Chained to the Devil’s Daughter (Mating the Elements #1)

14

Ash’ren

F irefly’s plan worked perfectly. Well, as perfectly as a forced migration of mindless beasts could go. When it was done, the beasts filtered onto Fyre soil. Searra’s people cheered. Even some of the laborers cheered. Or they at least appeared mildly relieved, which was an improvement to their state of constant fear, honestly. It would have to be repeated for rings Eight and Nine, but this was proof it was possible.

A small hand slipped into mine and I looked down at Markel. I gave the tiny boy’s hand a shake that wiggled his whole arm, but the child didn’t smile.

“Now what?” Markel asked. “Do we have to keep digging?”

“No,” Searra barked. Her fingertips grazed the space between my shoulder blades, and I stiffened. Catching herself, she removed her hand to cover a fake cough. My skin tingled even after she retreated to the podium.

“Guys, there’s something I’ve wanted to say for years.” Hands clutched at her chest, Searra was unlike any other royal I’d ever seen. She beamed at her subjects like they were her closest friends, or her children or some shit, and she was about to tell them an exciting secret. “You may have noticed the overseers have not been replaced since their untimely ends,” Searra glanced at me, and I winked. “and they will not be. No more digging. No more!”

She paused to rake her gaze over the crowd of shaking heads. Definitely not the reaction she’d hoped for.

“What about Devil?” someone asked.

“Devil,” Searra started. She bit her lip like she debated how much to reveal. “Is gone.”

Someone laughed. A young woman stepped forward, a manic grin on her gnarled face. “He will return. He’ll slaughter us if we listen to you.”

Searra faltered. Only for a moment, but it was enough. The angry woman spat on the sand and returned to the crowd.

“Devil doesn’t exist!” She blurted. “He’s a phony. A cruel demon that warped your religion to serve his means.”

Oh, Firefly. It was the wrong thing to say to a bunch of people whose religion was all they had.

Voices rose, the tension in the ring so palpable it filled my lungs with every breath. Searra laughed awkwardly. She stepped back on the makeshift podium and barely kept from falling.

Without letting go of Markel’s hand, I came forward, placing myself between the mob and their queen.

“Devil might return,” I shouted over the din. All attention snapped to me. Some widened in recognition. Some even glancing at the boy who clutched my calves, like I might lose my shit-marbles and burst him into eerie black flames. “But I’ll be ready for him, and you will already be free.”

“We’re supposed to believe the war dog that destroyed its way through Hell mindlessly?” A man called with an incredulous scoff.

“My actions were careless,” I admitted, “but I would do them again if it meant I would stand beside Queen Searra and be part of history, freeing the people of Hell from Devil’s tyranny.”

I glanced back at her. Her troubled expression bled through the queenly veneer she’d perfected.

“The Ash Render is right.”

At the newcomer’s voice, more whispers rose. The crowd naturally parted around an old man, the oldest person I’d spotted yet by far. He leaned on a charred stick with each stride. The most eye-catching part of the man was the ink covering every inch of his leathered skin. Ash-gray writing spiraled around his bald head down to the rags wrapped around his feet. A prophet of the earliest human religion. A Faith Keeper.

“The Ash Render’s loyalty was forced with poison and pain. If I’m to follow someone into battle against Devil, I’d want it to be the one who had cause to hate him as much as I.”

The man stopped two lengths of the walking stick in front of me. Markel joined the old man as his mother rushed into view, gently taking the old man’s wrist, urging him to turn back.

“You are going nowhere near a battle, Keeper,” her tone was stern and laced with the kind of anger only religion could inspire. When the man wouldn’t budge, she placed herself between us with a huff. “My ancestry has known nothing but Hell.”

“Your family deserves better,” Searra said as she joined us.

“No shit,” the woman bit, an annoyed arch in her brow. For the next bit, she raised her voice. “In all the history I’ve ever heard, there’s never been a challenge for the throne. Nothing will keep me from fighting for it.”

Not what I’d expected. The woman grinned at our stunned faces, then chastised the Keeper with a stern finger. “But you will see nothing of it.”

“He won’t,” Searra assured, her shock replaced with determination. A queen. Addressing the crowd again, she declared, “Healer tents will be erected throughout the ring to tend the sick and elderly.”

“And those eager to fight?” The old man’s question was directed purely at me. “Will they be prepared?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. “I’ll train all those willing.”

I accepted the hand he presented and shook earnestly. He took me by surprise, yanking me close enough that all I could see were his swirling brown pools. The deep knowledge I found there sent a chill down my spine.

“I can’t promise you will see a battle,” Searra spoke to the crowd with renewed vigor. A spark of her vibrant flame peeked through her mask, burning, burning. “But with hearts this brave, there’s nothing Devil can do to break us.”

Searra stepped down. I no longer had to squint to see her flame as she eagerly engaged in conversation with the most vulnerable of her people.

“Sir?” The honorific fell on deaf ears until it was repeated one, two, three more times. “Sir? Sorry, erm, Sir Ash Render?”

“Huh?” Spinning, I came navel-to-nose with a short, squat demon, whose horns didn’t reach my armpits. “Ash’ren is fine.”

“Sir Ash’ren—”

“Ash’ren. What’s up?”

“How do we enlist?” Behind the man, several others had gathered, awaiting my response. In fact, most of the post-queenly-pep-talk crowd hushed, their attention clearly on my answer.

“Tomorrow, report to the tents. Bring—” I cut myself off. Considering these people didn’t have much—or rather, nothing—I had to improvise. “Bring your shovels and the fighting spirit your queen has instilled in you this day. I will do the rest.”

“Our shovels?”

“Yes.”

“I thought we were to stop digging,” said the second man in line, a human.

“We won’t be digging.”

It made sense, anyhow. If—when, as far as I could believe—Devil escaped whatever was holding him in Fyre, the pompous asshole wouldn’t expect an army of stolen laborers to raise their shovels against him. Though I doubted these hard-worked servants would ever make an army.