. The mother tried to seize him again, but he was out of her reach before she could grab him. Whether held back by fear or intelligence, she stayed rooted to the spot, watching him run.

One fist raised to strike at Lusya, he opened his mouth to shout, but neither the blow nor the sound came to fruition. A simple backhanded strike launched him to the side where he collided with the side of the room with a crack of splintering wood and bone, then slid to the ground, leaving a vibrant red smear upon the logs that made up the wall.

He had been dead the instant she had hit him, of course. She had felt his bone shatter beneath her fist and his blood mixed with his father’s on her knuckles. It was all but certain the blow had snapped his neck as well, based on the sound she had heard and the angle it was now bent at. The mother reached her arms out toward his body her hands grasping at air. This time, her legs moved, collapsing beneath her as she sank to her knees. A soft whine escaped her gaping jaw, and the tears that had been building in her eyes began to flow down her cheeks.

A brief twinge of annoyance passed through Lusya’s heart. Contrary to what many demons had thought, Lusya was not devoid of emotions or Malice. The former were just not often strong or disruptive, though some did seem to be beyond her altogether. Indeed, though the boy had interrupted her—and now the mother was staring at his body and looked about to scream again—her irritation was fleeting. Addressing the problem would accomplish more than resenting its cause.

“However,” Lusya continued, capturing the mother’s focus once more, “if you scream and alert her, she will be useless to me and I will kill her the same as the rest of you. The decision is yours. Regardless of what you choose, both your deaths will be swift and painless.”

Some would have punished the woman for alerting the girl and making Lusya restart her search. Such acts of spite and vengeance were foreign to Lusya, though to say the inconvenience would not have upset her at all would be untrue. She was interested to see the woman’s choice. It was because Lusya could not feel or understand so many emotions that the decisions mortals made in these situations were fascinating.

Demons could be interesting too, but only the high-rank ones had the complexity to make their choices as intriguing.

The woman took a deep breath and swallowed. “She’ll be safe?”

Lusya nodded. “I will not allow any harm to come to her until our task is done. I will protect her to the full extent of my abilities. You have my word.”

Father had often impressed upon her the importance of keeping one’s word, even beyond the obvious practical reasons. It was not a sentiment she understood, but nor was it one she disagreed with. Even if she had, however, she supposed she should respect his wishes as she tried to remind him. She did not understand that sentiment either, despite it originating from her, but that was fine, so long as it did not become a hindrance. Of course, keeping the child safe would be an important part of the mission anyway.

The woman closed her eyes and drew in another breath. She shuddered as if cold, though the kitchen—despite the vestiges of winter weather outside—was warm as a summer day, and gulped.

“How long will that take?” the woman asked, opening her eyes to stare into Lusya’s.

“A year. Maybe more.” Crossing the continent was neither a quick task nor an easy one and Lusya could not even take the fastest route.

The woman hesitated, her gaze wandering over the remains of her husband and their son.

“I will keep her unaware of your fate as well,” Lusya said.

The woman’s breath caught at that. She looked up at Lusya with a start, her eyes wide once more. Why did that thought bother the woman so? It would keep her daughter happier. She cast one more glance around the room. Then, she took one more deep breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her brow furrowed and her jaw set in a scowl that managed to look resolute on her tear-stained countenance. She nodded, saying nothing. Though the woman did not look at Lusya until after that, Lusya still took the gesture for her answer.

Lusya closed the distance between them in an instant, put a hand on the woman’s throat, and squeezed, crushing the woman’s windpipe, just in case she lost her nerve or changed her mind. Then, Lusya shattered the woman’s skull with a punch, killing her.

In reality, the choice had never been the woman’s. Lusya was more than quick enough to stop the woman if she had started to scream and Lusya was not prepared to give up the best sacrifice candidate she had found. Still, it had been an interesting exercise. Her time spent among the mortal races since Father’s death had shown her, in hindsight, how much like them he had been. More than her, perhaps. Ironic, in some respects, seeing as she was half-human and he had been the twenty-first Demon King. Then again, perhaps it was expected that the embodiment of mortal anguish would resemble them in more than form.

There was nobody else in the house and Lusya made no further sound, yet the cracking and popping of the stove continued to keep silence at bay as it lapped at the scorched steel bottom of the vessel above. Whatever was cooking smelled rather pleasant. It was a shame to let it go to waste, but it seemed to be a soup or stew. She had nothing in which to store such a thing, and the pot was too large to travel with, even if she could have explained how she had obtained it to the child.

Lusya did a quick survey of the cabin. Neither the corpses nor the small amount of damage to the walls and floor they had created seemed like they would be visible from the outside, at least not from a distance. On top of that, she had not done anything to the facade. That was due to the family’s own foolishness. She had noted, in her observations, that they allowed any traveler into their home without question. All she had had to do to gain entrance was knock and ask to come inside. As soon as the father had shut the door behind her, she had gotten to work. Now there would be no interference from this family, nor would they be able to report the child missing.

Even with the lack of visible harm, it would be a good idea to intercept the child and keep her away. A glimpse inside could be devastating. First, however, Lusya would need to clean off the blood that had gotten on her. It would not be helpful to her delicate charade. After spending close to six months searching and lying low, she did not want to further delay her father’s revival.