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Lucan had backed up toward Sebastian to stop the soldiers from grabbing him and carrying him off like a helpless maiden. That brought them closer to Sebastian and made him all too aware of the light flashing off what felt like many dozens of blades. They glittered and shone and danced in front of the ugly twisted faces that grimaced with pure malice at him and his knight.
He felt Lucan’s death drawing near. The knight was handicapped by fighting alone. For every blade strike he deflected, two more landed. He had no armor.
Sebastian felt an arc of blood land across his face, but this time it did not emerge from an enemy. This time it came from Lucan, a cut given to his shoulder. Sebastian watched as his big, brave, bold knight simply switched his sword hand and continued to fight.
Lucan would die for him. Lucan, who was braver and bolder and kinder and more handsome than any man he knew of in existence was going to be taken to pieces in front of him.
All that was repressed in Sebastian began to rise in a great column of ire. Like a dormant volcano suddenly rumbling to life, power surged uncontrollably through him.
A flash of something like flame shot out around the pair of them. It was as it had been on the day of the training ground all those years ago, but so much more intense. It was not a little tongue of fire that seared the eyes of those who assailed them. It was a great plume of heat so intense Sebastian saw it melt the flesh from the skulls of their assailants, bubbling and peeling back to reveal bone inhabited by nothing more than the cinders of what had been their evil little brains.
There were no screams, those died in their roasted throats. One moment they were lunging, attacking, destroying. The next they were quite simply dead.
“Ha! I knew you had it!”
A cackle of amusement came from somewhere nearby, laughter that started as a distant little trill and became a booming expression of devilish amusement.
Kinsey emerged from his hiding place, whatever realm lurked ever so close to theirs that a creature like him could wander from one to the other with but a single step, clapping his hands slowly.
“That’s my boy,” he said. “You’ve got my power in you.”
Sebastian looked at the devil, the creature who claimed to have spawned him on this world, and felt nothing. He did not know if he would ever feel anything again. The events of the past few days had erased feeling from him. The very notion of mother and father seemed to mean nothing to him now. Thadecus had never taken much interest in him, and this Kinsey, his self-interest was so transparent that even a lost royal waif facing death could not bring himself to believe the devil could ever be an ally. Perhaps the devil expected Sebastian to fall at his feet and call him daddy, and be relieved to have found family. But what was family? It was nothing more than a cluster of shared traits and failings passed down to fresh flesh.
“I have my power in me,” Sebastian replied. “Yours is weak. You are a little woodland trickster, hiding behind your illusions.”
With that dismissal, he turned to Lucan. “The wound, is it terribly deep?”
He found Lucan looking at him with a mixture of horror, gratitude, and sheer amazement.
“Sire, do you understand what you just did? Wild magic. Primal magic. Not devil magic.”
“It was of fire and brimstone. It was of me!” Kinsey insisted. “Do you not see his horn? Do you not note the way his eye flashes as mine does?”
“Shut your foul mouth, devil,” Lucan cursed. “You betrayed us because I would not give you my soul. You would see me dead and Sebastian slain. You have nothing to offer either of us. The power that lies in the prince has nothing to do with you. It is as he says, something far greater.”
In the face of the knight’s ire, Kinsey’s expression melted into a sort of apologetic half-grin. “I admit, I haven’t behaved as a father should, but I am a devil. I do have a temper. Allow me to make up for my little indiscretion. Let me heal that wound.”
“I will not take a single favor from you, devil.”
Sebastian looked at Kinsey and saw absolutely no familial resemblance, not in his appearance or in his energy. It had been a long time since Sebastian had tasted that raw power, whatever it was, wherever it came from. He was certain it did not come from the devil before them. But the creature could still be useful regardless.
“Please, Lucan. Let him heal the wound. It is quite literally the least he could do.”
“Devils do nothing but what serves them,” Lucan said. “This one would be better slain.”
