Page 119 of Last Gift: Supernatural Battle

No doubt he would too. “I’d like to join you in that, but not today.”

The sentry pendant around my neck warmed, and I glanced at Wild as he listened intently, his focus shifting off my body for the first time.

His jaw clenched, and he glanced up to where I stood ready to leave.

The alarms hadn’t gone off.

No sooner had the thought struck me than a high-pitched noise pierced the eating chamber.

“They’re here,” Wild said quickly. “Demons are through the gates.”

30

I peered down into the ravine that I didn’t dare enter.

Red smoke filled it yesterday, and the sluggish swirling medium hadn’t budged overnight, nor as I’d lingered here.

“The other supernaturals are here, High Esteemed,” Barrow told me quietly.

I nodded. “Please bring them up.” They might be able to glean something unique from the red smoke.

As I had. The sight made my demon furious and fearful. The smoke made her want to stake a claim and also sprint from the possibility of another cage. That’s how I knew the smoke was his. In the same way I could understand and speak in the demon tongue, I knew that demons emitted a smoke display prior to violent intent. This display was the equivalent of a war dance on the brink of battle, and a warning that we should fear what came next.

I felt the chilling presence of Kyros and Basilia behind me and smelled the earthy scent of Andie and Sascha there too. The Vissimo stood on my right, and the Luthers on my left. Wild didn’t like not being here, but he and Delta were swamped while rearranging lines and talking with Sage about shifts in strategy too.

“Your advisor told us of the development,” the Vissimo prince said in his cold voice. “All four ravines are this way?”

“Yes. We’ve sealed the chamber containing the fifth gate. The room is filled with red smoke too.”

“This will make defense harder,” Andie muttered.

We had four ravines to guard now, not just four gates. We’d pulled our sentries farther away, which meant less warning. The red smoke was a visual cover for the demons too. “The best course will be to push the demon king back to his realm once we’ve discovered what we can. And a way to safely manage that,” I told them.

Sascha asked, “What have your magus found so far?”

I glanced at the four-affinity teams working up and down the ravine ledges, each trying to sense something from the red smoke. “The smoke is poisonous to touch and ulcerates the skin. There’s an element of the past in the demon king’s power. His magic is not just of him. Something ancient clings to this smoke.”

“What do you mean?” Basilia glanced at me.

“Magus magic is inherited from our ancestors and divided amongst living relatives of that line. There’s potential that demon magic is passed in a similar way, or there’s something more unique about the demon king to explore. He has access to something ancient that has infused or augmented his magic.”

“Father will be intrigued by this theory,” the crown prince mused. He peered into the smoke. “There is shifting beneath the surface. Shapes I cannot make out.”

“I smell decay and individual scents,” Sascha said.

Andie hummed. “As do I. A lot of them. Too many to pick out.”

The demons were gathering in the ravine?

Basilia bent down and tossed a rock over the edge. All of us looked at her, but she listened hard after.

She looked at Kyros after a minute. “The rock never landed.”

“So is there a protective force over the smoke other than the poison that hurts us,” I pondered aloud.

Sascha cocked his head. “Or did the rock go elsewhere?”

“Elsewhere like the demon realm.” Andie followed his train of thought.

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