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

25

Searra

I n the weeks following our courtship announcement, my life finally felt like my own. I knew without a doubt that we could handle everything that came our way.

The labor rings were successfully cleared. Filaris’ contacts in the council came through with supplies. Healer tents were installed in a four-point system in each labor ring, as well as grub tents and other necessities, discreet training areas, and the beginnings of better housing.

While a good portion of the nobles were content to see how things played out, Devil’s devotees were desperate. My people were intercepting messages daily. In the inner ring, I received odd looks and had my authority questioned regularly, especially once it was clear that I truly meant to go through with the courtship, despite Chakram’s best attempts to make me recant. In other words, things were happening precisely as Filaris had expected.

I spent most of my time in the labor rings, helping in any way I could. I distributed food and held hands while the healers tended wounds. My feet were beginning to hurt, but I would never show the pain of it in front of those who’d suffered much greater for far longer. At the end of the day, Ash’ren rubbed my feet with peppermint oil, usually following up the path of my leg to wrest pleasure from my core, burying his face between my legs.

Ash’ren was busy, too. He trained a growing rebel force. Finding a balance between pushing them to grow and not pushing too hard that they collapsed—or hated him worse than their flagrant resentment already—was taking a toll on him. I tried to get him to open up about the reasons he felt obligated to give them all of himself, but the pain was still fresh. I knew about the fights. Knew that he had killed, that he wouldn’t have survived without irredeemably defying his morals. Call it a personality flaw, but I already knew I would pardon him for any wrongs.

Spending so much time in the labor rings was beyond insightful. Many of the laborers had spent generations digging Devil’s rings. Growing up in Devil’s carefully curated orbit, I hadn’t known the worst of his lies. Out here, their ancestors had known another life. Yanked from their magic-less realm of invisible gods, where humans were at the top of the food chain, they’d had real, full lives. Beliefs. Goals. Hierarchies. Religions. When Devil trapped them here, he claimed to be the dark deity of their religious texts and named his territory Hell. Many humans still believed they were here for their sins and the sins of their forefathers.

Devil had found me young. Practically a baby, toddling around on unsteady legs. I had some fond memories of my childhood. While most were gray, with a caregiver who was cold, there were a sprinkle of good memories as well, ones where my hardened father cared for me despite his grouchy disposition. Before Devil, only one memory shone brightly when I recalled it, though I was no longer sure if it was true or conjured from desperation. I was in a field at night, chasing bugs that glittered like the sun on crystalline water. Every few steps, I fell, laughing, but I always got up and chased another. Somehow, I remembered what they were called. Fireflies .

When Ash’ren first called me Firefly, right after I’d told him the story of my earliest memory, he’d listened. I’d spoken wistfully, picking at my nails in deep thought. After the words were purged, I was peeled raw, but he was quiet and steady. He’d sat silently until exactly the right moment, when he bumped my shoulder hard enough to make me fall from the low tree branch.

“Run, Firefly.”

Recalling the origins of the multi-faceted nickname, I smiled down into the mortar and pestle as I ground herbs for the poultice Nielara, the head healer, had set me to work on. My sights landed on a boy, his feet wrappings peeling. Filaris had made good on all her promises, but the shoes had been delayed. So many humans who were desperate to feel freedom walked around in pain, not knowing how to be idle in their shelters after decades of forced labor.

“Missus princess?”

I smiled warmly. “Yes, dear?”

“Want to race?”

I laughed, raising my tools. “I’m a little busy at the moment, but I think you would win anyway.”

“Hello, Markel.” The deep, familiar voice was accompanied by a red hand floofing through the kid’s hair. The boy looked up, disappointment forgotten in favor of excitement. “Have you been practicing what I showed you?”

Markel nodded emphatically. He took a step back and ran through a series of stances. When he was done, he snapped his feet together and stood at attention.

“Good,” Ash’ren said. “But slow down. It’s not a matter of speed.”

“I’m really fast.”

“You are very fast, Markel.” Ash’ren agreed in an impressed tone. “Keep practicing.”

The boy nodded and scurried away. I watched him go, my tummy flip-flopping at the random thought of having a rambunctious kid of my own, with Ash’ren’s corkscrew horns.

“Hello, Firefly.”

“Hello, suitor.”

Our noses brushed, the sliver of air between us charged with enough electricity to rival the lightning storms of Ashfall Alley’s volcanoes. The noise of the med tent fell away. Time slowed. Ash’ren’s hand approached my face, and I swore I could feel it before he touched me. He traced my jaw up to a tiny stray braid, which he settled behind my ear. So far from the inner rings, I didn’t fight my body’s natural impulse to arch into him.

I had thought that with the courtship announced, we would be free to touch and flirt in public. My mistake. I’d not waited the fortnight. Frick, I hadn’t even waited a full night! Filaris hadn’t mentioned it in her letters, but I knew she knew. Somehow, she knew, and the fact that she hadn’t dedicated a single line in any of her letters to a thorough I told you so meant she’d had no faith I’d keep my impulsiveness in check in the first place.

Ash’ren’s hand on my cheek curled into a fist, then retreated entirely. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and stepped back to pick up the mortar and pestle. Practically the entire healing staff was watching us and pretending they weren’t, while the former workers of Ring Seven openly stared.

“How was training?”

“Fine. Your people are strong.” He accepted the water I offered him. Before taking a deep drink, he muttered, “And stubborn.”

I smirked. “Perhaps that’s why I love them.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Well, you’re not stubborn at all, are you?”

“And you’re not a sarcastic little—”

“Your Majesty,” a woman cut in before Ash’ren could spit out his silly insult. “Another has been found.”