Leah
“Darkness, that’s some rift,”Syrus breathes in my ear.
I perch on the high stone wall, staring out at the doorway to Aradis. I’ve seen it from afar, of course, but I’ve never tried to get this close.
The big battlefield rifts have to be opened quickly, and when the wingers use frames to anchor them, they have to be ones that can be assembled fast. But the government-run trade rift to Aradis is semi-permanent. It closes and opens to a certain schedule, and its location is fixed, flaring into life each day between the columns of a huge stone archway. It’s open now, a warm, orange light pouring through the doorway to the ephilium realm, a tiered golden city just visible in the distance.
From here, sitting on the wall of a nearby building, we can only see the highest parts of the rift. The rest is obscured behind a series of walls and fences. What wecansee are the busy gates of the rift compound, currently thrown open and manned by ephilium in white uniforms trimmed with gold.
“Maybe Lady Jing has a point about trying to increase our trade with Strata,”Syrus says, and I can feel him behind my eyes, studying the long line of carts and wagons passing through in both directions.“The scale of this is…impressive.”
I snort.“That’s your takeaway? You’re such a politician.”
“Wrong, my dear vulture,”he says, and for some reason hearing him use the mean little nickname sends a note of pleasure thrumming through me.“Politicians have to lie and cheat their way into power, and lie even more to stay there. I’d never stoop to that.”
“Maybe because if you’re born into power, you don’t have to fight so much to keep it,”I point out.
“Being born into power means I have nothing to prove,”he corrects.“I fight for my kingdom because it is my duty, not because I craved glory or greed or some overinflated sense of self that I thought I could find in a title.”
“I suppose there’s a twisted logic to that,”I say, though it doesn’t exactly convince me Strata would be better off with a monarchy again.
“Why thank you,”Syrus says sardonically, turning his awareness once more toward the rift.
“I’ll need to get closer,”I say, jumping in before he can give me any orders.“All the inspections happen inside the compound.”It was my idea to come straight here after visiting the market. We can’t afford to put any stock in Ingold’s tip before we’ve verified it.
“Will it be safe to get past the perimeter?”he asks as I start climbing down the wall.
“Bit late to be asking that, don’t you think?”I tease.“I thought the whole point was human spies can go places demons can’t.”
“It is. I just?—”
“Well, it’s true. The fences and walls are mostly to send a message to your lot. Humans aren’t a threat to the ephilium, but the pale-bloods definitely want demons knowing they’re not welcome here.”
I realize I’ve used the demon slang for the ephilium without meaning to. Damn, he’s rubbing off on me in ways I didn’t see coming.
“It makes sense,”Syrus agrees as I move away from the compound gate and the many guards stationed there, instead tracing the outer fence, searching for a way in.“The more territorial the ephilium are about this area, the more difficult it would be for the demons to get near it without it being seen as a deliberate breach of the Concords.”
“You really think Infernum could have its own rift in Pax?”I ask as I spot an older section of fencing with one of the runners broken at the corner. It provides a useful foothold as I scramble up and over.
“Perhaps. If humans stopped being afraid of us long enough to consider the advantages.”
“Sounds like a you problem,”I offer. I check the coast is clear, then drop lightly down from the other side of the fence. I’m behind a row of low buildings I suspect are mostly used for storage. Staying close to the wall of one, I peer round the corner.“Maybe if demons tried not to be so intimidating—or in your case, terrifying—you’d get somewhere.”
A caress presses against the back of my neck as Syrus’s voice turns soft.“I don’t believe you’re afraid of me, Leah. Not anymore.”
I fight the urge to close my eyes and lean into that touch. I’d be an idiot if I wasn’t still wary of him, considering how powerful he is and the control he has over me. But he’s right that somewhere along the road, the nature of that fear shifted. Now I’m much more afraid of how he makes me feel than what he might make me do. There’s something about him, and Infernum, and all of it that I might actually want more than…well, that thing I’ve been chasing for six long years.
I try to marshal my thoughts as I dart to the next building and peer round the second corner. We can see the entirety of the rift now. Ephilium move around it like gleaming beetles on a corpse, their white wings catching the glowing rift light as they swoop away from loaded wagons to ferry cargo to the storage buildings.
There’s a lot of them, and in typical ephilium fashion, even the civilians moving cargo are armed, with gold-handled daggers and axes strapped to their pristine uniforms. We watch them work, and while I’ve not been here before, I can’t help but pick up on a certain tension that doesn’t seem entirely normal.
“Do they seem a bit…jumpy to you?”I ask Syrus.
“Yes. They’ve triple-checked most of the cargo going to Aradis. Though that doesn’t track with what that dealer said about something being smuggledintoPax.”
“You don’t think there’s Morphos water in there, do you?”I ask.
But before Syrus can answer, his presence stills, then reaches out, like an animal sniffing the air.
