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“Don’t go icing up the floors again,” Orias warned Azimuth. “She’ll melt right through it while we’ll wind up on our asses.”
Nadir bounded down the stairs and hunted Belial through the stacks of books. She rounded the last row and spied Belial pouring through a tome with a meager candle for light. His menacing horns glimmered with iridescence in the dim, flickering light.
“Belial!” Nadir snapped through her fangs, planting herself squarely in front of him.
His gaze rose to her, a look of preoccupied disinterest on his face. “I’m in the middle of something, child.” He turned a page, scanning through the old vellum pages.
“I will not be put off,father.” Nadir held up the blade, her hand hanging midair between the page and his eyes. She heard the shifting of the others behind her, but they said nothing.
Belial grimaced, visibly taken aback at her appearance. “Whatever has gotten into you? Do you even realize you’re covered in gore? Why do you bare your fangs and claws at me, pup?” he rumbled, full of ire.
Nadir shook the blade under his nose. “Explain the sancre. Fully.”
Belial dropped the book to his side, knocking her arm to the side. He bent down and advanced toward her, bringing his face inches from hers. Nadir held her ground. “I remember explaining their use. Were you not listening?” Ancient, menacing fire pooled in his eyes.
Nadir, undeterred, held up the blade again. She heard Kobol groan. “I must have missed something, pops. I killed a wee daemon spawn with this, but it didn’t work as advertised. Its sibling and parents dusted right along with it moments later. How the Sheol does that happen?”
Belial’s gaze flickered to the blade for the first time, and his ire melted into a self-satisfied, smug grin full of fang. “Ah, yes. Splendid!”
“Splendid?” Nadir replied.
His demeanor relaxed. Belial took a step back and his attention slid back to the tome. “It’s functioning exactly as designed. The sancre eliminates not only the daemon it penetrates, but also culls the parents of the lineage.”
He resumed reading. Nadir breathed deeply, shocked to hear his admission, despite knowing it must be true because of what she’d witnessed.
Azimuth cleared his throat. “This is an altogether new method of killing.”
“Indeed, as I said before, it’s my crowning achievement in forged weapons. Your kill rates will soar! Imagine how quickly you will eradicate the tainted vermin!”
The four liminals were silent for a moment as each digested the information. Belial resumed reading, oblivious to the impact of his announcement.
“That explains my vision the other day of a blade turning to ashes. The expanded reach of associated kills will indeed speed our efforts, father,” Orias replied. “Are there any other effects we should be aware of?”
Belial looked up, appearing annoyed they were still there. “There’s nothing for you to concern yourselves with.”
Nadir gnashed her fangs, throwing the blade at his feet. “You withheld some information from us. How can we be certain you’re telling us everything now?”
Belial barked out an unexpected laugh. “I suppose you can’t, but regardless, you will use these new weapons as ordered, or there will be consequences. Am I understood?”
“What happens if we kill daemons connected to the lineages contained within our flesh?” Nadir asked, eyes focused on her hands. “Will we turn to dust, too?”
Belial sighed in exasperation, as if she were a child askingwhy is the sky was bluefor the umpteenth time. “Don’t be ridiculous. You have human forms independent of the daemon essences within you, so even if you wiped out all of them, you’d endure.”
“Wouldn’t we be less useful to you without our powers?” Kobol asked, an uncharacteristic edge in his voice.
Belial let out a low, subvocalized growl. “What a ridiculous question. Obviously, you’d be less useful to me. Yet, you all have so many powers, I doubt you’d miss one here or two there. Besides, if you were to lose a useful skill, you could always use a tre’jor to perk yourselves back up.”
His utter and complete disregard for their existence only drove home how little each of his created children mattered to the prince. They were only tools to him, to be discarded when they’d outlived their usefulness. She considered telling him as much, but what would be the point? He didn’t appear to be living under any delusions, unlike her cabal-mates. Nadir turned on her heel, storming off from Big Blue.
She heard the scrape of the blade being picked up. “I’ll return this to her,” Azimuth said. “She’ll be fine.”
“Talk with her about proper presentation as well. She shouldn’t run around looking like that,” Belial grated out.
Which was ironic, Nadir considered, as the prince was the one who’d set her up to become part daemon herself.
“Yes, sire,” she heard Azimuth reply.
And then there were three sets of feet following her out of the library.
