Page 31 of The Demon Mark

There was only the faintest reaction to his words. A hint of a flinch, or perhaps the slightest jerk from this man who hadn’t expected someone to see straight through him.

Envy continued, narrowing his eyes with every word until he was glaring with every inch of loathing in his body. “So, which is it? Were you once a noble that was cast out of your home? Or did you do something so awful in your homeland that you had to run? There aren’t a lot of reasons for someone like you to be in my kingdom, and even fewer reasons that you would bring one of the most powerful oracles I have ever seen with you.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” the man said, a grin on his face. “You’ll have to pay me for information, just like you’ll pay me to keep her.”

“This isn’t about the money for you.”

“It is a little.”

Envy sat back, sighing once more in disappointment. “I had hoped we could handle this like gentlemen.”

“I am not a gentleman, and I suspect neither are you, demon king.”

He wasn’t wrong, and that was precisely why he should be afraid.

Envy reached for one of his tattoos, feeling the spark of magic as he yanked it off himself. This one was little more than a black shadow, a band of darkness that circled his thigh. About four inches thick when it was on his body, but as he pulled, it continued to grow.

The smoke encircled his wrist, gathering around his arm, and then migrated up to his shoulder, where it perched next to his head.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked.

The circus master didn’t flinch. “You won’t kill me. I have what you want, and you’ll never get to keep her if you do. So please, stop with the theatrics.”

“You are right. I won’t kill you. But I don’t need to kill you to get what I want. This mist is a spell that was cast by a once great magician. It ate him, in a sense. This spell consumes memories, emotions, feelings, all of it wrapped up in one. It doesn’t matter what is going on inside your mind, the spell will devour it all. I can even tell it what not to eat.” Envy felt a satisfying zing of power as the other man finally looked a little nervous. “I will tell it to eat everything but the memory of how to grow that flower, and what to do with said flower. You will be nothing more than a husk of a man. A drooling mess to clean up after.”

It was the first time the circus master cracked. Clearly, he hadn’t been aware that something like this existed. To be fair, neither had Envy until he’d seen the man cast it. He’d gathered the spell up after the man had died screaming, and he’d spoken with the creation that the magician had given life.

Of course, it had tried to attack him, too. Envy had let the spell tire itself out before the strange creation realized that it was dealing with an emotion who had taken flesh. Then it was a different situation. He’d convinced it to let him make it into one of his summonable tattoos.

And this curse so loved to be used.

The circus master squirmed in his chair, hesitating now that he knew what the stakes were. “I’m not going to tell you more than I need to. That herb has been entrusted to me. There are few people in all the seven realms who know how to plant it, gather it, or do anything at all with it. This is sacred.”

“Then tell me what you can.”

“It’s an herb the oracles have used forever. That’s all you need to know.”

Envy nodded at the spell that slithered down his shoulder. It started toward the man, moving across the floor like a snake.

The circus master lifted his feet off the ground, crawling back into his chair like that would save him. “It—it was once thought of as a ritual. The oracles used to use it when they were all together. It was a way to hone their prophecies, so they didn’t die so young. An older oracle can see more than the others. The younger they are, the more jumbled their prophecies are.”

“Very interesting. That tells me nothing about the plant itself.”

“Make it stop,” he stammered, nearly standing on the chair now. “Make it stop, and I’ll answer your questions.”

Envy waved a hand at the creature, and it froze in its place. Even Envy was surprised at that. Usually he couldn’t control it once it was unleashed. At least, not until it had fed. “And the knowledge of the herb?”

“Every time an oracle is born, someone is chosen to be her keeper. I was a young man when she was born.” The circus master’s face twisted with rage before even that fell in the face of his fear. “I was supposed to be a duke in Lust’s kingdom. I was the first born of my name, and the oracles took me for their own. I didn’t want to be a keeper. I had no intention of them even looking at me. I tried to hide from them, but they... They see all.”

“Of course they do. They see the future, and they must have known you were important to hers.” And didn’t that make him angry. This man shouldn’t be important to Lilith in any way.

Envy should be.

The circus master swallowed. “When I was given the role, I tried to fight it. They didn’t let me. I went through the training with everyone else. I learned how to fight. How to protect her. How to cook. How to clean. They took me from nobility and gave me to a woman to serve as her slave. I refused to do that. Even you must understand how hard that would have been for me.”

Envy waved a hand in the air. “Get on with it.”

“They give us a packet of seeds as well, when we’re first taken in as keepers. They show us how to plant them, how to get more seeds out of them. A single plant only lives for three days, and it’s the bloom that you need. It’s a finicky plant to keep, to get to bloom. Everything about it is hard. We’re meant to take care of those plants above all else.”

---