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“Let us stop this. We can’t afford to waste time arguing,” I say after what feels like minutes have passed, earning a glare as if I wasn’t already aware that I’m responsible for letting most of the day pass without training. “I’m here now.”
“Very well.” Varin seems to grow smaller, hunching in on themselves.
I breathe a sigh of relief at having escaped unscathed, but it’s a moment too soon.
Varin pounces. Their massive body crashes into mine. We fall together. The impact of their weight forces the air from my lungs in a painful whoosh. My head hits the stone floor with a resoundingthunk.
The demon’s weight presses down, seeming to increase, keeping me from drawing half a breath until I am dizzy. No amount of struggling helps, and my strength rapidly wanes. I’m unable to crawl out from under them.
Focus, Varin hisses in my mind.
I cannot breathe, let alone think beyond the primal urge screaming at me to survive, to claw my way out from under them.
Two blazing orbs of red hover above me, going in and out of focus. Then their weight shifts, just enough for me to draw in a deep breath. My lungs ache. The slight relief it brings doesn’t last long.
A taloned finger drags over my shoulder, leaving a shallow scratch trailing in its wake. The point comes to rest on the tender scar above my heart. Varin snarls, pressing down, piercing through skin, sinking into my flesh agonizingly slow. Further and further until the point connects with bone. I am delirious with the paralyzing pain.
Something cracks, gives way. I break out in a cold sweat, freezing on the inside, burning up on the outside. A wave of nausea rolls through me.
Varin makes a growl of satisfaction and scrapes the surface of my heart. I can feel every thump as it fights to keep going.
I can feel the space between beats grow longer and further away until it’s so distant it doesn’t sound like it’s in my chest anymore. Then there is a moment between the last and the next that stretches on far too long.
I think I might be dying.
Varin’s power retreats lightning fast, ripping out and leaving a void behind as if it took something vital with it, and leaving something else, something foreign in its place.
The first beat is like being struck by a boulder. It beats again and again and again. The pace picks up, quickening until it’s racing, pounding inside my chest as if demons have chased me for miles. It’s no longer the eerie echo as if I clasped it in my hand.
My back arches off the ground as I draw in a deep breath. The air is hot. Stifling. Or maybe it is that I am too cold. I sit up, coughing violently, and clutch at my wound.
Except…
There is no blood… no hole.
I turn to Varin. The demon is precisely where they were. Instead of idly scratching at the stone, they are oddly still, observing my every movement and reaction.
Glad as I am to be alive, I am furious.
I don’t need to ask if they nearly killed me. The guilt of dragging me within a hair’s breadth of dying is written in their posture.
This time I don’t attempt to control my temper. I use them to pull myself up on shaking legs. I face them down as ifIwere the demon, and they were my prey.
“I gave you my word, and still you don’t believe me,” I say, enunciating each syllable as the hold on my emotions slips. “Even after I explained what happened, you punish me. And for what? Coming here a few hours later than you wanted me to? Tell me, why shouldn’t I leave and never return?”
Varin lowers their head to the floor, their taloned hands coming up beside their face. The look of contrition, unmistakable. “Because you now possess a direct portion of my power. I can’t take it back, even if I wanted to.”
A gift… given in good faith.
Demon shit.
I sigh.
“I should have warned you what would happen, and…” Varin trails off, angling their face away. “I was not as careful as I ought to have been. For that, I am sorry.”
Empathy worms its way beneath my simmering ire. Forgiveness is inevitable.
Even without their gift, I can’t let them off the hook without consequence. Just as they would not give me a free pass for my recklessness. We must keep each other in check.
