Chapter Eighteen

Lusya looked back as the child sat on the ground, weeping and shrieking. The piece of debris flying out from the impact had not escaped Lusya’s notice, but she had not wanted to give the demon an opening by addressing it and had hoped it would miss. Instead, it seemed it had struck Ariya in the arm. The wound did not appear to be major, but that did not change that Ariya was crying out, the seed of Malice that had almost returned to normal after her previous outburst now growing with every passing second.

It occurred to Lusya that this may well have been the first time Ariya was harmed by the malicious, intentional actions of another. Perhaps that was the cause, or perhaps the child’s pain tolerance was simply low. Whatever the case, Lusya needed to do something about it.

She shoved on the low-rank demon’s hand, flinging it and the rest of the arm back and knocking the creature off-balance. Then, she leaped toward him and kicked him in the chest, using motomancy to strengthen the blow and let out a wave of force on impact.

With a shout, the demon went flying backward until he landed on his back and tumbled end-over-end across the field. That would buy some time. She had heard and felt his ribcage shatter under her attack, and she had sent him well-past his cave’s entrance, almost one-hundred feet away.

She rushed over to Ariya and knelt beside the child. Lusya put a hand on the child’s unwounded shoulder and gave her a light shake.

“Child, calm yourself,” Lusya said. Ariya gave no response and kept on weeping. “Child, listen to me.”

“B-but, it h-hurts!” the child wailed. She let out a wordless scream, then her sobs and tears continued unabated. “It won’t stop! Why did he hurt me?”

This was bad. At this rate, she would be unusable in minutes. Lusya would have to start over. And the spirit of her oath demanded she do what she could to prevent that. But how? How could she get the child’s attention? Maybe there was one thing she could do, something she had noticed the parents in the caravan do, and that her own father had done when he had wanted her focus.

Lusya put a hand on Ariya’s head. The child looked up at it and her sobs seemed to weaken a little.

“Ariya,” Lusya said, raising her voice just a bit. Ariya’s gaze lowered from the hand to make eye contact with Lusya. “You are all right. Your wound is not serious, and I will treat it as soon as I am done here. So, stop crying and bear with it.”

The child’s sobs slowed and weakened. She gave a powerful sniffle, sucking up some mucus that had been leaking from her nose, and nodded.

“Good girl,” Lusya said. Father had praised her with those words. She did not know if she was using them correctly, but it was the best she could do.

She raised and lowered her hand twice, patting the child’s head. The gesture felt awkward and unnatural, but a small smile from Ariya suggested it had accomplished its intended goal.

“Cover your ears and close your eyes. I do not want you exposed to this,” Lusya said.

Ariya nodded and managed a grunted assent. She squeezed her eyes shut tight enough that it almost looked painful and clamped her hands over her ears with just as much strength.

Lusya gave the child’s head another pat, seeing as verbal approval would be useless, and stood. Lusya turned to face the demon who called himself Biggs. He had pushed himself to a standing position, though he was still hunched forward more than usual with his hands on his knees, vomiting onto the ground in a mixture of his black blood, yellow bile, and what appeared to be the chewed up, half-digested remains of humans he had eaten. The mixed odor of vomit and rotting flesh was the worst thing Lusya could remember smelling.

When he had finished with that, he looked up at her, eye filled with fury and teeth bared. His chest heaved as he drew wet, strangled breaths. No doubt his lungs had been damaged when his ribs had given out. His tongue whipped out of his mouth and ran over his face until it had wrapped itself around his head before retracting. He stood to his full height and stomped toward her.

Ariya’s Malice appeared to have stabilized for the time being, but Lusya still did not want to spend long dealing with this demon. If something upset the child again, there would not be much Lusya could do. For now, she supposed she could lessen the Malice, if not by very much.

“You little bitch!” the demon roared. “I’ll eat your little friend and then we’ll find out just how tough you are.”

Lusya held out a hand. “Come to me, Miudofay.”

The demon stopped in his tracks, eye widened in fear. There was no demon who did not know that name.

Ribbons of darkness flew in from various directions. They converged before Lusya’s palm to form into the shape of a sword. Once the shape had been formed, the sword solidified into a weapon with blade and hilt black as jet, save for an engraving in red at the base of the blade, consisting of three lines shooting out from a stylized flame.

Lusya grabbed the sword as it gained mass and lowered it to her side in a relaxed stance. Despite its apparent extra steps, the formation had not been faster or slower than Lunera’s manifestation by any notable degree.

She strode toward the demon. He took a step back, quivering in terror.

“Th-that’s impossible!” he shouted, even as he quaked in terror. “It’s a trick. You can’t summon someone else’s Demon Blade, not the Demon King’s!”

Lusya tilted her head, and a hint of a frown graced her lips. “How ignorant of you." She took a single step forward and the low-rank demon scrambled back several more. “Unlike other Blades, Miudofay is not formed from the Malice within one’s own heart, but by that in all mortals’ hearts. There is no reason I cannot be taught to summon it.”

Of course, it had not been easy, but Father had taught her. It had been one of the few things she had ever asked of him, after discovering Lunera did not have a direct attack. Her version was weaker than his and she would likely never be able to access its Full Release, let alone the Final Release, but it was still a valued part of her arsenal.

Though it was formed from all mortals’ Malice in theory, in practice, the First Release drew primarily on ambient Malice and the closest hundred or so mortals. She had summoned it in part to draw away some of Ariya’s.

“You dumb little wench!” he shouted at Lusya. “Everything was going my way until you showed up! I’ll kill you for breaking my arms!”

His demeanor was not surprising, nor had been his decision to attack her. High-rank demons were blessed with higher intelligence and a full capacity for all emotions the mortal races could experience, but even then, they often exhibited a bias toward the emotions that caused Malice: anger, fear, sorrow, and others like them. That was another thing that set Lusya apart from them, her more stunted emotional range and intensity. Some speculated it was a result of her demon and human natures conflicting or canceling out in some way, but the truth was a mystery.

In addition to their lesser intellect, low-rank demons leaned much harder toward negative emotions. Many were not capable of happiness, kindness, or the like at all. Those that were could only experience them in the face or furtherance of others’ suffering. She had no doubt this one would alternate between spiteful anger and fear for the short rest of his existence. He had no one to blame but himself. He had sealed his fate when he had attacked her and Ariya for what amounted to no reason. Despite his protests that he was hungry, demons did not need to eat. As a half-demon, Lusya was the exception that proved the rule. This one ate humans because it was his preferred method of killing them. If he had taken livestock as well, that only meant he was smart enough to know that would also hurt the humans.

“When someone does them a kindness, mortals feel something called gratitude,” Lusya said.

The demon ground his teeth together. “What are you talking about, you stupid woman?”

“I doubt you are capable of that feeling,” she continued. “You likely do not understand kindness at all. So, I will inform you: the death I am about to grant you is far swifter than you deserve. You are fortunate I lack the luxury of meting out a fitting punishment.”

The demon took another step back. For a moment he twisted and looked behind, as though he were about to flee. Then he shook his head, gritted his teeth, and refocused on her. His less mangled right hand tightened into a misshapen fist, blood dripping from the palm as his own shattered bones and jagged nails created new wounds.

He charged forward at Lusya with impressive speed for his size. She raised Miudofay overhead and slashed down, sending a wave of dark violet-colored fire at him. The flames enveloped him from head to toe. His mouth opened in one last defiant roar, but the sound never escaped before his throat was too damaged to produce it. Despite the flames not being at full strength, he had been reduced to ash in a matter of seconds. That was longer than it had taken for the three humans back in Gavamir with similar effort, but still plenty quick. It was just a low-rank demon, after all.

And with that, the demon was gone. There was little trace he had ever existed. The sludge he had vomited onto the ground, droplets of black blood that had sprayed onto the snow, and a few scattered fragments of bone were all that remained. The ground upon which he had stood, where Miudofay had burned away the snow and grass as sure as his body and scorched the dirt, attested that some form of destruction had occurred here, but offered few specifics.

Lusya released Miudofay and allowed it to scatter into countless black particles that flew off in all directions, as if on winds she could not feel. She returned to Ariya and knelt beside the child. She seemed to have stopped crying, for the most part. There was still an occasional sob or other dismayed sound, but they were soft and infrequent.

Lusya grabbed Ariya’s hands and moved them off of her ears.

“You may uncover those, but keep your eyes closed,” Lusya said.

Ariya sniffled and nodded. “Did you get rid of the monster?”

“I did,” Lusya replied. “He is gone.”

“Can we go then?” Ariya asked. Her voice was hoarse and strained.

“Yes. I will take us away from here and treat your wound.” Lusya was silent for a moment. She was unsure, but she felt rewarding the child for staying calm was appropriate. She patted the girl’s head again. “You did well, bearing your pain.”

Ariya’s lips twitched up in a momentary smile, though her frown then reasserted itself.

Before she could lead the child away, something protruding from the nearby snow, a jagged off-white shape, caught Lusya’s eye. “Wait a moment, child.”

She moved to investigate. Based on where it was, it seemed that it may have been the projectile that struck Ariya. Lusya bent to pick it off the ground. Her eyes widened and her grip tightened around it as she recognized it.

She had assumed what had struck Ariya had been a rock from beneath the snow, kicked up by the demon’s movements. That would have been something Lusya could not have predicted or reasonably prevented.

However, what she held was instead a ragged chunk of bone. Bone that had shattered and gone flying when Lusya had blocked the demon’s blow. A blow that had put Ariya in danger because Lusya had brought her all the way to the demon’s lair. Lusya would need to take more care in the future to preserve the child’s usefulness.

“Lusya?” Ariya called, as though she might have disappeared back to Clearwood.

“I am here,” Lusya said, placing the fragment where she had found it. She retrieved her pack, stuffing Ariya’s coat inside, and returned to the child’s side. “Stand.” Ariya obeyed and Lusya took her hand. “I will lead you until you can open your eyes.”