Page 87 of The Star's Sword

“Am I really the Morningstar?” I asked, looking up at the carved ceiling of the cathedral, my heart lost and empty. “If I was, wouldn’t my fighting, my donations, who I am, wouldn’t that matter?”

“Normally it would,” Samael said.

“Then why did Simon want me to try and win them?” I asked. “If it was just going to end like this, why?”

“He couldn’t have known it would end like this,” Cayne said. “Simon would never have seen Vasara turning his own vampires against him, because he is so loyal he’d never consider anything like that.”

Samael nodded. “He stays and watches that human settlement almost all the time, and has Mark or another elder protect it when he can’t.”

“Plus, anything that hits that dome would fry,” Cayne said. “It’s electrified.”

“Makes sense,” I said, looking fondly over at Simon.

He was so protective, so good to his vampires and people. And everywhere he went, he got mistrust and disloyalty.

I didn’t understand it.

“We should go, before he wakes up,” Cayne said. “Mor, can you take us to Ara’s?”

Mor stretched, cracking her knuckles. “Yup. Thanks to my training, I can portal straight through any of the Drorren sky defenses.” She raised a hand and brought up a swirling void portal. “I’m going to dump you in her master bedroom. Since she’s at an inn, her attendants will be there alone, ready to help you. Then I’ll go find her and we’ll be right over.”

Cayne stood, holding Simon, and walked into the portal, disappearing, and leaving us no choice but to follow him to whatever came next.

29

We all walked out of the portal into Ara’s sumptuous bedroom, which was even more beautiful at night.

Moonlight shone through the erotic stain-glass windows, over a bed large enough to hold a dozen people, and furnishings so lush they belonged in a castle. Which we were in.

I walked over to a gilded throne and saw one of Ara’s attendants sleeping in it. I tapped his shoulder, as my friends moved around the room to do the same to others.

The demon, a pale, blue-haired male with pale skin wearing blue robes, startled and woke, blinking at me and then rising in panic.

“What are you all doing here?” the attendant yelled, reaching for a sword on the wall and jerking it off to brandish it at us.

Clearly, he hadn’t fought much.

“Shh, it’s me, Talus,” Cayne said, walking forward.

“Master Cayne,” Talus said, slumping and gesturing to the other attendants that he was fine. He had short blue horns and long, pointed demon ears, and his eyes were shining blue. “We didn’t expect you in the dead of night like this.”

“We need a safe haven,” he said. “Mor gave us a portal and then went to get Ara.”

Talus nodded. “Let me find all of you sleeping quarters in a secure area.” He led us out into the hallways, which were quiet and beautiful, outfitted with marble sculptures and watched over by more stained-glass windows. Ara was a sin demon, and thus she liked her entire place to have a feeling of luxury so intense it was almost sinful.

Plus, the erotic windows, depicting actual sins.

I’d come to realize a better name for the sin demons might have been ‘pleasure demons’ or ‘hedonistic elementals’ but I was realizing that demons as a race had kind of adopted the sin idea as a way of almost mocking the celestials with extra defiance, since celestials were known as prudes.

Which was ironic, once you knew they came all the way from the ninth realm to the demon realms to feed by torturing innocents.

Talus led us down several hallways, and then outside and across a small courtyard to a mini palace I hadn’t seen before. It appeared constructed of black obsidian, just like the larger palace, but was smaller, made for only probably twenty people.

From the front of the castle and most sides, this smaller building couldn’t even be seen.

“This is Ara’s personal summer cottage,” Talus said, opening the large front door with a key from a ring of large, clanking skeleton keys. “Your group will be able to recover in here.”

Cayne walked in, carrying Simon. Samael, Zadis and I followed, along with Griffin and Os.

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