Page 39 of Chained to the Devil's Daughter

When I walked up to the tented shelters that’d been built for the refugees of Ring Eight while their soil was cleared of Firefolk, the Faith Keeper beamed at my arrival. I acknowledged him with a nod and took the final five strides to the man’s side. Others in the tent—which I saw now was doubling as a makeshift medical facility—eyed me warily, some downright hostile.

The kind of hate spewing from some of the laborers was not your run-of-the-mill discontent. Faces, bloody and unblinking, flashed through my imagination, a zoetrope of all the lives I’d taken. My personal demons itched for attention.

“Ash Render,” Markel’s mother spoke my unfortunate nickname with a twinge of surprise. “You’ve really come to train us?”

I nodded. The woman motioned to the discarded shovels littering the cliffside. “With these?”

“We must be subtle. In the inner rings, revolution is not quite so. . . necessary.”

She sighed but nodded and stuck out her hand. "Maisa.”

“Ash’ren.” I took her hand and gave it a firm shake, speaking my name with conviction. Perhaps this would be my first chance to shed the misnomer.

“We know who you are!” a shrill voice called. “Ash Render, the Demon of Darkness, Thief of Men!”

Fuck. Well, that wishful thinking lasted all of two fucking seconds. I faced my reckoning, which took the form of a plain, thin woman with a patch of scalp so burnt that hair no longer grew upon it.

Ice invaded my veins at the cold reminder of the sins lurking in my shadow. “Who was it?”

“My husband, you piece of trash!”

“What is this?” the old man croaked as loudly as his throat could probably allow. “This man is on our side—”

“This man is a murderer, Keeper. You can’t truly expect us to trust him.”

“You don’t need to trust me,” I said. “Only to train with me.”

The woman took four angry strides closer, not even wincing at the hard impacts each stride had on her busted-up feet. She spat directly into my face. “No.”

I grimaced and wiped my face with the back of my hand, keeping the grieving woman’s eye contact. I couldn’t fault her righteous anger, but if any of these people were to take my lessons seriously, I’d have to come clean.

“The guards used us as a cure-all for their boredom,” I spoke loudly enough for the small crowd and the Faith Keeper’s aged ears. Rubbing my hands free of the blood that stained them underneath the surface, I forged on. “I tried to hide my true strength, but I could not forever.”

“Then you should have stayed down!”

“Perhaps I should have, and I’m sorry for the pain my life has caused. Truly. I can’t take it back.” She stepped back, as though afraid I’d take my bloodlust out on a defenseless,grieving woman. My jaw worked around the words damming my throat, begging me not to speak their truth. Let it lie, man, let it fucking lie. “And I wouldn’t, anyway. Because I’m here.”

“And they are not.” The woman shook her head, deadly hatred aflame in her pinched gaze.

I gave a sharp nod. My heart was too black, my soul too far gone. I couldn’t regret surviving, not with everything I’d done, the amount of blood on my hands. Not with Searra back in my life.

The whole makeshift town was encapsulated by sticky tension. My life hung in the balance as the people I’d caused so much harm quietly decided my fate, a threadbare string pulled taut. Even my strange ally leaned pensively on his long wooden staff, inked words on his forehead indecipherable in the creases.

A scuffle of sandals. A young human man approached. He drew the woman into his arms and whispered in her ear. When he faced me, the breath left my lungs in a powerful whoosh. Those emerald eyes, they were. . .

The man walked seven steps to the wall of the cliff, choosing a shovel with a broken tip that was sharp enough to impale.

“My name is Kien.” A sob broke from the woman behind him, who had sunk to her knees. “My father would have fought bravely to return to us. I don’t forgive you. Will you train me?”

Of fucking course Samothy’s son would be the first to extend a hand. I almost fucking choked but managed to hold my breakfast down and nod.

∞∞∞

The sun was only a whisper of yellow over the western cliff when I called training to an end. Most of the trainees were tired, drooping, and sickly, especially the humans.

Briefly, I considered forgoing the carriage to try out a technique I was hoping to master soon but grimaced at the thought of more attention thrown my way. I’d spent all day as the Ash Render, training exhausted workers how to be ruthless and cutting. I didn’t need more glares to remind me of the terror that name wrought.

At least it was a different carriage driver. This one, a squat demon shaped like a perfect square, grunted once in acknowledgment of the destination, and once again when dropping me off in front of the palace, swaying on my feet.

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