“Is this your cat?” she asked.
Rolam’s grin widened, and for a moment it resembled Erevos’s own, though not quite as expansive, not quite as sharp, but similar enough to make her chest tighten.
“This,” he said, glancing down at the creature as it circled his leg, “is not a cat as you understand them in the human realm. It is a herta.”
“A herta,” Lyssena repeated, testing the unfamiliar word on her tongue. “Does the herta have a name?”
“No,” Rolam replied without hesitation.
She blinked at him. “Why not?”
As she asked the question, her gaze drifted once more across the market, and it was then that she noticed that there were no decorations.
No fabrics meant purely for beauty, no carvings, no trinkets or ornaments designed to delight the eye. Every stall held containers, sealed vessels, shadow-bound items, but nothing frivolous, nothing crafted solely for admiration.
No color beyond black and violet. No excess.
And suddenly the idea of buying something “nice” for their home felt impossibly human.
“You are disappointed,” Rolam said.
Lyssena hesitated because denying it would have been pointless, and there was something strangely exhausting about pretending in a place where even sealed grief could be sensed through fabric and shadow.
“There is . . . nothing for me to buy,” she admitted at last, her gaze drifting once more over the dark stalls and their purposeful wares. “I thought there might be cushions, perhaps, or plush pillows, or something soft to place near our seating area. Or decorations. Or—” she faltered, realizing how trivial her ideas must sound here, “—anything, really.”
She could almost see the image in her mind: a corner of their cavern softened with fabric, something inviting and warm against the endless dark stone, a space that felt less like a realm of ancient power and more like a home.
Rolam regarded her in silence for a moment before replying, “Demons do not sell such things.”
The statement was simple. And for the first time since he had begun speaking to her, he did not sound particularly human.
A human, she thought, would have elaborated. A human would have added something, an explanation, a suggestion, perhaps even a shrug and a redirection toward some other stall or merchant who might offer what she sought. A human conversation filled the spaces between answers.
Rolam left the space empty.
Just like he did not answer her question about naming the herta.
It was not cruel, nor dismissive, but final in a way that felt distinctly inhuman, as though the matter required no further examination because, to him, it simply did not exist.
Lyssena pressed her lips together, unwilling to surrender her idea so easily. She also wanted to scratch her nose, but then remembered she had a beak.
Well, if such things were not displayed here, that did not necessarily mean they were not available at all.
“Then, do you sell such things?” she ventured, lifting her gaze to him once more. “You said you sold Erevos honey and spices,which are not of The Void, so I could assume you might sell other goods as well?”
She had almost saidhuman goods.
The phrase hovered dangerously close to her tongue, but something about it unsettled her. She was not trembling as before, and she was not consumed by fear, but she was also not foolish enough to forget where she stood.
Rolam studied her for a long moment; those endless violet eyes were unreadable, and then he inclined his head in a slow nod.
“I do,” he said simply.
The herta brushed once more against his leg, its many eyes blinking.
“Come,” Rolam added, turning, his long legs already beginning to move between the shadowed stalls. “Follow me.”
And though Lyssena knew she should hesitate—knew she was placing a great deal of trust into a being she had met only moments ago—she found herself walking after him anyway.
