Page 110 of The Demon Prince

Gluttony worked to get his home in a better state for her. Katherine deserved the best. She should have a castle full of silks and beautiful stained glass, not the haunted house he lived in.

But that took a lot of time and effort. There were few people who were willing to come work for him, less and less as the time went on. So Gluttony found himself doing a majority of the work. Which, surprisingly, he didn’t mind.

The new blisters on his hands were as expected, he supposed, and he was quite pleased that his body could still work so hard. After all, he had spent a thousand years not doing... anything at all.

Or perhaps it was just his natural desire to be a glutton for punishment. He did very much enjoy the aches and pains that came with fixing his home.

It also gave him an option to leave the castle more as he traveled farther and farther from it. Not so far that he couldn’t return if he needed to, he was very aware that there were people looking at attacking his castle at any point. But so far, they were allowed to remain in peace while they remained far away from anyone else.

He knew this was a gift, and a rarity that would likely be broken soon enough. And in the meantime, before they were attacked, he wanted to make sure that Katherine was as comfortable as possible.

Today, he was returning with an armful of silken sheets. They had destroyed theirs. The memory made his head spin, and it was far pastime that he gave her sheets better than ancient homespuns.

Whistling as he entered the castle, he started toward their bedroom to surprise her. She’d be so happy with the color, as well. His Katherine preferred brighter colors, he’d found out. She enjoyed light splashes of yellow and rose, bright patterns and vivid hues that whirled through the mind’s eye as she walked by them.

The sheets he’d found were a bright shade of green, the same color as her eyes. The merchant hadn’t been all that interested in selling them to a demon, so Gluttony had taken matters into his own hands.

The moment the man turned around, he stole the sheets and ran.

As a true royal did.

But he only made it halfway to their room before he heard a horrible sound. The wrenching sob broke his heart. He’d never heard her cry like that.

Gluttony couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen her cry at all. Katherine was stronger than most, and she took what life gave her without an ounce of complaint. Even after all she’d endured, she still found ways to smile.

Sheets forgotten, he dropped them onto the floor as he charged through the hall, seeking out the sound in every room that he came across.

“Katherine!” he called out, nearly frantic now to find her. “Katherine, where are you?”

Why wasn’t she responding?

His thoughts spun out of control. What if the people from the village had come while he was gone? What if they had attacked her instead of him, as they had the last time? He might find her curled up in a ball on the floor somewhere, incapable of being fixed because he was the fool who thought she needed better sheets.

But then he heard it. The soft shuffle of movement from a room just beyond and he burst into it so quickly that the door slammed against the wall. Dust rained down on their heads, falling like snow on top of his hair and down around his shoulders.

He was frozen in place by the sight in front of him. His heart stopped in his chest and every muscle in his body locked.

Katherine sat on the floor, her crimson skirts pooled around her like blood. Her hair fell in a waterfall down one side of her shoulder, shielding the little soul she held in her arms. Tear tracks had left red marks down her lovely cheeks, and those pretty green eyes had turned to chips of glimmering emerald as she cried. She didn’t even look up at him. Not once. Instead, all her attention was on the soul that leaked down to her lap until she gathered it up again.

“Oh no,” he muttered, before walking into the room.

Spite. The poor little spirit should never have stayed here. It should have gone back to the town where there were plenty of emotions for it to feed on. And in truth, he’d thought it had returned to that darkened village.

He hadn’t seen it in such a long time, and he’d been the fool who assumed it was fine. That it had gone back to the feeding grounds that were so close.

He’d never thought it would come to this.

Crouching beside Katherine, he placed his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. “When did you find it?”

“It was just lying there in the corridor.” She sounded more than upset. Hysteric, perhaps. Her words were a little too loud and too frantic. “I thought maybe it was just resting, because Spite hasn’t been itself for a very long time, you know? I thought maybe it was just pausing for a little rest and then when I leaned down to touch it, it just...” she hiccuped. “It didn’t move, Gluttony. Not even a little. It didn’t even flinch when I picked it up and you know how little it likes to be held.”

Again, he squeezed her shoulder. Taking a deep breath, he readied himself to tell her about the end of spirit’s lives. “There was nothing here for it to feed on. I wondered why Spite had remained when it knew how easily it could get food in the town. There is so little of its emotion to find in this castle.”

She sniffed. “Was it too weak? Is this our fault?”

She looked up at him with those big, water filled eyes and he felt his own soul fracture. “No, sweet.” Gluttony smoothed a tear off her cheek, chasing the droplet with his thumb. “No. We could have brought it back to the town, perhaps. And maybe it was too weak to return to its usual hunting grounds. But Spite chose to be here with us.”

“I don’t know why.” Katherine sniffled again, looking down at the little creature. “It should have gone home. It could have left at any point.”

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