It was not a sensation he typically experienced. Demons, by nature, did not grow warm on their own. Warmth was for blood and breath and beating hearts, for creatures made of flesh, not for beings like him. In his world, the place mortals calledThe Void, warmth was an anomaly. Creatures who dwelled there were always cool.
The Voiditself was a strange place, especially to human eyes, a near mimicry of Earth, but not quite. There were trees the color of wine, and their bark was darker than midnight. There were rivers and ponds, but they ran black as ink, and anyone looking to seek their reflection would find only more endless black. There was no sun in The Void, no stars to catch the edge of light, no breeze to stir the air, no oxygen to fill human lungs. Nothing lived in The Void as mortals understood life. It was a realm of darkness and silence so deep it could become sound.
To most humans, The Void would seem deathless and strange, but to Erevos, it was home.
And now, he intended to make ithersas well.
So he walked through the silence while his warmth cooled off, toward a place few ever dared to approach, for the demon that resided there was unpleasant in both form and temperament, known to twist truths into poisons and smile while doing it. It was said he was cruel without reason.
That did not concern Erevos.
He did not flinch from cruelty, nor beauty, nor the in-between. He had come with a purpose. And he intended to feed his little mortal songbird. To nourish her, to provide her with anything she would ever need.
Erevos approached the mouth of a cave, one far beyond the reaches of where only a few demons of his kind chose to roam. It lay at the outer edges of The Void, where the land curled in on itself, and the shadows grew thick enough to muffle sound: a place rarely visited, and seldom without reason.
In The Void, a demon would take residence in a cave only for a few reasons.
The first: the demon was sick and could no longer fend for itself.
The second: the demon had adopted an animal—rare, but not unheard of—and the creature was either unwell or birthing.
The third: trade.
Unlike the human world, The Void did not deal in coin or cloth or the glittering trifles mortals seemed to prize. There was no currency in silk, no market for gold. In The Void, demons bartered in emotions. Feelings harvested, shaped, and distilled into items that carried weight and taste and memory. Traders would travel to the human world to collect such offerings—tears, laughter, longing—drawn into vials, pearls, and strange, shimmering fragments of light or dark.
For demons, visiting the human realm was a task few enjoyed. Mortals were rarely of interest outside of their use as nourishment, and fewer still were the demons willing to linger among the noise and rituals of their kind. Why attend a funeral to collect grief when one could simply trade for a weeping eye, still warm with sorrow? Why chase a grieving widow through her crumbling home when the ache of her loss could be traded, neatly packaged at the market?
Demons preferred simplicity.
But Erevos was not heading to the market. He was going farther. Beyond the trading circles. Beyond the more palatable vendors.
He was headed to the cave of a different kind of trader.
Rolam.
A name spoken only in private, if at all. A demon who dealt in rarer goods, stranger things. And while most void-born had little interest in the human world beyond what could be consumed, Rolam was different. He collected. And though Erevos had never lingered long in Rolam’s presence, he had once seen some of what the strange demon had gathered—spices from distant earth markets, preserved organs, strands of human hair, and other things Erevos had never bothered to understand or value until now.
Because now he had a little songbird to care for. A mortal. And Erevos had seen her eat, watched her choose food with warmth and sweetness, watched her avoid sorrow and fear as though she could taste them just like he could.
She would not eat tears of grief. She would not chew the bubbles of fear demons loved. She needed something else. And Rolam, he hoped, would have it.
“Greetings, Erevos,” Rolam mused, lounging in a chair that looked like it had been taken from a human tavern.
All demons knew one another. There weren’t many of them to begin with. None remembered where they had come from, and none had seen new demons born. They simply existed—always had—and no more ever appeared.
Erevos nodded to the demon across from him. Rolam was a creature as dark as he was, though his eyes were larger, purple orbs that glimmered faintly in the half-light.
Beside Rolam, a herta stretched its long limbs, extending its fuzzy paws with a kind of lazy grace. It was a Void-creature, catlike but not quite, its fur rippling with shadow. As Erevos crossed the threshold of the cave, the herta rolled onto its side and exposed its belly.
“Got interested in humans, have you?” Rolam asked, his voice a rasping purr, his gaze following Erevos as he moved deeper into the cavernous store. The place was dark, as most corners of The Void were, lit only by orbs of suspended light. Each one pulsed softly with contained emotion. Some glowed red with rage, some blue with sorrow, some pulsed gold with longing. Erevos passed one strange orb and paused.
Within it shimmered a translucent-white liquid; the scent was rather sweet.
Erevos stilled, and that strange warmth returned, rising deep in his chest. He turned his gaze briefly toward the orb, then looked away.
“I want to feed a human,” he said at last.
Rolam tilted his head, “A human?”
