“What sort of whispers?”
“She hunts when she leaves her mountain. Hunts and hunts and takes and takes.”
“What is she hunting for?”
“If I knew I would find it for her and bargain to be hers.”
Nothing stroked the wet bark. Rain trickled down her spine beneath her robes. “You think it would be better to be her demon than to have this magnificent old tree?”
“Flattery,” the demon scoffed, pleased. The air seemed to warm slightly.
The rain did not abate. Sky ventured out to find food, returning with nuts to soak and roast and stringy sura hearts that tasted like apples about to spoil. He was drenched, and Nothing took over cooking while he spread his quilted robe and shirt out to dry, stripping down to his skin.
Nothing tossed him her bright-green sash to use to towel at his hair and then he sat near the fire on the oilcloth, holding his underwear up like a chicken ready to roast, hoping it would dry quickly.
His copper muscles were outlined in blue shadows and red-orange firelight, and his dark hair clung in thick waves to his neck, the ends lifting as they dried into soft blue wisps. Tiny dark-blue hairs scattered against his chest, lightly down his belly, and along his forearms. With her eyes she could trace layers of muscle from his wide shoulders and down his back, along the dip of his spine and bottom. A few scars nicked and gouged him, all a mottled purplish color, lovely stories written against his skin. Nothing felt vulnerable when she was naked, but Sky seemed stronger with nothing to hide his demon-line.
The demon-kissed were said to have the blood of demons in them, which was impossible because demons had no blood and could not reproduce even with other demons. The priests taught that an offended Queen of Heaven had taken a demon and shattered its essence into such tiny pieces that it could be infused into living blood like tea into water.
“You’re rude,” Sky said.
It was true: she was staring. Nothing sniffed. “I’ve seen it before.”
Sky wrinkled his nose mightily, but she suspected he acted gruff to hide embarrassment. Nobody was supposed to witness that moment between him and Kirin, and Nothing had been watching because she’d come to ask Kirin a question, then been stunned into complete stillness, entranced by the way Kirin had seemed to worship Sky with his mouth and tongue, like Sky was a god. Until Nothing distractedly put her hand in the wrong place and fell through the ceiling. She’d hit the woven mat hard enough to knock the breath from her body and bruise her whole skeleton. When she’d blinked through the pain, Kirin, who’d been kneeling before Sky, was kneeling beside her instead, and laughing.
That was when Sky had decided she was dangerous and she’d decided Sky was selfish. If she’d caught them, anyone could. It would have ruined Kirin.
Nothing checked the progress of the sura heart. Nearly soft enough to pull apart and eat. She plopped down next to Sky and without looking at him said, “Kirin kissed me once.”
Sky went still. “He didn’t tell me that.”
“We both thought it shouldn’t happen again. I think he wanted to see if he was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“You?” Nothing shrugged a little. “If he liked kissing me as much as he liked kissing you, maybe you were only his friend, too.”
“That’s not how that works.” Sky’s hands holding his underwear out curled into fists.
“It worked for him. He kissed me, then laughed a little, but in a sad way. ‘Did you like that, Nothing?’ he asked. I told him it was fine, and he laughed harder, not sad anymore.”
Sky slowly relaxed his hands.
She didn’t tell Sky that Kirin had calmed down and asked if Nothing would let him do it again if he asked. She’d said of course, but he hadn’t. Instead, she said, “He’ll ask you to be his Second Consort.”
Not the First. The First Consort had to be capable of making heirs for the Moon.
“I know.”
“You’ll hate it.”
“I know.” Sky sighed. “I am a better bodyguard, but if I remain so I can never be family. If I become his Second Consort, I will be his family, with my own household, my own bodyguards. It should be obvious.”
“But you could never leave the palace.”
Sky nodded. “Would you? Be one of his consorts?”
“I do anything Kirin asks me to do,” she said easily.
There was little else to say. Sky put on his underwear and helped her peel and pull out the meat of the sura hearts, using the roasted skins for bowls. They ate the hot mash with their fingers and, when they’d finished, wrapped the nuts that had been soaking and stuffed them into the embers of the fire.
Outside the snag, wind and rain blew; lightning flickered. Scrabbling overhead told them some smaller forest creatures used the upper hollow for shelter too. They must have been desperate, if willing to tempt a demon to suck their marrow. Or perhaps they had their own bargains. Nothing gave in and leaned against Sky. He was cool, but not cold, and he wrapped his quilted robe around them, for it was marginally dry.
Nothing closed her eyes. She felt relaxed and more comfortable than she thought she ought when resting in the hollow of a snag demon’s house. For some reason, she couldn’t be afraid of the demon. She trusted it. There was definitely something wrong with her. When she listened, she could hear its very soft, creaking fizzles of power. Not quite breath, but more like tiny connections through the aether, drawing at the life at the edges of the snag tree’s roots, at the kinetic rain, at the scrape of wind.
Sky shifted to get more comfortable with her head on his shoulder. She wondered if he felt the demon’s fizzles. And she wondered if she should ask about his family or for a story his grandmother told him. Anything to pass the time and share between just the two of them. They’d always been separated by Kirin in the middle, and she didn’t know how to speak of anything but their prince.
And maybe if they spoke of him, kept him alive in their minds and hearts, he would stay alive in his own mind and heart.
Sky must’ve been thinking the same, for he said, “I was afraid to admit to myself that it wasn’t him. The summer changes someone—it’s supposed to, preparing the heir for the investiture—and I felt changed, so why shouldn’t he be?”
Nothing remained quiet. There was a difference between changed and imposter. But Sky knew that.
“I think I lost a few days. Nothing—at the time I didn’t realize it. But I must have.” His voice took on the hushed tone of a confession. “How could she take him and replace him with such a detailed, skilled imposter in mere moments? No, she had us for days. Then made me forget.”
“You met her?”
“We encountered a dragon.” At her tiny gasp, Sky glanced at her and nodded confirmation. “Sinuous, with scales like liquid sliver and eyes brighter than the noontime sky. It was a ribbon of light, and Kirin argued with it. Can you—of course you can believe that.”
Nothing closed her eyes again, pressing her head into his shoulder.
“And the dragon vanished in the middle of their argument but brought her back with it. She was just as beautiful, a lovely woman in silk and pearls, until she smiled. Her mouth was full of shark’s teeth, and she had one eye like summer leaves, the other white as bone. I remember trying to protect him, trying to throw myself between them. I remember pain, and Kirin’s voice, and then we were alone on the banks of the Selegan. I’d thought she was a spirit. Or one of the Queens of Heaven, or a ghost, or even a witch without familiars or aether-tattoos. I never thought she was the Sorceress Who Eats Girls until you killed him.”