Page 25 of Red Demon
“How did this even happen?” I raked my hands through my curly hair. “And… The Red Demon looks so much like you—” I cut myself off, realizing I’d never seen an Attiq-ka. Maybe the way she moved and that otherworldly intensity was something all the immortals had in common. Chaeten-sa code had to come from somewhere.
He gave a sly smile at that, looking away and back. “Just because she has red hair and cat green eyes? We’re all coded for complete phenotypic dominance.” When I looked confused, he added, “All our mutts look like us.”
It took me a moment for my brain to catch up. “Mutts?”
“How old are you, friend?” He drove his hand down his face, looking around the room. I followed his gaze to one of the servers, a black-haired Asri girl a few years older than me with a brilliant smile.
“Fourteen,” I said to my lap.
“Okay, censored version, then. Stop me if you already learned this in school. Our Academy tried coding our spec line for peace first; war was the backup plan. They built us to be appealing mates to Attiq-ka, and they coded our minds to find anyone willing to touch us appealing.” He groaned, looking off toward the girl. “Some of our brilliant leaders thought if we merged their immortal line with ours, the Attiq-ka would have to recognize us as equals. We’d just fuck like bunnies until there was peace across the Nara.”
“Okay,” I said, wondering what the uncensored version was.
He raked his eyes up and down the girl with black hair, who rushed past our table on her way to the kitchen. Major Mahakal straightened his tunic as she passed. “None of us are fathering half-breeds these days, but things were different just before the war, and during.”
“So you don’t—” I stuttered, deciding that was none of my business.
He laughed loud and long, leaning back in his booth. “It’s just the silphium mod, friend.” He stared at me in bewilderment. “I certainly haven’t stopped living since I met Ryu’s great grandmother.”
“Oh.” I eyed the table, then looked up to find Ryu. “Ohh.” His seastorm ringed eyes and gray-flecked auburn hair looked Asri to me, kneeling by the low table to serve his guests. But I could make out the resemblance now, if I looked for it.
“It’s for the best,” he said. “I expect they’re sparing you kids from the worst of Chaeten-sa horrors in your school books, but those were dark days. For every one of us that survived childhood and was strong enough to meet an Attiq-ka’s magic blade to blade, I’d say five died, maybe fifteen, depending on how young you started counting.” He sighed, looking into the distance. “So any children I brought into the world are so heavily modded, there’s little to connect us. I refused to let any of them suffer like I did.”
I leaned back in my chair, deciding I respected Mahakal for that. “So Ryu’s mortal?”
“Yes, coded for a happy, fruitful life. I let him keep spec lines the empire is propagating and replaced the rest. Coding for fearlessness and resilience has … fun side effects. I expect if your parents gave you so many siblings, you’re carrying that mod too. You’ll figure it out soon enough.” If there wasn’t a mine under Nunbiren, I was about to crawl under the table and start digging one. Mahakal laughed. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable there, friend. The point is, the Asri can leave their future to fate if they wish, but from one Chaeten to another, I think our people place a higher value on learning from our mistakes.” He stared until I met his eyes. “Believe me when I tell you the Red Demon is one of our worst mistakes.”
Chapter 11
Brother
Aweight eased from my heart after sharing my story with Mahakal. To his credit, he left to travel south the next day to seek his justice. For weeks afterward, I’d visit the temple daily to check the posted bulletins for news. When I saw nothing about the Red Demon, I reminded myself that if her identity wasn’t public knowledge, her death might not be either.
In the meantime, I settled into a familiar rhythm with Galen and Asher. Nunbiren was in a good place to heal, to grow stronger, and to develop new skills. Weeks spilled into months with no news. Folding at the forging press kept me from thinking too hard, as did learning how to use and maintain the fabricator at the heart of the forge. I excelled in the morning training. Galen was eager to teach me everything—how to bend steel to my will and to create poetry from small movements with every weapon we birthed from fire. I strove to move beyond the predictable rhythms and movements to mastery, giving everything I did my whole heart.
I found comfort in my new life. Each night Galen and Asher had fresh questions for me, and even the ones that ended in silence brought me closer to them both. They’d lost someone too: Asher’s mom died a few years back from cancer. In the case of all our dead, there were no answers, just acknowledgement of a grief shared. Every time I freed a secret that made me feel fragile or lost, I felt stronger. Each time I felt alone, they drew me closer.
Asher took a little over a week to start calling me brother. Galen was more reserved, but beyond his exacting and commanding presence, he was a patient and kind man, a natural leader. In some ways, I trusted his gruff attitude more: being slow to trust meant I had full faith in his judgments. I don’t think it was just Asher’s influence when things shifted a couple months later, over a dinner with the last of the strawberries for the year, greens blended into the spicy lentil stew.
“You figure you still need a father, boy?” he asked, setting down tea for us both.
I hesitated, the stew in front of me forgotten. Studying the wrinkles in his face, and his black and gold eyes, I nodded, finding a certainty in something I hadn’t considered a moment ago.
Galen’s smile crinkled the corners of his weathered face, bright as the forge fire. “Very well, son,” he’d declared, with Asher grinning beside me, slapping me on the back. From that day on, I was “son” and not “boy,” and a few days later, recognized by the elders and ancestors in a ceremony to name me part of the Eirini family.
The night of my adoption, I’d realized he used the Asri word, “Taam,” not the word I’d called my dad. Maybe that’s why it didn’t feel like I was replacing anyone I’d lost, just stepping into a new life.
Nunbiren became home.
Months passed into seasons, and Mahakal did not return to town, but each season painted fresh memories. Ruan, Ash and I swam in the forest under starlit skies, laughter mingling with the bite of fall. In the winter, I started sparring with Plato on my days off. He was a guy who just kept going, steel clashing to sweat, as difficult to exhaust as I was. Meragc and Atalia got married the following summer, and I held their first child a year later, Nestor, a curious little boy wrapped in the brightest colored blanket I could find to gift him. Those Asri brought drab colors into their nurseries too, but I had not forgotten where I came from.
There were cozy winter nights in the rooms of the forge, when Ash was learning to play the mandolin, and my taam and I both had to make the best of it. Laughter echoed through the walls as I’d offer my best singing voice and worst possible lyrics for his songs. Galen would shake his head and pretend I wasn’t funny, but of course I was.
It all took a while to catch up to me.
The second time I attended the Harvest Festival, I knew what to expect. The sky painted the night with a thousand flickering dreams. Paper lanterns brought some of those nebulae down to the Nara, bobbing their lights on lines throughout the market, their warm colors dancing on celebrants’ faces. I clutched a steaming mug of cider, watching the celebration unfold in the square, letting the spiced warmth spread through me.
Ash never missed the ceremony in the woods; he always wanted me with him to meet the ancestors. Mazes of blue lines throbbed brighter and fainter in the ground, a network of mycelium connecting the magic of the core of the world to us. At the edge of the forest, the trees glistened with cyan magic light, rustling in the wind in a way they didn’t any other time. It terrified me the first time I saw the trees like that. The Asri magic in the ground made me uneasy enough without the trees drinking it up.
