Chapter 29: Breaking Point

Perspective: Seyari

Fuck Malich. At least he was an idiot.

An idiot with an ego and access to power will always have ambitions without the skills to realize them. People like Third Prince Malich were easy to use, but those same ambitions made them dangerous since they’d flaunt their power without concern.

I should know. Fucking hell.

He bought the story I made up on the spot about how I summoned and bound Zarenna. Called it ‘blind luck’ and that luck ‘explained how a woman such as myself could bind a magnificent creature such as Zarenna’. I didn’t miss the emphasis he put on my gender.

Fuck him and his sexism. At least that and his big fucking ego made him believe the shit I fed him. His leering lust demon was even smart enough to see I was lying. She looked like she wanted to speak up, but the dumb bastard had probably bound her up so tight in rules that she couldn’t say a word.

Unfortunately, she was also why Malich was dangerous. I couldn’t be fucked to remember her long-ass name, but she was strong and significantly smarter than her master. I’d planned to break out and find Nelys, but she stayed behind after Malich went to bind Zarenna to keep watch over me. I hated that she was doing a good job of it.

Malich, of course had put me in a cell. Stone walls, cot hinged to the wall, shit bucket, and prison bars. Brought back a lot of memories I’d rather forget. On both sides of the bars.

Lusty was sitting slouched in a chair outside my cell, looking for all the world like she was asleep. I knew better and caught her glancing at me from time to time with her red eyes. Her thin tail twitched lazily. Probably as bored as I was, at least.

I was also nervous. I hadn’t been able to figure out where Nelys was. This place was a godsdamned labyrinth and had to run under half the estate grounds. Whatever Malich had in store for me and Nelys, it wasn’t going to be letting us walk out the front door.

I needed a plan to get us out; the sooner the better.

I was worried for Zarenna was well. She’d have to be stuck with the fucker and I worried she’d let herself be subjected to something truly horrible before she killed the bastard.

I fully expected Malich to die. Zarenna was the best way to make that happen, unfortunately for her. She was far too kind for her own good, but I’d seen her kill people when she had to without hesitation.

I knew enough about greater demons to know that Zarenna could probably take on any of Malich’s demons individually, at least in a straight fight. She was still pretty useless with a weapon, but she fought, well, like a demon, with her own claws and magic.

Whatever happened to her on Korzon Island had shaped her into a strong berserker.

I had to try to get Nelys and get out before Malich pushed Zarenna to her breaking point, or the whole place would come down on our heads. We were near the edge of the city, so we could flee into the desert. But, if we needed to search this labyrinth for Nelys, we might not have enough time to get out.

The guards here were professionals. I’d seen emplacements for mages as well, though the property was largely designed for aesthetics over defense. The mundane guard staff would pose a threat due to numbers and quality of equipment. Underneath all the set dressing what they carried looked unfortunately practical.

Zarenna would also want to avoid killing the guards if she could help it. I didn’t have an issue with killing them; they knew their role. Still, I found myself more willing to entertain a quiet way out. I told myself it was merely for practical reasons.

This meant I had to get out of this cell, rather than wait for an angry Zarenna to come in here and rip the whole front of the cell out of the rock. I almost wanted to wait here just to see that happen. Thinking about that image drifted my mind to an awkward place.

Like crimson big tits over there, Zarenna was unreasonably physically attractive in the way that only angels and demons seemed to be. Obviously, in the situation I was currently in, I felt nothing toward the lust demon. But I’d noticed since Zarenna woke up that I’d mostly stopped paying attention to anyone else I saw that I’d normally find physically attractive.

I’d never been one for intimate relationships. More like I’d never had the chance, I guess. The past few years I’d only had short, physical flings. Now though, I didn’t really know how to feel.

I did know that I needed to not be thinking about this right now, however. Malich had taken the keys with him when he left, and I didn’t plan on trying to get through the bars. I should have been able to use wind magic to feel out the lock if it was simple enough, but from the soft glow of Lusty’s eyes, I knew she’d catch on.

I probably wouldn’t be able to do it quickly enough to prevent her stopping me and I really didn’t want to have to try to fight her. Actually, I did, but I really couldn’t.

I sat for a long time, waiting for Lusty to slip up. That ended with a thump and faint noises of a scuffle in the distance. I wasn’t certain it was Zarenna, but Lusty finally looked up and, after a moment of hesitation went to the door of the cellblock hallway to look out.

While she was looking out, one of the human guards nodded their head and walked past her into the cell block. She faintly acknowledged his presence with a nod back, still looking away.

His armor was ill-fitting and hastily donned, a fact I picked up on immediately. His face was mostly fake in a rather amateurish way. The man walked quickly to my cell and produced a keyring with a few keys on it from inside his sash.

I recognized him now as Aretan. He wore a look of determination and I could see fear in his expression. The heavy makeup on his face was starting to run from sweat and I noticed a black eye forming.

I wanted to whisper and ask he was doing here, but I didn’t dare make a sound. The first key didn’t work.

He didn’t look up, instead going to the second key. It looked like there were six on the ring.

I looked behind him just in time to see Lusty turn around. She didn’t even say a word.

“Look out!” I shouted.

Aretan looked up at me and then tried to dive to the side.

Too slow. A barbed whip caught him around the middle. The magicked weapon tore through the armor like paper and blood blossomed out from the wound.

Aretan cried out in pain. The keys flew out of his hand and landed next to me in the cell. My friend spun about and landed heavily on the floor.

I dove for the keys and grabbed them. Lusty rushed to the downed Aretan as he struggled to stand. The man must have had hand-to-hand combat training, because he was able to block her first claw swipe, though it cut his forearm to ribbons.

As fast as I could, I tried a key in the door. No luck. I couldn’t even remember which keys Aretan had already tried.

Outside my cell, my Navanaean friend staggered from the blow. He wasn’t fast enough to dodge the whip from her other hand and it caught him around his good arm. Lusty pulled him to her and then smiled as she slashed his throat deeply open with her claws.

Blood gushed from the wound and Aretan’s eyes widened in shock. He fell to his knees and collapsed to the floor, blood quickly pooling under him. A second key failed.

Lusty looked at me and smiled, licking a blood-covered claw. She motioned for the keys I held.

That fucking did it.

Two months ago, I would have ducked back down, handed the keys over and waited for a chance to escape. Not anymore.

I pulled on all the mana I could, and forced it against the barrier somewhere deep within my magic. The cold, jagged wall had formed after I crippled my own magic all those years ago. I’d felt something warm beyond the ever-present reminder of my shame the last few years. Until now, I was too scared to do anything about it. I wanted to keep hiding from my past.

I still did.

I’d watched friends die before; on the Lady of Liseu or elsewhere. I’d watched closer friends die. I’d been taunted before, too. Honestly, I deserved worse. Somehow, I’d chosen this time to be different. I just couldn’t admit why.

Fuck me.

The wall shattered violently, and I stumbled, coughing up blood.

A fraction of a second later, a feeling I’d long since detached myself from filled me as an explosion of holy mana welled up within. My old magic flooded into my entire body; hot and furious.

My shoulders screamed as blood poured from old wounds made fresh before my natural healing sealed them shut. My wings would never grow back, after all.

I knew my magic would return my hair to its old gleaming silver coloration that I’d worked so hard to bleach out. The silver dye burned out of my irises as they doubtless regained their glowing gold hue.

In front of me, Lusty stood in shock and confusion. I wanted to smile back at her, but through my own pain all I could do was glare. Turning to run, her collar began to glow angrily.

She was still slightly faster than me, but she didn’t quite make it out the door before a massive beam of holy magic lanced through her. Lusty dropped forward, a gaping smoking hole through her chest.

I staggered, unused to using my magic after so long. I’d put my all into that spell and it drained me far more than I expected.

I rushed to the front of my cell and stuck an arm through the bars. Barely, I was able to touch Aretan’s body on the floor.

Miraculously, he hadn’t bled to death quite yet. I hesitated for a moment, trying to make sure I’d heal him and not scorch him. Decades had passed since I’d last healed anyone.

Thankfully, I got it right and color returned to his face as his wounds sealed. His blood loss was something I could only partially fix. Such a thing was costly in terms of mana and I’d just made myself quite the target. I’d need every bit of power I could get.

Whether I liked it or not, we were getting out of here the loud way now.

Lusty, somehow still alive, had crawled most of the way out of the door. I’d blast her again, but if she was alive from the first attack, blowing off her foot wouldn’t end her.

I tried to bend the bars wide enough to slip after her. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the sheer impossible strength Zarenna had. I did manage to bend them, but not fast enough.

I grabbed the keys and hurriedly tried one I thought we hadn’t. No luck. Thankfully, the second got the door open.

Aretan was still coming to on the ground, so I leapt over him after the slowly retreating lust demon.

I reached her easily, and to my luck, no one was immediately outside save for a pair of human guards who’d been approaching and who turned and ran at the sight of me. Well, fuck. That was going to happen sooner or later anyway, I guessed.

Lusty didn’t put up much of a fight. The angry glow on her collar faded once we reengaged. Her magic was busy barely keeping her alive, so after a brief scuffle where I showed her my own decades of fighting experience, I got in and opened her neck with a blade of holy light.

Finally, after twitching a few times, she died. At the end of the hall, I saw the gray demon from earlier, robes singed, run by. We locked eyes for a moment.

I expected them to attack and steeled my mind against an assault. They sent out a probe I batted aside, then turned and kept running. That way was probably out. I tried to commit it to memory.

I really, really didn’t like that the gray demon was running somewhere, however. The royal family doubtless had redundancies in binding to prevent something like a single death unbinding a multitude of demons. They were still bound. If they were running, it wasn’t just to get away. That gray demon was going somewhere or to someone.

I ran back to Aretan in the cell block. He’d managed to drag himself up to a sitting position. Numbly, he looked his body over, finding no wounds left, but several scars. Healing had never been my forte anyway.

“Aretan!” I asked. “How the fuck did you get in here?”

“I, eh,” He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, “I knew you had gone here out of disguise. I have contacts in the city and one of them works at this estate. He knew to look for you. He told me you came here, then gave me an opening to get inside. I know this is not a good time, and I am sorry if you do not want to tell me, but are you part angel?”

“Half-angel,” I paused a moment. “You almost died! Do you know how stupid it was to come here?”

Aretan looked offended as he shakily stood up. “Yes, I know. Of course I know! I could ask you the same question, but I will not. I trusted you had a good reason to do something like this and I would like you to grant me the same.”

“I...fuck. Fine. You’re right, sorry,” I replied. “We need to find Nelys and Zarenna and get out of here.”

“Thank you,” Aretan nodded, then looked downcast. “I do not know where they are. Do you?”

“If I had to guess, right out of this door, down the hall and somewhere to the left. I saw the gray demon run by with singed robes. I’d bet anything Zarenna did that.”

Aretan nodded and moved with me quickly to the exit. He stumbled just out of the door and I caught him. The man still looked pale. Neither of us said anything, but I lent him my shoulder to lean on and together we jogged down the hallway in search of Zarenna and Nelys.