Chapter 230: Like Mother, Like Daughter

My left hand felt too heavy to knock with, held up to the door to Verrka’s home. From inside, I could hear my daughter’s voice, her laughter, mingling with the other young adults. Even holding up my second left hand didn’t seem enough.

Had I not just promised Sey I’d do this, I’d turn around and leave Joisse to her happiness. But then I’d be condemning her to ignorance as well, the pedants would argue. And unfortunately, like was so often when I got lost in my own thoughts, they’d be right.

I took a deep breath and knocked, bending my knees that little bit I always had to so whoever answered the door wouldn’t be talking just to my chest. Behind me, my tail carved little figure-eights into the well-trodden snow.

Verrka’s father answered in a moment, and I was ushered inside. Out of the cold, they’d said, and I didn’t have the energy to explain I literally couldn’t feel it right now. The scene inside was just how it was less than a week ago. You’d be hard-pressed to think that only a few doors down was where houses had been lost to battle and fire.

I waited until there was a lull in the game—I got lucky and it looked like a fight had just ended. Joisse unfolded herself from sitting cross-legged on a pillow and stood next to me. Over me, in fact, as I’d taken a sturdy-looking seat.

She was in her true form, smiling like an… definitely not like an angel—like a very happy and affable demon. Her tail swished behind her, though it slowed as she approached.

My heart clenched. Do I ever mean something other than bad news, or a restriction on her freedom?

“Hi, Mom,” she said simply.

“Could… could we talk outside?” I replied.

She shrugged.

My heart felt like it was going to crack until two pairs of arms wrapped themselves around me the moment I stood up. I blinked dampness from my eyes and hugged Joisse back.

“Am I that easy to read?” I whispered.

Joisse just nodded. She tilted her head back to the others, who were desperately trying not to look like they were watching. I got the message and we shuffled outside where a light snow was starting to fall.

I debated how to break it to her, but the way she took two of my hands in hers and held her head high reminded me of the “adult” part of young adult. “Berethiel is coming to try to kill me,” I replied when I found the words. “He’s an angel, ancient and powerful, and Seyari’s father.” And your grandfather, I left unsaid. I’d never consider him family.

“I’ll help,” Joisse replied without a moment’s hesitation.

I swallowed all my warnings and desires to tell her to reconsider. “Thank you.”

My daughter looked back at the warm home she’d just left. “When do we leave?”

“Now, but...you can say goodbye first.” I touched her shoulder, when she turned, remembering something very important. “I love you, Joisse.”

She batted my hand off her shoulder, then smiled and grabbed it in two of hers. “You’re such a sap, Mom.”

“That’s me.” I chuckled despite myself. “Don’t leave your sappy mom waiting in the snow for too long, dear. She’ll freeze like old syrup.”

My daughter gave an affirmative gesture and ducked back inside the house. I plugged my ears so I wouldn’t overhear what was said. Not a minute later, however, she strode back out again.

“Ready! Oh, and I love you too, Mom.”

I pulled her into a hug.

It wasn’t until I tried to send myself skyward that I remembered something very important: my daughter couldn’t fly. Not that I knew of, unless there’d been some development.

We walked to the town square in relative silence. Despite all that had happened, Astrye was still peaceful on chill winter nights, and the light snowfall gave it an ethereal, almost dreamlike quality.

I wondered, maybe Joisse simply didn’t know how to fly. When the contract had broken, she’d become mine and Sey’s flesh and blood in a very literal way. One of her moms had wings; the other could make them of fire. However, she alone lacked wind magic.

But that hadn’t stopped me.

“Have you tried flying?” I asked, summoning my wings and banishing the night’s darkness.

My daughter looked at me like I’d gone crazy. Then her brow furrowed.

“Tyra’s character got wings in our game just the other day.” She smiled and gave a four armed shrug. “I know that sounds stupid, but we acted out the entire scene. Hers were given by her character’s goddess, but… wasn’t that a little bit like how Mom Sey got her wings back?

“I can’t imagine growing wings—I already don’t know how my shoulders work with four arms and neither do Sonia or Inva.” My wings reflected in her eyes. “But maybe I could try that?”

I nodded and ruffled her hair. “Go for it! We’ve probably got a few minutes before Sey finds us.”

“You have to at least give me a hint, Mom.” She rolled her eyes. “I was there the day you got them, I think, but I’m not you.”

There was a little nervousness under the playful tone in her voice. Call it parental intuition—I’d not have believed myself a year ago. Honestly, I was probably the same way. But while she had a point, I unfortunately couldn’t offer much.

“I don’t know. It’s second nature now, but when I first got them…” I thought back to the ambush on the road south. “When I first manifested my wings, I wanted nothing more than to go faster, to get to my friends before it was too late.”

“And they just happened?” She frowned and put a hand to her chin.

“Yep. They just happened. Like a big surge of magic and heat to my back pushing out like an explosion.”

My daughter looked around. “I don’t want to try any explosions here. Could we… go out of town?”

“Of course!”

All the way to the nearest farm—not the last battlefield; neither of us wanted to go near there—Joisse walked with a scrunched-up look on her face. I could feel little bits of magic flaring up in my demesne from her, and I sensed with them a few spikes of anger.

Can she really do this? It might be a wholly unreasonable expectation, but Joisse had more than once beaten similar expectations. Her magic, demonic-aspected holy magic, was supposed to be an impossibility that she’d learned to wield with ease.

I was just about to pull my daughter into a hug and take us away when she suddenly smiled, and a flash of light erupted from behind her. When my vision cleared, I saw my daughter, wide-eyed and beaming, with two wings of fire erupting from her shoulders.

She did it! With nothing more than a thought she could, Joisse had shaped her magic into wings.

They reminded me of Sey’s. My wings were hardly even wing-shaped, just suggestions etched in crimson flames. Joisse’s wings arched up, flared out, and resolved into feather-like shapes at the ends that dripped burning embers to sizzle in the snow.

“Beautiful,” I breathed. “How do you feel? Are they draining you too quickly?”

Joisse shook her head and brought a wing around to face her. She ran a hand down the faux-feather. “I feel… I think I feel great, actually. This is taking a lot, but it’s not too much. A-at least I don’t think so.”

“If you feel light-headed, or tired, you can dismiss them.”

My daughter looked up at the sky. She bent her knees and jumped, blowing snow and dirt and embers to swirl all around me as she took off. For a moment, just I watched her go. She’ll need lessons; Seyari will be thrilled.

I didn’t let her go too far before I jumped up after her. Her wings may have looked like Sey, and she might be moving them more like physical limbs, but she was no natural flier.

Not like that mattered, not really. Sharp, uneven turns and whoops of joy and confusion rang out through the sky. None of us, except perhaps Seyari, would have any skill in flight as close to what we were about to face.

For a moment, I had a dark thought that my daughter had found her wings just before we went off to die. But I dismissed it—I’d never been pessimistic before, and starting now wouldn’t help anything. She could fly now when she couldn’t moments ago, and that would be invaluable—not just for the upcoming battle.

We had my demesne, only Shyll was vulnerable to holy magic, and we could use both to surprise Berethiel. The optimal thing to do would’ve been to transport us by fire to the edge of my demesne.

Morale, however, was perhaps more important to demons like us. We circled the castle instead, waiting just a few moments before Seyari rose to meet us, Shyll spinning lazily behind her.

“Joisse!” Sey shouted, grabbing two of our daughter’s hands and spinning in a circle.

She took her up, down, and through a loop while Shyll and I watched. Not without protest, as I definitely heard something about “not a little kid” from the newly-winged demon.

“Huh. Didn’t think she’d dote like you do,” Shyll cackled as she pulled alongside me. “She’s even got her wings!”

“She really does,” I replied.

“So… we’re gonna go kill an angel, right?”

“Yep.”

“You do know you three are probably gonna die, right?”

“Shyll…” I growled.

She threw up her hands. “Look, I’m here to help, but if you three go down and he’s not at death’s door, there’s almost nothing I can do.”

We stared in silence at the cartwheeling pair. Joisse had tried to turn the tables on Sey and take the lead. Surprisingly, I could tell my wife let her do it. It made me proud in a bizarre way, to know I wasn’t the only softie all the time.

“If you do die, I’ll get Mother and make sure the angel pays,” Shyll said softly.

I raised a brow and glanced over at her. “...Thank you. But I don’t plan on dying.”

“Who the heavens ever does?” She shot back, playfully. “Look, a part of me’s thinking this is the chance to get out of maid duty. Tell Mother I did my best and go back to doing nothing. But damnit I’m not sure what I’d do. Literally—I can’t decide and I don’t know how I could stand it before.

“So that’s why I’m helping out, alright? I’ll stay hidden until there’s an opening—one good beam of an angel’s magic and I’d be out for at least the fight. That doesn’t mean I’ve run off, alright?”

The way she looked at me was odd. Perhaps it was because, instead of a lupael maid with a snaggle tooth and a tail that bumped into everything on purpose, I was seeing a proper, lavender-skinned lust demon wearing a conciliatory, honest look of concern.

“I’ll do my best to make sure we all make it out.”

Shyll reached over and poked my shoulder, careful of my wing blazing near her. “No self-sacrifices, you gigantic pile of sappy tropes and heroic cliches. We’re demons, not heroes. We’re gonna fight dirty, and we’re gonna kill this bastard.”

I grinned. “What happened to probably dying?”

She puffed up her cheeks. “You happened! Like you always do; like Taava said you would!”

“What does that mean?”

“Like heavens I’m telling you! Now are you gonna go get your wife and daughter, or will we be flying loops until the angel blasts us back to the demonic plane?”