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He wasn’t even that good of a kisser.
My inner presence snorted, which felt strange to say the least. Kind of like a pig had made a pen in my stomach. A definite first, and I hoped for a last.
It snorted again. I rolled my internal eyes at myself.
Ademi cleared his throat.
“Thank you,” I said, smoothing my hands down the beaded corset that cinched in my burgundy pleated chiffon gown. Corbin’s eyes followed the movement of my fingers to just below the dip of the low v neckline, before rising back to meet mine once more. He bent at the waist extending his hand to grasp mine before brushing it softly against his lips. This felt more like a courtship than an interview, far too intimate of a gesture for someone who had no choice but to go to the highest bidder. Another round of tingles splayed from my belly, but the band's scorching on my wrist broke through the reverie.
Corbin’s eyes twinkled down at me as he pulled my arm to the crux of his elbow. Guiding me toward the great hall and our table, he bent to brush his lips against the shell of my ear. They were almost too warm, his breath blushing over my skin as he spoke. “My father would be quite proud tonight. The first compliment was mine.”
Despite the awkwardness I’d been feeling, the tingling continued all the way to the tips of my toes.
Dinner was pleasant, my initial reticence forgotten in the face events unfolding around us. By all accounts, Corbin was the perfect gentleman asking and answering all the questions expected of a candidate and her prospective guild, all overt flirtations gone like a whisper of a cloud on a summer’s day. Topics ranged from choices of electives and favorite professors to more intimate topics like my favorite food or what beasts I had been more humbled to have run across. A strange feeling, like a prickling behind my ear began at the latter question, and I kept my answer rather blasé but believable. I spoke about the demonic serpent known as a trileton, who’s thrice spiraling rattling tail was much like the rattlesnakes I’d encountered in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. And while yes, they were extremely dangerous considering their rattle could induce hypnosis, my heart had always lain with a hellhound I’d come across as a child.
Toward the final course, a chocolate torte topped with fresh raspberries and hand whipped cream decorated with a smattering of pomegranate seeds to add just a bit of bite, the feeling behind my ear began to spread. It felt extremely off putting, tying directly to that special spot beneath the sternum dedicated to anxiety. The heat of my bracelet intensified with the growing disturbance, as a white fog gathered behind my eyes.
I wasn’t aware of when I had dropped my fork, or how I had been swept from my seat and into the arms of a familiar demon with a cologne reminiscent of cedar, cigars, and dark chocolate. I vaguely registered Felix’s chipper apologies for the interruption as the snare drums and alto tones of the songProm Queencame over the speakers that separated the dance floor from the main dining area. I became mesmerized by the sight of near liquid silver cascading around me as I spun with him, the shimmering locks breaking free of the bun I’d tied them into. Emotions around the room began to penetrate me, loose essences twirling in a swirling kaleidoscope of rich gemstones and brash metallics.
Virtues twirled between my fingers, hues of burnished gold, amber and copper drawing patterns in air. I could barely recognize the laugh that left my lips, a joy lifting to displace the anxiety of moments before. Or had it been minutes - maybe hours?
Heavy emotions tainted the room, and as quickly as the joy had taken control a sickly scent of rot filled my nostrils. Through the haze that had clouded my vision, a hand clad in a bright red cuff jerked my lower arm so forcefully pain ricocheted up the now useless limb. Beyond the pain, the touch felt wrong, and immediately burnt my flesh. I was shocked that the fingerprints had not been emblazoned on the fevered skin. The man with golden hair screamed and snarled, his emotions bearing down on me with such a weight I could do nothing but fall helplessly to my knees.
I vaguely registered shouts of murder, and the word custody repeatedly. The tingling at the side of my head crawled up my scalp and I ripped at the roots of my hair. Unable to control the sounds I forced my hands over my ears, but I could feel the accusations as thickly woven chains of emotion. I couldn’t rise, couldn’t do anything but bend. It was too much. This was too much. I couldn’t control it, the sheer magnitude of their stares cutting physical paths in my skin. The essences I had so greedily been absorbing collapsed into themselves and imploded into multicolored sparks that my clouded vision could barely register.
But still their accusations weighed down on me. They were calling me a murderer. They were screaming for chains. Couldn’t they see it hadn’t been my fault? All the souls that lit the night with nightmares better kept in the pits of hell had been my punishment. I lived in purgatory; their stolen voices burdened my very life.
It all became too much. I wasn’t a murderer.
A scream tore my throat, and the room flashed with silver overlaying every surface.
Silence welled up around me, swallowing my senses. The tingling stopped.
Tiny white flecks danced across a black background like freshly fallen snow. A feeling of immense relief cascaded down my limbs leaving them exhausted and relieved.
And then blackness claimed me.
Chapter Twenty-One - The Emissary
Felix
Felix had been watching Ryn since the moment she entered the overly ostentatious ballroom. Despite being of Greed the room held no appeal to him, feeling more a waste of valued resources that could have been better applied to the students than the walls. Sure, Marik had loved the room, no doubt reminding him of his days in Sanctuary and Rome after that, but Felix had not been born into such an era. He had grown up in the humble ages of early religious zealots and ignorant common folk, where roofs had been thatched with twigs and mud and the everyday person was lucky to have a bath more than once a week. The late 1100s had not been pleasant for the people of what was now known as Ireland, who were still adjusting to life post Norman invasion. The time had been rife with demonic life, but angels who were unafraid of human zealots worked closely with many churches across the land to hunt them down. The only way to survive had been with knowledge.
That was when his obsession with secrets had begun, as he had chosen to live amongst the common folks always two steps ahead. His father, Pleonysis, who now simply went by Leon, had not agreed, preferring to lean on wealth to afford protection, an act that would eventually cost him his wife and alienate his son. Leon hadn’t much cared about the latter until Marik declared Felix, at age seventeen, to be the fated missing Emissary of Greed.
As emissary he held the highest station of any greed demon on the Earthen plain, a step just below the archdemons who had been banned from Earth, save one child who, woefully unprepared, had been thrown to Earth to watch the demons burn. But despite the odds, demonic presence had strengthened rather than dwindled as each sin’s emissary had been birthed and located on the Earth one at a time, each carrying a unique piece somewhere on their body that connected them to the prince and his sin of wrath.
To this day Felix’s ring still burned with Marik’s intense emotions, although over the centuries Felix had learned to shield himself from it. But as he watched the silver haired enchantress float into the room on the arm of an all too attractive human it had been impossible to block. At one moment he had believed his finger may bubble and dissolve beneath the onslaught, something that had happened only once before when Marik had discovered the emissary of envy, Livia, some fifty years after Felix’s own discovery. The emotional connection first formed between an archdemon and the emissaries was built purely on essences derived from hell, rather than the humans they normally fed off of, and caused a much more intense reaction for a demon’s natural essences. Livia was truly a consummate physical creature, and her natural connection to envy and lust had driven Marik’s lustful side, nearly as strong as his wrath, to a literal fevered pitch. Hence the finger stump. But the advantage of being an emissary was enhanced self-healing, although it had truly been a bitch to regrow.
Marik’s tempers had cooled that evening when it became clear Ryn was not responding to the attempted flirtations of the humility caster beside her. Felix had to admit he had game, easily slipping in subtle innuendo wrapped in the appearance of earnest interest.
Why does she keep doing that?Drew’s tentative psychic voice came through the bonds, much quieter than the direct connection Felix held with his demons.
I’m not sure. Felix replied, watching as Ryn continued to rub a spot behind her ear in rhythmic circles. Despite the variable feast laid out before her she had only picked at the multiple dishes, even through forced waves of gluttony wafted through the air, designed to increase satiation, and induce relaxation for the upcoming bids.
Ryn had poked her dessert, and while she licked at her spoon with a grace that belied her innocence, Felix felt no desire toward her. The connection he felt reminded him very much of the closest bonds he shared: those with his fellow emissaries. Even now despite the distance between them and the lack of psychic speech, he could feel Livia, Cassius, Warrick, Thaddeus and Marik in his mind. Their presences reminded him much of a television that was left on in another room - he could hear the faint pattern of sound but not make out the words.
But as much as her presence may remind him of the emissaries, it was impossible to form such a connection again. On Earth demons were only permitted six emissaries, unlike the seven that angels were allowed. Pride was banned, a curse from Lucifer for failures during the last War on Sanctuary, or so they had been led to believe at least.
