Shae chokes, his calm facade finally fracturing. “You’re asking me?”
“Who better?” Evain sighs and reaches down to pluck a mahr blossom from the edge of the path. It’s bright against his dark leather gloves. “You know demons, and you know humans. You know relationships. Should I let Leth go, or try to persuade him back?”
Shae sets his hands on his hips. “I killed the last demon I met. Most humans hate me. And I only landed a relationship because Arthur is the sort of ridiculous man who bought an engagement ring before we even kissed.”
Sarcasm sounds particularly melodic in Lyrisenian. Evain rolls the flower stem between his fingertips, and listens.
“But fine. I’m not qualified, but I guess I’m the only one here.” Shae sighs. “You’re upset enough that I guess Arthur was right. You’re in love with him. But that won’t help you, because loving him isn’t enough.”
Evain’s grip on the flower tightens. “That’s not very encouraging.”
“Did you want encouragement?” Shae asks sharply. He steps closer, his gray eyes bright and stern as steel. “You came to the wrong necromancer for that. You’re a demon, and he’s a human. Maybe it’s best you never see him again.”
Refusal surges hot through Evain’s veins, driving him forward. Fists clenched, he checks himself.
Shae points one ringed finger at Evain’s face. “There. That look in your eyes. Whatever you felt when I said that?” His hand falls, and he turns away down the path. “There’s your answer.”
The fragile mahr falls to the snow. Evain knows in that moment he can’t give up. Hunting Leth down won’t work—but while he gives Leth time to cool down, he can prove that he’s the same as he ever was. That he’sbetterthan he ever was. He’ll seal rifts and fight vaidkos and rip invading demons to shreds with tooth and claw if he has to.
And the first item on the list is whatever asshole is summoning that hunger demon.
***
Snowtown’s witch is a tiny elderly woman, hunched over until she stands no taller than Evain’s waist. Her white hair hangs in two thick plaits over a gray fur coat that must weigh as much as she does. The picket fence around her cottage shows signs of frequent repair, half the stakes made of different kinds and ages of wood. The witch stands on one side of her low gate, firmly shut with Arthur and Freya on the outside.
Arthur turns around as Evain and Shae approach. “Thank Vara. She doesn’t speak Charaini, and I barely know any Lyrisenian.”
“It’s been awkward,” Freya adds.
The witch’s dark eyes narrow. “Can you two speak properly?” she addresses Evain and Shae in Lyrisenian. “Tell these southerners to leave us be. There are enough of you meddling around here already.”
“My deepest apologies,” Evain answers in the same language. He sweeps a bow and comes up with a practiced grin. “They’re too clumsy and foolish to pay proper respects to the great witch of Snowtown. May I have the honor of learning your name?”
Shae snorts next to him, and Freya whispers, “He’s insulting us, isn’t he?”
“My name is Nia, but don’t flatter me, boy,” the old woman says, though her eyes light up, and she looks at Evain with palpable appreciation.
Evain’s not really in the mood, but he needs to store power when he can, if he’s going to be of any use moving forward. “It’s only the truth, great and powerful beauty. I’m Evain Marha, and this is Shaesarenna Nightven. The others are our doltish servants.” Shae stifles another laugh. “We want to know about the other southerners you met recently. Did they wear a lot of gray, with bronze wolf pins? And a bad attitude?”
“Acolytes of the war god,” Nia says. “Yes.”
There’s only two reasons foreigners come to Lyrisenia these days. Evain asks, “What were they looking for?”
“I refused to tell them anything.” Nia’s wrinkled face grows fierce. “And I won’t tell you where the old summoning chapel is either.”
Evain’s blood runs cold. “No need to tell me. I already know.”
?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LETH
“Drink?” a soldier asks, offering her flask.
Leth glances at Javius, who sits across the fire with a dour look on his face. It would be paranoid to think Javius might somehow have tampered with the soldier’s flask. She already drank from it before offering. “No thanks,” Leth says anyway. He isn’t in the mood.
“Go on,” Anton says to his right. “You’re hardly on duty.”
