Chapter 194: Not Conceit(ed)
It took the better part of half an hour of standing next to her, glowering, before Shyll started cleaning the latrines. She’d absolutely left the moment I’d stopped observing, but I also didn’t care to punish myself by standing out there all evening.
So I’d returned to mine and Sey’s room to get work done. Predawn light was coloring the edges of the night sky when Seyari returned.
She landed gracefully, folded her red-feathered wings with a reverent glance back at them, and walked inside, softly closing the door behind her.
“Not sleeping tonight?” she asked me.
I thought back to my promise to Sonia and felt a twinge of guilt. “I was going to try soon—wanted to see if you found anything on patrol first.”
Seyari strode into the middle of the room and began disrobing without preamble. “Nothing. Which sucks. Whoever sent those mercs either gave up or is planning something bigger, and Envy and Avarice have either given up or are biding their time for the next attack. No fucking way it’s the first option for either of them.”
I furrowed my brow and blushed at the way her eyes almost dared me to watch her undress. “Did you see anyone on the pass?”
She shrugged, then stretched, her wings filling a lot of the big room’s space. “Couple of Church goons. Figured you’d be able to handle them. Didn’t look like a punitive force.”
I stood up. “Isn’t that a bit callous, Sey?”
She blinked her golden eyes. “So?”
“That group was Inva, the paladin from Gedon who’s like me, and Sonia, Salvador’s daughter.”
“There were three.” Her smile faltered a little.
“Third one’s Paula, from the Gelles Company.”
“Who?”
“A merc who tried to get me kicked out and-slash-or killed for being a demon.”
Sey sat down on the edge of the bed. “The fuck is she with them then?”
“Wanted to apologize.” I walked and sat down next to her.
“And you believed her?”
“Yeah, Sey—” I looked over at my wife, a lump building in my throat. “—I did.”
Seyari sighed. “I’ll get Taava to figure out what she’s really up to.” She looked up at me, and placed a cold hand on my cheek. “You’ve got to stop being so trusting, you know?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“No?”
“That’s not it, Sey. I… geez, I don’t know how to say this.” I rubbed at the back of my neck, tail twitching awkwardly somewhere in the mussed bedding behind me. “I’m not gonna keep making myself harder and harder. Or, uh, more jaded and cynical’s probably better.”
Her expression softened, sadness creeping in. “Renna, you can’t just get your innocence and naivety back. You’ve been doing great lately!” She rubbed at the small of my back, tracing claw-like nails up between shoulder blades. “Decisive! Strong!”
“That’s not me though, Sey!”
“People change, Renna!” She chuckled. “You said it yourself, right?”
“I don’t want to stop being a person though!”
“Just because you’ve killed some people? They didn’t give you a choice. If you can forgive me for all I’ve done, then I and everyone else can forgive you.”
“Like you said, Sey, people change.” I hugged her to me with my two right arms, and she wrapped her wing around us. “That’s why I forgave you. But this is me, now, changing in a direction that could be wrong.”
“It’s not!” Seyari huffed.
“Not yet!”
“Then stop it before it gets there.” She threw her hands up. “Isn’t that what you would say?”
Oh geez, it is what I’d say. But… I thought of Sonia, and wrapped my tail over both of us. “Look, this is hard to explain. But… I’ve crossed my own lines multiple times, and with increasing frequency. The problem isn’t that I’ve gone too far—which I arguably have—it’s that my attitude toward my own morality is shifting.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Sey looked down at my tail, then pulled it closer to her, playing with the spaded tip. “Your heart needs to be hard enough to make tough decisions, Renna. You know this.”
“It doesn’t!” I shot back.
Seyari narrowed her eyes. “Where’s all this coming from?”
“That!” I pointed at her with a free hand.
“Me?”
“No… well yes, but in the opposite direction and… Look, okay, how many bad puns have I made this week?”
Seyari furrowed her brow and stopped playing with my tail’s spade. “I… certainly a few?”
“You can’t even remember! That means they weren’t even inspired with how bad they were. That’s the problem!” I pointed a finger up like I’d hit right on it, but Seyari just looked back at me, confused.
“No, really, who put this in your head, Renna?”
I caught a flash of anger from her. “No, wait. I got sidetracked. Look—”
“Explain, Renna.” More anger.
“I’m getting to it.” I clapped my two left hands together. “The problem is exactly that kind of paranoia and an immediate reaction to use at the very least the threat of violence to—”
Bang!
Sey and I turned toward the door at inhuman speed.
“Hey!” Shyll’s voice came through, a little muffled.
“Boss!” Taava’s voice was hardly any clearer, and followed by a hiss.
“We’re kinda busy!” I shouted back.
Outside, I could hear more scuffling.
“Look, Boss—”
“—don’t care if you’re”
“—fuckin’—”
“—brains out—”
“—we’ve got—”
“—problem!”
“—Demon!”
Well, shit.
“Go,” Seyari said. “You can take care of this.”
“But I wasn’t done—”
I heard the doorhandle jiggling, and more loud knocks resounded throughout the room.
“I’ll think about it,” Seyari said, yawning. “Unlike you, I need to sleep sometimes.”
“Promise me?”
She waved me toward the door and slipped out of our embrace. “Mhm.”
Shit. “Coming!”
Not a second later, I threw the door open. “What?!”
Standing on the other side, Taava had Shyll in a headlock, and the latter was struggling to escape without using strength that’d give away her true nature. The former looked like she’d come out of a mud pit, and the latter the baths. Taava… well not all of it was mud from the smell.
Which would probably go a long way to explaining some things. Except the demon.
“What’s going on?” I closed the door behind me and stepped out into the hall.
“You got dressed fas—” Shyll was cut off by Taava squeezing a little tighter.
“Sorry for cuttin’ latrine duty, but you’ve got one hell of a guest—and unless ya cut me and everyone else outta the loop, she ain’t expected.” Taava smiled up at me, almost pleading.
“Is she violent?” They both shook their heads, Shyll struggling due to the headlock. Good, then I can get this sorted first. “Shyll was on latrine duty, Taava.”
Shyll’s face paled, and she stuttered before the headlock got tighter. With a roll of her eyes she seemed to come to a decision. Before she broke Taava’s arm, I tapped it myself.
Taava released Shyll, who fell to the ground and did a fantastic job imitating a struggle for breath.
“She’ll get latrines again next week. Go take a bath.”
Taava beamed, and actually purred a little.
“You should… know what Taava did, though,” Shyll said with a wicked smile. “She—”
“Did something illegal, immoral, or wickedly unfunny. Yeah, I get it.” I pulled the lust demon in disguise up off the floor, roughly. “But if I didn’t hear of it because someone didn’t report what they knew, then as far as I’m concerned Taava got away with it fair and square.”
Taava laughed. “Really? Oh, you’re the best, Boss! By the way—it was too funny!”
I pressed a hand against my forehead. “Do whatever you did again and see if you get away with it.”
The kazzel snorted. “Pfft, yeah fine. I get it. Gonna walk the straight ‘n narrow from now on.”
I shrugged. “If you want to, but I’m neither straight nor narrow, so I don’t care. Now, it looks like I have a guest to receive?”
Shyll looked at me aghast. Taava just kept laughing.
“Sey’s joke not mine… No, really! Uhh, look, let’s just say I’m getting back into the swing of things?”
“Missed a pun there, Boss!”
“Do you want to go to the showers or the latrines, Taava?”
She saluted then took off down the hall at a run.
“Shyll, details.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re a terrible judge of character, Zarenna.”
“Actually,” I smiled, hissing a little fire between clenched teeth, “that’s one of the few things I’m good at. Regardless, before you go back and finish the job, where’s the guest and do you know anything?”
“Downstairs somewhere. Told her to go wait in a room, but she just kept walking around. Utraxia’s bitches never fuckin’ listen to their betters.” She dusted her outfit off, grimacing at a dark stain around the collar. “You know you’re pretty scary with the whole ‘breathing fire when you’re pissed’ thing.”
Utraxia, huh? Looks like Conceit’s getting involved in all this. Hopefully a messenger is an olive branch, not a knife.
“That’s kinda the point.” I looked down at my rumpled clothing. “Can I take a moment to get dressed?”
“Maybe?”
“I will then. You’re dismissed to latrine duty.”
“You know I’m not actually gonna clean them.”
I leaned down. “If you don’t clean them, Seyari will be assigning your tasks from now on.”
Shyll stuck her chin up. “Do you think I’m afraid of a mortal?”
I snorted. “Oh, you’re gonna regret that.”
Shyll shrugged and sauntered off down the hallway. I ducked back inside quickly—Seyari was already snoring quietly, so I disrobed and looked for a familiar dress. Was I overusing one dress?
Absolutely.
But the other option was armor that’d set the furniture on fire or a blouse that needed a wash days ago. Passing the sniff test after a liberal application of cleansing fire, I walked downstairs.
On the way, the castle was still, like it was holding its breath. Despite the late hour, it seemed… ominous. I hastened my pace, moving a little faster than human decorum would permit.
Shortly, I arrived at the main hall, still empty and with some scaffolding still up. Standing in the center, seeming to be taking an interest in the exposed stonework, was a woman who was clearly a demon.
She was actually taller than I was—by at least a head—with a slender figure and a quartet of smooth, upward-pointed horns polished to a mirror shine rising from her temples. Her feet were hooved, and her skin the color of glacial ice. Unlike other demons I’d seen, her claws looked as though they’d been filed down. Her bullwhip-like tails—all three of them—were adorned with silver rings, matching the accessories sprinkled tastefully around her fine-looking bright white blouse and trousers.
When she turned my way, it was with a deliberate slowness that barely moved her waist-length, loose white hair. Her face was almost cervine with the shape of her nose and the slant of her mercury-colored eyes. The deep black of her sclera was almost harsh against her winter palette.
She gave a very shallow bow and looked up with eyes that glowed with aura sight. Silver eyes widening, her placid expression gave way to a gaping mouth and she stumbled backward a step before catching herself on her tails.
“Y-you—” Her voice rang like an icicle hit by a mallet: sharply, and briefly.
I sensed no anger, and she didn’t seem hostile. “I have a parlor, if you’d like to chat.”
The demon woman composed herself remarkably quickly. “Certainly.”
“Sorry about the low doors,” I started, walking toward the nearby parlor I’d received Sonia and friends the previous day.
“And ceilings!” she hissed, mouth twisting into a sharp-toothed frown. “I understand humans are lacking, but I should not have to debase myself simply to walk inside.”
I chuckled, and she seemed to catch herself, going placid once again. “You can relax, you know. I don’t bite much.”
“Certainly.”
I rolled my eyes, and opened the parlor door. “Please, make yourself comfortable…” I tilted my head, fishing for a name.
“Quiraxa,” she said evenly.
I closed the door, and as soon as it shut, she hissed a sigh. “Can I get you anything?”
“I doubt you would have anything I want.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged.
“Why are you here of all places, Wrath?”
“I’m the marchioness of this region.”
Quiraxa chuckled.
“I’m serious, you know. And the mortals know as well.”
“And they tolerate you? Just what have you promised the cretins?”
There’s the flash of anger. I activated aura sight and saw a flurry of white: cold white, the kind that’s blue at the edges. So this was what a conceit aura looked like.
I snuffed her anger, hard enough she had to notice, and I met Quiraxa’s eyes. “You will not disrespect my people, some of whom are good friends, in my march. I have promised to be the best marchioness I can be and keep Astrye safe from the mess they’ve been dragged into by associating with me.”
She stared at me for a moment before breaking away; she said nothing and didn’t apologize.
“I don’t mean to make this confrontational.” I sighed and leaned back into the lounge. “So don’t start about the damage to this castle—most of it was done by me anyway—or the state of the city unless you’re asking why.”
“Why then?”
“I should’ve guessed as much. First, I’d like to know why you’re here.”
She stood, horns scraping the ceiling, and gave a flourishing bow. “My Sovereign, Utraxia, sent me. We’ve squatters in our demesne, and rumor has it the cause is in this human village.”
Squatters this far south? It’s almost too convenient, but could it be…
I blinked. “Oh… oh! Right, well… an older human and another 4-armed greater wrath demon?”
“Among others. To think you’ve such shoddy control over your—”
“She’s bound.”
“I see.” She continued to look down her chin at me.
“Do you do this to every Sovereign you meet?”
The placid gaze in her eyes faltered; she turned her head and coughed.
“Would it kill you to apologize?”
She sait up straighter, tails shifting neatly to one side of her. “I do not believe one is warranted.”
I smacked my head into my hand. “Alright, you’re definitely conceit.”
“Pride.”
“Huh?”
“Pride. Not conceit. It is earned.”
“...Right.” I squared my shoulders. “Pride then. Apologies, Quiraxa. I’ve no intent to demean you.”
She preened. “You are much more civil than what I have been told of wrath demons.”
“I get that a lot.”
She tilted her head.
I gestured at the castle around us. “Mortals, other demons, you name it. Seems like it’s a shock—” I waved my hands in front of me. “—that the Sovereign of Wrath has a handle on her Wrath.”
At that, Quiraxa nodded seriously. “I understand. You will take care of the squatters, yes?”
I leaned forward. “Oh very yes. Just tell us where they are and we’ll get rid of them.”
Her brows raised. “Oh… oh! Wonderful!” She seemed genuine, hopefully a good sign.
“Did you expect pushback?”
“No.”
Liar.
“Why are you smiling?”
I made up a quick excuse. “Dreaming of slaughter.”
“I see!”
Of course you do. “So… where are they?”
Quiraxa relaxed into the lounge opposite mine—at least as much as she could given her stature. “I can direct you there, but first, I recall you said you would describe the reason behind your village and castle’s sorry state?”
I held my tongue for a moment. Giving away more than needed would be bad, possibly very bad. At the same time, this could be an opportunity to get Utraxia onto my side.
Unless that made Ov join in to even the scales. I definitely need to contact Lilly and see what she thinks.
“Enemies of mine attacked while I was away,” I offered.
Quiraxa met my gaze and leaned forward, scoffing when I offered no further explanation. “Your vassals are weak then.”
“Precisely why I’m trying to recruit more.”
She smirked. “Deal with our problem, and my master may deign to receive you.”
I smiled, showing all my sharp teeth and, unsurprisingly, Quiraxa didn’t flinch. “I look forward to it. Now, about the squatters’ whereabouts…”