Page 11 of The Holly King's Sacrifice

He narrows his eyes like he doesn’t understand, his brow furrowing. “What does that mean?”

“I wanted to know where the Angels came from,” I say. “I didn’t believe they were celestial. I wasn’t sure your people were from hell. And I…well, I questioned why they sent people into the forest every year, because I felt like it was superstitious. Is it?”

He frowns. “This is a difficult question to answer.”

“Why?”

“Because your concepts of heaven and hell are foreign to me,” he says. “And because…yes, we do demand one of your people each year. But it is not for the reasons you think.”

“So you’re not going to eat me?” I ask. “Punish me?”

He snorts, and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him laugh. “I have no taste for the meat of sentient beings,” he says. “And I have no interest in punishing you…unless you ask.”

I bite my lip so hard it cracks the dry flesh. He takes notice, his eyes darting to the red blood on my lip before they return to meet mine. “So do you have an answer?” I ask. “Who are you?”

He cocks his head. “Who am I? Or who arewe?”

My heart thunders. In Manistique, my family chastised me every time I asked questions like this. But here I am, at the brink of learning everything I’ve been so curious about.

“The latter, I guess,” I say.

The Holly King nods slowly as he prods at the fire with a stick. “We are not of this world,” he says.

“That part is obvious,” I shrug.

“I know little of your faith,” he says. “But I can tell you for certain that we did not come from this place you humans call hell. My homeland is verdant, beautiful, lush…a place of great bounty.”

“And your horns?” I say.

He shakes his head. “We all have them,” he says. “Your people place little value on difference. That is no fault of ours.”

He reaches into his pack and pulls out a leather satchel, then slips some jerky out of it. He leans around the fire to pass it to me and I take it gratefully, along with a waterskin. I drink deeply, swallowing down mouthful after mouthful before I realize it might be too much, and that we could be rationing.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Did I drink too much?”

The Holly King shakes his head. “We have transportable water filters; drink your fill, little woman.”

The idea of a transportable water filter feels at odds with everything else about him—with his nudity, his people’s barbaric ritual the night before, the way he stared openly at my naked body. But I drink anyway, noticing how clean the water tastes compared to our well water in Manistique.

“So your people are from another world,” I say. “Not from hell. But how about you?”

He looks at me curiously. “I am more interested in you.”

I shrug. “I’ve lived a fairly unremarkable life.”

“Unremarkable people do not ask so many questions.”

I can’t help the blush that spreads over my cheeks. Even though he’s a demon—or an alien, if I believe what he says about where he’s from—there’s something universal about being told your interesting by a handsome man. And he is handsome, no matter what I feel about him.

“Well,” I say, “I was born in Traverse City, across Lake Michigan. My family came here after the Convergence, when I was a teenager. We took our family boat, and we never looked back.”

“But who areyou?”

I didn’t expect this demon to have any concept of individuality, but here we are. He wants to know who I am. I wish I could tell him.

“That’s a harder question to answer than you might think it is,” I say.

“And yet, you will tell me anyway.”

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