Chapter 3
"Amira," Lucian began as they neared the road, his voice steadier than before, "can I visit you again?"
She didn't stop walking, but her shoulders tensed. Lucian could see the faint pink rising along her neck. She raised the hood of her cloak to cover her face.
"I'd like that too," she admitted shyly, "but it wouldn't be a good idea. You'll understand once you leave the forest. So… please, don't come back."
Her words landed like a stake in his heart. Lucian didn't know why it stung, only that it did.
"Here we are," Amira said quietly, her voice tinged with sadness. "This is as far as I go."
Lucian opened his mouth to argue, but before he could, the sound of hooves drew his attention. A carriage rolled to a stop beside them, dust curling off the road. Two men on the bench. The driver was already leaning down, cheerful, hand raised in greeting — and the second man wasn't looking at the road at all.
"Excuse me, stranger," the driver called. "You wouldn't happen to know which way it is to the city of Palin, would you?"
"Just follow this road," Amira answered quickly, ducking her head and pulling her hood lower. She stepped partly behind Lucian's broad frame. "Once you crest the next hill, you'll see it."
The driver leaned forward, squinting, trying to peek around Lucian. Lucian shifted, blocking his view, and interjected smoothly, picking up on Amira's signal.
"It just so happens I'm heading that way myself." Lucian let his voice carry. "Would you mind one more passenger?"
The man beside the driver leaned close and whispered something. He was scarred across one eye, a sword at his side. Something about him set Lucian's instincts on edge.
"Not at all," the driver said at last, smiling. "Plenty of room in the back. My associate here says you're more than welcome."
Lucian turned back to Amira, lowering his voice. "Thank you, for everything. I hope one day we'll meet again."
"Hopefully," she whispered, still staring at the ground. A single tear slipped from her chin before she turned abruptly and walked back toward the trees.
Lucian unconsciously reached out toward her, but caught himself and stopped.
*What am I doing?*
"Is your companion not joining us?" the driver asked.
"No," Lucian said, forcing his voice steady. "She has business elsewhere."
He climbed into the carriage, glancing back only once. Amira's pale form vanished into the shadows of the woods.
"Shall we?" Lucian said gruffly.
The driver tipped his hat, flicked the reins, and the horses lurched forward. Dust kicked up behind them, and with each turn of the wheels, the ache in Lucian's chest grew heavier.
***
The road stretched on, hills rolling in the distance. Lucian sat quietly in the back, but his ears pricked when he caught the scarred man muttering to the driver about some demon called the Moon Witch. About how that demon had reportedly taken out an entire village on the border of the human kingdom, how it left no survivors.
The old feeling came up in him at the word *demon* the same one that had moved through him in Amira's house and set him hunting for her mark before he'd realized it. He had put it down then.
But this time he was simply too curious to stop himself, to let it go as he'd done before as he tried to forget his past. Simply because for the longest time, Lucian had hated demons.
His older sister fell in the brutal War of the Three Kingdoms, a war that was started by none other than the demon kingdom, her death the first wound. Grief had barely begun to scar over when illness claimed his little brother soon after, a plague passed to humans from demons, leaving his house hollow and silent.
Then came the cruelest stroke: the demon royal bloodline, cold and ancient, murdered his mother for reasons unknown to him.
His father, once a revered swordmaster whose Soulflame burned with terrifying power, was consumed by rage after he lost her. That rage was used to forge a sturdy son. From the moment Lucian could grip a blade, the forge began. No mercy, no childhood, no reprieve, only iron forging iron, day bleeding into night. By the time he had turned nine he had learned to kill a man. By twenty he had become a general of the king's army.
It left him a weapon, but one ignorant of the world outside the battlefield. And ignorance was a weakness that he could not yet understand.
He leaned forward, pretending to stretch while keeping his ears open. The scarred man was still speaking, his voice low.
"…demon hunter… contract came directly from house Valebright… the bounty's huge… Moon Witch is worth more than 100,000 soul stones." Was all he could make out.
'So he's a demon hunter, eh. Even that stubborn house Valebright seems to be involved.' Lucian thought.
Lucian had heard of demon hunters, though he'd never met one. Appointed by the Church of Light, they tracked down demons who committed crimes in the kingdom of Atheria. But his men had told stories, dark ones. How hunters slaughtered innocents under the guise of justice, how the greed for fulfilling their contract for soul stones often outweighed duty.
Lucian never cared for rumors, though. What caught his interest was this Moon Witch.
He'd heard of her before. As a general he'd had access to intelligence most men never saw, and the Moon Witch had crossed his desk more than once. Both kingdoms wanted her. She had been imprisoned in Obsidia, the demon kingdom, and broken out; she had apparently fled into Atheria to hide, and while hiding, they said, she had burned villages, slaughtered humans and demons alike, and killed the next in line to the demon throne.
Lucian frowned. Even back then it was strange that demons, who had the most honor among their kin, would publicly denounce one of their own. But he dismissed most of it as false information back then.
Finally, curiosity got the better of him.
"Why do they call her the Moon Witch?" he asked.
The driver and hunter turned in surprise, as if forgetting he was there.
"My apologies." Lucian let his shoulders drop, and let his voice go easy and dull. "I was getting bored back here in silence."
The driver cleared his throat. "Well… she's only ever seen under a full moon, so they say."
"They say her unique glowing red eyes are the last thing you see before she rips out your throat." He said it with a smile, wetting his lips.
Lucian tilted his head. "Red eyes? I saw that on the battlefield plenty of times." He let his gaze drift off toward the hills, bored. "If that's all they've got on her, it could be anyone."
The driver gave him a look of disbelief. "Sure you did, buddy!" He laughed. "You must've been a common foot soldier for one of the big families, so you probably were just hallucinating under pressure. But even my four-year-old knows that red eyes are a bad omen! Human or demon."
"I grew up on the battlefield, forgive my ignorance," Lucian said flatly, letting the driver laugh at him.
The scarred man finally spoke, and his deep voice carried a weight the driver's did not. "If they're a confirmed demon, then red eyes almost always mean they're from one of the upper houses of Obsidia. A noble demon." He closed his eyes and leaned back. There was no mockery in it. He seemed, unlike the driver, to be taking Lucian entirely at face value. "And every noble demon currently in Atheria is being 'supervised.' So knowing she has red eyes narrows our search quite a bit. If it's true, that is."
'Supervised.' Lucian kept his face still.
'So the Pope took my advice after all. Pompous bastard.'
"Almost always?" Lucian pressed.
The hunter's lip curled. "Occasionally," he said with a pause, opening one eye and pointing to it, "halflings are born with them. Spawn of a human and a demon. Thankfully, however, most die soon after birth, as their bodies can't contain the power of both Soulflames." He waved a hand casually, chuckling at his own cruelty. "So yes! Almost always."
"What about the ones who do survive?" Lucian asked, his tone sharp, annoyed by the demon hunter's cruelty.
The laughter cut short.
The hunter fixed him with a cold, piercing stare. "Where did you say you were from again?"
"I didn't," Lucian replied, his own voice hardening.
The hunter's hand drifted slowly toward his sword.
Lucian shifted his weight, and his fingers found the rim of the water bucket at his feet.
"Ah! There she is!" the driver exclaimed suddenly, pointing ahead. "The city gates of Palin! We're nearly there!"
The tension eased, though not entirely. The hunter released his sword hilt, and Lucian set the bucket back down.
"Hopefully there's a decent tavern inside," the hunter muttered, stretching. "I could use a drink."
Lucian said nothing. He leaned back against the wooden boards and watched the walls of Palin grow.
*They say her crimson eyes are the last thing someone sees before she rips your throat out.*
The description echoed in his mind like a stubborn splinter.
Slowly, Lucian looked down at the small black ribbon tied around his wrist.
Then he looked back toward the forest disappearing behind them.
'…I figured she might be a demon, but could it be?'