Page 53 of Demonchild

“How did Sykora trap you?”

Beliath sighed again.

“To tell you the truth, little one, she seduced me…”

He spared Malissa the more lurid aspects of that encounter and stuck only to the necessary details. The witch had been dressed alluringly. She had invited him into her home, a rather large roundhouse with crude stone walls and a thatched room. What Beliath had not realized at the time was that the house was merely a disguise to conceal the darkstone ring, which was hidden within the walls of the structure. While the witch was “distracting” him, her followers had gathered outside and invoked the spell of binding that had imprisoned Beliath within the stones.

He watched Malissa’s face as he told her his story, and he saw a flicker of jealousy behind her dark eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, when he was finished. “I did not mean to upset you, little one, but I didn’t want to lie to you.”

“I don’t want you to lie either,” she said.

“But I made you jealous.”

“A little, but…” She shook her head. “Well, that woman who trapped you has been dead and gone for a long, long time. And I hadn’t even been born yet. Hell, my grandparents’ grandparents hadn’t been born, and even farther back than that…”

Her expression suddenly grew very stern.

“But I’ll tell you this,” she said. “After I set you free, if I find out you’ve slept with any other woman, I’ll track her down and kill her.”

Beliath couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m serious!” she said.

“I know you are, angel, but you don’t need to be. I won’t be giving you cause to kill anyone.”

She looked away.

“You say that now, but once you’re free, you may change your mind. You’ll be able to travel the whole world, and there are many other women in the world besides myself.”

“I could search the world over and never find another woman like you, Malissa. You’re different, special. Which reminds me…”

Malissa’s grimoire was still sitting on the altar behind him. Beliath picked it up and briefly examined the leather cover and unmarked spine. Then he opened the book and looked inside. On the first page was a warning that anyone who attempted to destroy the book would be subject to a terrible curse. Below the warning was a magic sigil, so carefully rendered, Beliath questioned whether it had been put there by a human hand.

Malissa climbed off Beliath’s lap and sat beside him, watching.

“Your mother gave you this book?” he asked.

“Sort of,” she said sheepishly.

“Sort of?”

“Well, I told you before that my mother was a witch, but the truth is, I never really knew my mother. I never even knew her name. She died giving birth to me. For a long time, I believed my father resented me for that. That’s why he was willing to ship me off to be Wulfgang’s wife, even though he must have known it would mean my death. At least that’s what I thought… until I found this book.”

“When did you find it?” Beliath asked.

“A few months ago, shortly after I first arrived at Drachenval. There was a trunk included with my other belongings. When I opened it, I discovered it was filled with books. I knew they couldn’t have been my father’s. He never reads, and he certainly wouldn’t read anything like this.”

She nodded toward the book in Beliath’s hands.

“The grimoire had been placed right on top of the other books, as if my father wanted to make sure I saw it first. I think he was trying to send me a message by doing that. I think he was saying that my mother was cursed for her interest in witchcraft, and that’s why she died in childbirth.”

“Perhaps,” Beliath said.

But he wasn’t sure that was the message her father had been trying to send. Not quite. He thumbed through the pages of the book for a moment, then he carefully set it onto the altar behind him and turned his attention back to his little queen. Her face almost looked golden in the candlelight, and her eyes were watching him expectantly. Beliath returned her gaze for a long moment, then he looked off toward the shadowed forest surrounding the clearing and the darkstone ring.

“What are you thinking?” Malissa asked.

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