Page 87 of A Forgery of Fate

“That demon will betray you.”

I disagreed. “If not for Shani, I wouldn’t have made it back from the Fold alive.”

Caisan made a snorting sound. “Think carefully. How is it that she helped you vanquish Thadu, then conveniently disappeared right before King Nazayun found you?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “We were separated.”

“She was leaving you unprotected! She hasn’t told you, has she, that she once belonged to Nazayun? For millennia, she served him.”

The opal on my ring grew colder. Shani was stirring inside.

“You disbelieve me, but it’s true. Ask the demon yourself—since the First Era, Shanizhun was King Nazayun’s most loyal servant. Her cruelty is unthinkable. Her crimes, unspeakable. Entire cities have fallen because of her. Countless lives—innocentlives—gone. All to stoke her wicked hunger.”

“It can’t be,” I said. “Elang would never trust someone who—”

“There are no other water demons in Ai’long,” interruptedCaisan. “Shanizhun is the last—because she betrayed her own kind.”

At the accusation, Shani flew out of the ring. Caisan must have been expecting her reaction, for with a swing of his spear, he impaled her fin.

“Behold the last water demon,” he said, swinging her over the blazing hearth. “There is only one thing that will quell her treachery, and that is fire.”

“Stop!” I exclaimed, wrestling Caisan for his spear. “Let her go.”

The general blocked me with his shell. “You did not think twice when you stabbed Thadu in the head. You thought him a monster, an unfeeling beast about to make soup out of my sister’s blood. What if I were to tell you that the demon you harbor at your side is far, far worse?”

I lowered my gaze to Shani. She’d become a piteous sight, half-melted into a blob as she writhed above the green flames, steam hissing from the edges of her form.

“Elang trusts her,” I said.

Caisan scoffed. “Do you know why your lord husband was banished from Ai’long? It is because of this demon. She painted herself a victim, a tortured captive—and deceived him into freeing her. Since then, the Dragon King has taken every opportunity to punish the Westerly Seas, and Yonsar has spiraled into the wretched wasteland that you see.”

“If that is so,” I said slowly, “then it is the Dragon King you should be blaming. Not Shani.”

“You don’t understand. We try to rebuild, and Nazayun sends a storm. We try to fight back, and he brings his sharks. Coincidence?” Caisan dropped the tip of his spear deeper into the fire. “I think not.”

“Stop, you’re hurting her!”

“Am I? Shanizhun is more powerful than I. She could easily free herself from my grasp, but she manipulates you—the way she did his lordship. It is what demons are good at.”

It was true, Shani was suffering from the flames, but she didn’t fight them. She was watching me. Testing me, I sensed.

“Itrust her,” I said in my steeliest voice. “Without Shani, I never could have rescued Mailoh. I would never have survived Thadu. If there is indeed a spy within the castle, it is not her. Release her—that is a command.”

Caisan lifted his spear from the hearth. As she slid off the crystal shaft, I caught her in my arms. The demon’s weight startled me. It was like cradling a cat, she’d become so light and so small. Her fins went flat against me, limp as sackcloth, and her eyes were two hollow eggshells. She was shaking from the heat.

“You’ve made a grave error today, Lady Saigas,” he said. “I pray you will not regret it.”

With a lurch, he swam away.

Once he was gone, Shani squirmed out of my arms. Life was returning to the demon, and a glower spread across her translucent face. Still, she was shaking, even though she tried to hide it.

“Are you hurt?” I asked worriedly.

“You think that overgrown croaker could injure me?”

“Why did you stay in that fire? Why let him hurt you in that way, when you could have fought back?”

“And what would that achieve?” she snapped. “His kind and yours are not so different. You’ll seek any reason to vilify demons. If you provoke us and we attack,weare the onescalled monsters. But we have something to lose, just like everyone else.”

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