Page 28 of Crimson Skies

“I said play nice!” she snapped.

Woody cast a wounded look at her.I wasn’t going to hurt him.

Eden turned to see Loki and Bostrof staring at her with awed respect. “What?”

“You’re like his mom,” the imp muttered.

“Let us go to my private chambers, my king,” Izaran said somberly. “It seems there is much I need to know.”

They entered a tunnel and followed the demon along a torch-lit passage that twisted through smooth rock. Eden blinked when they finally emerged into a cavernous area inside the hills.

The space Izaran had led them to could easily have accommodated five stadiums.

Lanterns cast a soft glow upon the huts that had been erected in the hollows and on the mounds making up the uneven floor. More lined the natural limestone terraces rising to meet the walls of the cave. Rope bridges and ladders connected the upper levels of the colony and several sections had been cordoned off with rock and mud walls to create farms.

Izaran guided them to one of the small caves where some demons had made their homes. To Eden’s surprise, the interior was surprisingly comfortable.

The Lucifugous served them a drink that tasted of crushed grapes and joined them around a low stone table. “It seems you being here isn’t a coincidence, my king.”

Loki downed his juice in one gulp and licked his lips.

“It isn’t.” Bostrof eyed his former strategist’s cup. “You might want something stronger than that for what I’m about to tell you.”

Izaran hesitated before fetching a dark bottle from his kitchen.

Eden wrinkled her nose when he uncorked it. It smelled like aniseed and one of Woody’s foul burps combined.

It took over two hours for them to tell the demon of all that had happened since the Fall and the events following Cassius’s arrival in San Francisco.

“The Guardian of Light and the Prince of Night have been on Earth all this time?” Izaran said, stunned. “And they are planning to stop the God who caused the Nether to tear from trying to open the Abyss and release Chaos?!”

Eden recognized the titles the Lucifugous race used to refer to Cassius and Morgan.

“The Moirai have divined that Elios will be successful in freeing his grandfather from his eternal prison,” Bostrof said grimly.

Izaran paled. His knuckles whitened on his cup. He downed the contents in one go, poured some more, and stared at his drink with a glazed expression.

“Is all not lost then?” The Lucifugous finally met their eyes. “If the fate the Moirai describe is inevitable, then what hope is there left?”

“There is still hope.”

Eden looked at Loki. The imp was frowning.

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“While Cassius breathes,there will always be hope,” Loki continued, his eyes shining with quiet confidence. “Atropos told us the future is not set in stone. That our actions can still forge a different path, for all of us. That is why Cassius fights. And why we fight alongside him.”

Emotion clogged Eden’s throat. She thought of her pregnant mother, Brianna. Of Malik, the Hexa sorcerer who had never failed to show her kindness during the darkest years of her life and whom she now considered her stepfather. Of Cedric, the Dryad prince she’d never imagined in a million years she would one day be engaged to. A man who made her feel strong and weak at the same time. One who had stood beside her since the day they met and would do so forever more if given the chance.

They and the many friends and allies she had made since her awakening as the Magus were the reasons she would be at the forefront of the war to come.

“Loki is right.” Bostrof observed the imp with a grateful expression. “We still have a chance to alter the outcome of this war.”

He told Izaran of Clotho’s suspicions regarding the artifacts used to seal Chaos in the Abyss.

Izaran furrowed his brow. “You believe the alchemists Drarak allowed into our kingdom are making replicas of those weapons for their dark God?”

“Yes. The devilwood staff told Eden it could root them out, hence our presence in the Shadow Empire.”

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