Page 55 of Hell Sent

He liked the geometric shapes because he’d never seen them in nature. The straight lines and symmetrical angles could only be made by the hand of a living being, and he found that beautiful. But what did he know about art or beauty, really? Maybe she wouldn’t like it.

“Why are you doing this?” Madira asked, his eyes narrowed. “Are the two of you…?”

Azreth didn’t know exactly what he and Raiya were, but he knew that they weren’t a real couple like the ones he’d watched around camp. A mortal could not marry a demon. She would never call him her husband.

But he wanted her to look upon him fondly. He wanted to be the cause of her happiness.

He put himself at Madira’s mercy, because he had no other mortals to ask. He obviously couldn’t ask Raiya, and something told him that Jai would have a difficult time keeping a secret from her. “Would it be… wrong, for me to give her this?” Azreth asked. “Would she take offense?”

The elf gave him a long look. Then he rolled his eyes. “I suppose it doesn’t look that bad. And she will probably enjoy it either way. She acts as though everything you touch is gold.”

“She does?”

Madira just rolled his eyes again.

Something moved above them, and Azreth looked up. A large, black bird, larger than any other avian creature he’d yet seen in the mortal plane, flew silently above the trees. He tried to follow its path through the sky, but the branches obscured his view and he lost track of it.

He realized that the forest had grown quiet. There was no birdsong. Hairs rose on the back of his neck.

“What is it?” Madira asked.

Azreth waited another moment, listening, then shook his head. “Nothing.”

Twenty-Two

The peace could not last forever. It should not have surprised Azreth when the hells came back to haunt him, but it did. He was by the woods with Raiya, watching her practice with the bow he’d given her, when it happened.

The sound of the vythian was instantly recognizable. At first, he thought he must have misidentified it. Vythians were creatures of the hells, and there was no way one could have found its way to the mortal realm.

But then he saw it, and there was no mistaking it: a massive, black-scaled, flying beast with teeth like daggers and fire shooting from its maw.

He had only seen a vythian twice before, and both times, he’d managed to lie low and avoid their notice. This one was rapidly moving closer, toward the camp, toward the peaceful behelgi herd, and toward Raiya.

A group of kin might have been able to take down a vythian—but just him alone? It was impossible.

As the Roamers began to scream and run for their lives, he took Raiya’s hand and ran alongside them. They detoured to find Jai and Madira, and then the four of them rushed out of the camp. When the vythian torched a line of tents beside them, Raiya jolted, leaning into him. They kept running.

“We must get to the city and behind something solid,” he said to her, raising his voice to be heard over the screams and roars.

“And when it sets fire to the town?” she asked.

He didn’t have an answer.

They were only halfway to the city wall when he heard the vythian diving close behind them. It gave a screech so loud that it vibrated his insides against his bones. Raiya covered her ears as its massive shadow fell over them. Fire was like iron to mortals. If the flames even came close to her, she’d be hurt.

He jerked her against him, bending close to shield her. The vythian swooped over them without touching them, but the gust generated by its wings was strong enough to make him stumble. The creature circled away, but it would be back.

He pulled her behind a building just outside the town gates. They panted there for a moment, and no one spoke, not even the elf siblings who always seemed to have something to say.

He leaned around the corner of the building to watch the nightmarish scene unfolding. Tents on the far side of the camp were ablaze and fire was creeping through the grass, already spreading. The behelgi herd split up as the animals ran for safety. People were fleeing in disorganized panic, some of them in states of undress, many dragging children or elderly behind them or carrying handfuls of valuable possessions. Only a few had picked up swords, but he couldn’t fault the others—there was no point in trying to fight.

He looked back at Ontag-ul’s walls, his heart sinking into his stomach. The wooden city would burn like dry brush, just like the camp, if the vythian’s fire got to it. People and animals would die by the dozens. There was no place to hide.

He looked down at Raiya. Her eyes were bright with anger, her cheeks ruddy. She looked up at him hopefully, and he realized it was the same way he often looked at her. It was a request for guidance.

The look startled him. He was not used to leading.

The vythian was a foreign danger to them—one they were not equipped to face. Azreth was not equipped for it either, but there was no one else who could fight it.

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