Elijah dove in front of Sadie’s descending sword, raising his scythe to block. He had no idea which weapon would win, but if he’d had time to think about it, he probably would have chosen a different tactic. Meanwhile, Hu Shui flashed forward, grabbing Sadie’s intended target, then darted away – moving far too quickly for even Elijah to get more than a glimpse.

  Then, the sword fell, and Elijah’s scythe, which had been with him for so long, split in two. An explosion of power erupted from the point of impact, throwing everyone nearby backward. Sadie got the brunt of it, and she went flying backward and into a nearby tree. Elijah managed to dig his feet into the ground, so he only skidded back a few scant feet.

  The nearby hunters, all dressed in loincloths and elaborate headdresses, could not stand up to the shockwave. All five went skipping across the sparse forest, not stopping until they each slammed into immovable objects like rocky edifices or thick-trunked trees. Their bones broke, and their organs ruptured, with all but one dying on impact.

  The lone survivor – other than the one Hu Shui had saved – probably wished she hadn’t. Her spine twisted into a half-dozen different directions, with major bones breaking in multiple places. She might not have died immediately, but she wasn’t long for the world.

  Elijah darted to her, already casting his healing spells.

  But he was too late.

  She succumbed to her significant injuries well before he even reached her. The rain from Blessing of the Grove never had a chance to bestow healing upon the shocked hunter.

  Still, Elijah tried. He cast all three of his healing spells, pumping massive amounts of vitality through the woman’s body. But even as he looked down upon her still-warm corpse, he knew it was useless. He’d seen enough death to recognize when it had come to claim a life. His efforts were just a waste of ethera.

  For a long moment, he just stared at her broken corpse. Only a few seconds ago, she’d been alive. She probably had hopes and dreams and plans for the future. Maybe she had friends and family waiting for her back in Benediction. Or perhaps she lived in one of the satellite villages.

  And now she was gone. After living through the deadliest event in the history of humankind, she’d been killed simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For standing near Sadie’s path.

  He whipped around to see Sadie picking herself up. During the trip, she hadn’t donned her armor, so, in her puffy coat and tight jeans, she looked like nothing so much as a woman out for a leisurely hike. If it wasn’t for the massive sword in her hand, she might’ve been one of millions of other young women whose only real concern was where they would buy their next pumpkin spice latte.

  And then there was her expression. All righteous rage and unresolved frustration.

  “Why did you stop me?” she demanded, stepping forward. Extending her sword toward the man cowering behind Hu Shui, she went on, “They are demonic. Evil. They deserve to be –”

  “This isn’t you,” Elijah interrupted, endeavoring to keep his voice calm. She’d just killed a bunch of innocent people, so it was more of a struggle than he’d expected. “This is your core. You knew this was coming, Sadie. You knew what to expect.”

  She didn’t stop.

  To his credit, Hu Shui looked ready to fight, having pulled a pair of shortswords from nowhere.

  “Move,” she growled.

  “I will not,” he countered.

  “Stop!” Elijah shouted, his voice echoing through the copse of trees. They did, and in a lower tone, he added, “Just stop. Sadie, take a step back. Use your mind cultivation. Push this aside.”

  Her face twisted into a snarl, and for a moment, Elijah expected her to explode with righteous light and try to finish the job she’d started. But then, her face went slack, and finally, she looked around at the devastation she’d caused. Her eyes flicked from one dead body to the next until, at last, they settled onto the last one to die.

  The woman was no more than a teenager. Probably Miguel’s age, if not younger. Like all the others, she wore nothing but ritualistic red body paint, a long loincloth that reached her knees, and a headdress. In her case, it was meant to represent an eagle, though the others wore headdresses made from the heads of other animals like wolves, jackals, and jaguars.

  Once, she might have been pretty, but in death, half her face had been crushed.

  Elijah took a step forward, holding his Mantle of Authority on the cusp of activation. If Sadie attacked, he intended to deploy it, then shift into his dragon form and fly her far away. Even if she didn’t, he was considering taking that step.

  But above all, he couldn’t help but tell himself that he never should have brought her along. Angels and demons were ancestral enemies whose enmity exceeded even what he felt for vespirans. Expecting Sadie to enter Benedict’s territory and not react was a grave mistake, and one with predictable consequences.

  Still, Elijah wanted to trust her self-control.

  He laid a hand on her shoulder, feeling the tension of her muscles. It was like she was ready to pounce. Or as if her body did, while her mind refused to provide the release it so desired.

  “They’re people, Sadie. Just people.”

  As it turned out, that simple truth was the tipping point. Sadie’s muscles relaxed. Not all at once, but rather in increments. However, it only took a few more moments before she blinked. After that, she truly saw what Elijah had already seen. The six men and women were clearly beginners. If they’d had their classes for more than a few months, it would have been a surprise.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Elijah half expected Sadie to fall to her knees, stretch her arms to the sky, and wail at the injustice she’d visited upon the group of young hunters. But she didn’t. Instead, she adopted a stoic expression and said, “I should have had better control.” Then, she glanced at Elijah, “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  Without further explanation or apology, she turned and headed back the way they had come.

  Hu Shui asked, “What just happened?”

  “Demons and angels,” Elijah answered. “They don’t mix.”

  “And you still brought her along? Why?”

  Elijah didn’t have a response. Not one he would admit to his new companion, at least. However, in the back of his mind, he knew the answer. He’d brought Sadie because he was too weak to refuse her company. Or maybe because he had overestimated her self-control. Or underestimated the hatred she held for all things demonic.

  Whatever the case, it was his expedition, and as such, the deaths were on him.

  “Take care of him,” Elijah ordered before disappearing into the trees to chase Sadie down. He caught up to her after only a few moments.

  “Don’t, Elijah.”

  “We need to talk about this.”

  “I told you it won’t happen again,” she spat. “Accept my word so we can move on.”

  Elijah reached out to grab her arm, but she jerked it away. Spinning to face him, she thrust her finger in his face. “I told you not to do this,” she growled. “I don’t want to get into it.”

  “You just killed five people, Sadie. Five innocent –”

  “They were far from innocent.”

  “They were kids!”

  “Murderers.”

  “You can’t just say that and ignore the context!” he insisted. He took a deep breath, pushing the anger out of his voice. “Look. I know Sense of Sin gives you some insight into a person’s past, but it’s not foolproof. You know that. It doesn’t distinguish between justified killing and murder.”

  “They stank of demonic forces,” she argued. “They were monsters.”

  “You know that?”

  She looked away, her jaw flexing. “Coming from you, that question means very little.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t just stand there and act as if you haven’t done the same thing. You’ve killed plenty of innocents, and only because your instincts told you they were unnatural. Those hunters? You remember them? Their only crime was killing a bear in an inhumane way. Or the countless people you killed in Easton? Bloodrock Bay? Only recently, you slaughtered an entire army.”

  She thrust her finger in his face. “I accepted those things because I trust your judgement,” she stated. “But you don’t get to judge me. Not when your hands are far bloodier than mine.”

  Elijah stood there, stunned at the vehemence of her response. Or perhaps it was the truth that hit him the hardest. She wasn’t wrong. He’d made plenty of mistakes, and he regretted most of them. If not that he’d killed, then that he hadn’t cut the situation off before he was forced to resort to violence.

  “I’m not judging you, Sadie. I’m worried about you.” He reached out to grip her shoulder. It trembled with the fury of her barely constrained rage. In a softer voice, he added, “I know you well enough to predict that you’ll regret this. It’ll haunt you, just like some of those other deaths haunt me. But if you don’t recognize where this is coming from and put a stop to it, there’s no way this is going to work.”

  “Are you talking about this expedition? Or our relationship?”

  The second question cut Elijah to his core. “Do you want it to be about us?” he asked.

  She pushed her hair back. “I don’t know.” She sighed. “I love you. I do. I just…you have to see that this isn’t…I don’t know.”

  “Sadie…”

  “This isn’t a conversation for right now. I will keep my instincts under control. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “I do worry about you.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I don’t think I can help it,” he admitted.

  “We need to keep moving.”

  It was as clear an end to the conversation as they were going to get, especially when she unceremoniously turned away and continued toward Benediction. It was a few moments before Elijah realized that, by shifting the subject to their relationship, she’d derailed the entire discussion.

  And without admitting she was wrong to kill those kids.

  Only when he wrapped his head around that did he realize there was another issue. She had destroyed his scythe, and he didn’t have another to replace it.

  “Relationship troubles?” asked Hu Shui, suddenly appearing behind him.

  “Where is the survivor?” Elijah asked, ignoring the man’s probing question.

  “Once he realized I had no intention of killing him, he sprinted away. I don’t think he made it very far, if you want to chase him down.”

  Elijah shook his head. “No need.”

  Indeed, there was no reason to recapture the young man. Benedict might hold the deaths against them once he discovered the truth, but he would have no choice but to accept it as the cost of their alliance. After all, he needed their help, not the other way around. Because of that, secrecy was unnecessary.

  Besides, Elijah was far more concerned with what the event meant for his relationship with Sadie. Following closely on that issue’s heels – in terms of importance – was how she would react when she saw Benediction.

  “The next few days are not going to be pleasant,” he confided.

  “She should not have come.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why is she here?” Hu Shui asked.

  “Because I want to believe she’s more than her attunement or core,” Elijah said. Or maybe he needed to believe the same about himself. Either way, Sadie was there. She was going. And it was up to them to figure out how to make it work.

  Hopefully, she felt the same burden.

  Without further discussion, he and Hu Shui followed in Sadie’s footsteps. It didn’t take long for them to catch up, though neither broached the subject of the day’s events. Not only would doing so cause further strife, but in the end, it didn’t matter. So long as Sadie followed through with her promise that it wouldn’t happen again, at least. If it did, the conversation would become much more urgent.

  As they progressed across the uneven terrain of the foothills, they spoke very little. However, they did make good time, and along the way, they saw a few of the satellite towns. To Elijah, they looked much the same as they had during his first visit. Each one was characterized by a scattering of square-ish buildings surrounding a pyramid.

  The people were unchanged as well, though it seemed that word of their power had traveled ahead, because no one dared challenge them. A good thing, too, because Sadie looked increasingly volatile with every step.

  Elijah knew it was due to the atmosphere, which mingled demonic energy with the local ethera. It suffused everything, no doubt because it was linked to Benedict himself. In addition, they saw more demons. The most common were the jackal-like creatures Sadie had slain during that first encounter, but there were also imps and even a couple of the oni-like creatures Elijah had seen during his first visit as well.

  Thankfully, Sadie’s pledge of self-control held until, at last, Benediction came into view.

  “It is an impressive-looking city,” Hu Shui acknowledged.

  Elijah couldn’t disagree, but Sadie only looked on in disgust. “A hive of corruption, no matter how aesthetically pleasing,” she spat. “I will not enter that city.”

  Then, she revealed plans to move ahead to the boundary of the Primal Realm’s influence. There, she would await a reunion.

  “That’s probably for the best,” Elijah said. Then, he added, “Be careful. The asharii can be dangerous.”

  “I can take care of myself,” was her response, and without another word, she strode off, obviously eager to outrun the distasteful aura of the city. Elijah could only hope that she wouldn’t encounter any other demons along the way, because without him there to temper her instincts, she very well could lose control.

  He sighed. “This is not going to end well,” he muttered to himself. Then, to Hu Shui, he added, “Let’s go. Benedict is probably expecting us.”

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