Chapter 12

When Cae opened the door into the banquet hall, her stomach filled with butterflies – small winged creatures, beating against her skin, waiting to burst from her mouth. It was absurd. She had faced rampaging armies of demons, and the own darkness at the heart of her most ardently held faith. She had held a sword up to the Baron of Murder himself, and found his courage to be the one wanting. Why was the very idea of conversation with Baron Degi over fine delicacies and wine so terrifying? She had already been intimate with his brothers, his echoes, the Barons Citri and Ruti, and with what amounted to the summation of all three in the form of Lord Arral himself.

Each demon was a part of a single soul, a facet of a greater, larger mind. And she had grown to know the deep, thoughtful mind that was the House of Ruin in all its various modes.

So, why be fearful?

Maybe...

Maybe, Cae realized, it was because the House of Ruin had become precious to her.

She knew that she could please Citri. All she had to do was be herself, and burn as brightly for him. She could please Arral. All she had to do was meet his greatness with her own, unflinching gaze. And she could please Ruti – she simply needed to lay with him and accept him as he was. But Degi? Degi was something like a vast, still pond. His face was hard to read. His mean was difficult to understand. And she didn’t know how far down that pond went. Did she risk stepping a foot in ... and plunging into something vast and dark and terrible?

Or...

Worse?

Would she merely get a toe wet.

Either way, she stepped into the room, trying to marshal her feelings like she would an army. She gathered comforting knowledge as one might stockpile arrows and spears: She had loved Arral, and Citri, and Ruti. She knew that Lady Alia had loved all three. She had met and spoken with many a member of the Barony of Despair, and she had liked them all. With each fact, she stood taller ... and remained entirely unaware of what wicked, fell magic that Shale and her fellow Fire Spirits had worked upon her.

Cae, after all, was a war angel.

She was not exactly a demure woman, the kind that would fit easily into the fanciful dresses preferred by many of the Mortal Realms. Standing as tall as two and a half women and broad as a man, her shoulders were as muscular as one would expect, considering her day to day job was spent splitting skulls with blade and gauntleted fist. Her knuckles were heavily scarred, her fingers heavily calloused, and those marks of war and destruction were echoed again and again along her arms, her shoulders, her back. Everywhere a dress might expose skin, one could see the thin lines of bright silver scarring against bright golden skin. Add to this broad hips and thighs that were made to stride across blood soaked battlefields and surge through the muck of murder and mass death, and feet whose toes could be best described as blunt ... she was not made for ballrooms and banquet halls.

Rather than shy from this, though, Shale had bent her will towards accentuating it. Emphasize it. Playing it up, not as a weakness in the endeavor of feminine beauty, but rather, as a beautiful reflection of it. And maybe that was the wisest thing that Shale had done in her long life: The dress exposed both of those shoulders and remained open at the back, allowing the majesty of Cae’s muscular back and the intricate connection of muscle, skin and bone that was her wings. The dress then swept back together again just above the cleft of her muscular buttocks, allowing the inquisitive eye to stop right before the meeting of those proud golden cheeks.

The dress was colored a dark, sober black, the kind of black that matched the sheen of her metallic skin, making her seem as if she was draped in soulsteel that flowed like water. It rippled in time with her movement, with little catches of wind. It revealed her ankles and her slippers with every sweep of her movement.

Cae stepped up to the side of the table where Degi stood, dressed in a gloriously complex and eye catching uniform of layered reds and blacks and dark blue. Hose, jerkin, tunic, jacket, cuff, all of them covered him from his neck to his feet, and left him looking remarkably mortal, considering he was a Baron of Hell. The only hint that he was not entirely mortal was his face, and the pair of hooved feet that he had, sprouting from below his ankles. Cae realized, she was not sure if she had ever noticed that he had hoofs or had regular feet.

Of course...

Considering what she had done before she was dressed so beautifully, it might not even matter if he had had normal feet before. This made her wonder about ... other things.

Degi had not noticed her yet. His faceted eyes were affixed upon a soup spoon beside the astoundingly fanciful placings that had been set out for the pair of them by diligent servants. He twirled it on the tip of the broad head, his finger pressed to the base to keep it upright, and fidgeted, as if he was the one who was nervous. Cae wasn’t sure which sound drew his attention first: The rustle of fabric, the soft sound of her breath, or the susseration of her glowing feathers. Whatever it was, Degi lifted his head ... and froze. He had no eyelids with which to widen, but his features softened, and their hardened lines shifted into an expression of purest shock. His faceted eyes made it impossible to tell ... and yet, from the tingling rush of gooseflesh that prickled along Cae’s skin, she could still trace his gaze as it swept up and up and up and up her tall form.

She blushed silver and felt more beautiful than the stars and moons of every Realm in all of Creation. Her finger slid up, tugging on her hair as she smiled, a little shyly.

“What do you think?” she asked.

Was her voice normally so baritone? In this room, it felt like she should have had the coquettish giggle of a young girl – but from Degi’s throat’s bobbing and the way his face shifted once more to attentiveness ... she supposed even her husky contralto was drawing his attention.

“It’s ... nice,” Degi said.

Cae felt her nervousness slip away. She was once more naked in the bath, pushing him into the water, and laughing at his splutter. She knew him, and every fear was vanishing.

“I mean, Shale spent so long picking it out, I was hoping for more than just nice,” Cae said, her voice warm and teasing. “Maybe beauteous.”
“Your armor is beautiful,” Degi said, his voice quicker than normal, as if he was trying to catch up. “This is merely, uh, serviceable.”

“Oh?” Cae asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Your armor is made for you. You wear it ... it’s ... oh Hells, I’m making a mess of that compliment, I can tell already,” Degi said, putting his palm to his left eye, covering it. “What I mean to say is you are lovely. I was just trying to be clever, but cleverness has retreated in fright – it always runs when a goddess steps in, acting like a peasant girl.”

Cae blushed silver and ducked her head, her wings spreading. “I accept the compliment, then.” She walked over to the table. “What are we to eat today?”

“Uh, I ... I asked my finest cooks to prepare something, using mana,” he said, grabbing a chair and drawing it back. “After dinner, you might enjoy a dance, or we could go for a flight.”

“You can fly?” Cae asked, curiously.

“I ... have my methods,” Degi said, offering her a shy little smile. Two glass mothers entered the room. Rather than suspending deadly globes of glass to launch at enemies, they had bowls of glass, heaped with food. The glass split apart into sub-components, flowing through the air and sweeping down to place their contents with shocking gentleness on the plates. The smell was spiced and delicious – but not of any spice that Cae had ever scented before. Normally, spice made her think of heat, of deserts, of cities baking under harsh suns. But this spice smelled ... cold, somehow. The food was colored blue and silver, and seemed entirely unearthly.

“What is this?” Cae asked.

“Nostalgia,” Degi said. “Sorrow often dwells in memories – and it’s somewhat difficult to flavor it so that only the right memories emerge, but ... my cooks are extremely skilled.”

Cae bit her lower lip, regarding the meal somewhat uncertainty. Then shrugged, she picked up knife and fork, cut in, and levered up some to eat. It tingled on her tongue and she closed her eyes as the sensations of being in the training yards rushed through her. She felt her muscle being tried, tested ... and found true and ready. She remembered the aches, and the warm rush of pleasure that flooded her body afterwards, when she had gone to be bathed and purified. She remembered, also ... with such shocking, unexpected clarity, that she was not sure if it was a true memory or if she was impressing upon the past something she would only feel now...

She felt pleasure and shame at the pleasure. A hedonistic thrill at being so strong, at being able to do so many push ups. An awareness she was not like other angels. A curious thrill, wondering if she was not so unlike as she thought. How many others, working with her, cleaning themselves in their ablution cells, had the same tingling thought?

She opened her eyes and breathed out softly.

“Spicy,” she said, demurely.

Degi chuckled, softly. “Don’t eat it too fast.” He warned.

Cae chuckled. “What memories do you prefer to have nostalgia for?”

Degi leaned back in his seat, considering. He picked up the wine – which, unlike the food, was pure mortality. He sipped it, and savored the piquant taste with an unreadable expression. “I must confess ... it’s precisely what you’d expect.”

“Alia?” Cae murmured, quietly, popping another bite into her mouth. Another rush of another time – another complex and confounding sensation – overlaying the thoughts of the past with the knowledge of the now made the taste more bitter than she expected.

“Alia fi-Fiar,” Degi said, savoring the name as much as the wine. “I am remembering the first day that she and I...” He hesitated.

“Go on,” Cae said, smiling shyly. “It ... may sound strange, but I would like to see her through someone else’s eyes for a change.”

“Really?” Degi asked. One of his silvery eyebrows arched. “And how have you been seeing through her eyes?”

Cae set her knife down. She twirled her fork nervously. “I...” She hesitated. “I found her journal.”

“Ah.”

That single utterance somehow held more meaning in it than an entire discursive paragraph of speechifying. In it, she could hear neither condemnation, nor accolades. Rather, it was putting her and that news into a place of guarded, hesitant exploration. It was like being placed within a scholars laboratory, with fine instruments for measuring, studying, examining, all being arranged around her body and aimed inwards, focused and hewing into her secrets. That single note made Degi and Alia seem quite similar, despite their different origins and souls. Cae found herself smiling shyly.

“Well, she did say anyone who wanted to learn could read it,” she said. “In the forward.”

Degi chuckled, quietly. “That’s very ... like her. I presume you’ve already seen the salacious bits. Or...” he smirked. “Did you never think to imagine that she was bold enough to rush right to the salacious parts.”

“You mean the two weeks she spent making love to Lucifer Morningstar?” Cae shot back, grinning. “Yes, yes, I did.”

Degi froze ... then burst out with a laugh. “Destroyer’s name – you really did delve into the most explicit parts!”

“I admit, I was mostly seeking out the most relevent parts,” Cae said, smiling back at him. “It just so happened that they were always the sexy parts.”

Degi shook his head slowly, then drank more earnestly from his glass. He set it down.

“The first day we met, not her and someone else in the House of Ruin, was when she was interested in entering into my castle and stealing my most precious artifacts,” Degi said, his voice amused. “I and her had a bit of ... well, to call it anything but a battle would be misleading!” He shook his head. “She had gotten on so well with Arral and Citri, and she had bullied Ruti so easily, that she assumed she could simply walk into my castle...”

“You have a castle?” Cae asked.

“Ruti has his swamp, which you’ve seen, yes?”

“Yes,” Cae said, her cheeks dusted with silver. She had done more than see it, she had learned that she enjoyed being bound and mounted by a death angel there.

“Well, Citri has an abode as well, a flaming pit that he’s never at,” Degi said, shaking his head firmly. “Citri is not exactly the most organized noble. But I have a castle. The Castle of Tears. It’s ... where I center myself, where I keep the parts of my realm that have become solid. It is ... part of me.” He sighed. “Alia wished to steal the Mirror of Llysak, carved by a member of my domain many, many centuries ago, straight from the crystallized tears that form the river that flows through the Barony of Sorrows. It’s quite a fascinating little artifact, and Alia thought that she could simply take it.”

Cae nodded.

“I told her of course not. I may be a part of Arral – but each part is ... sovereign. If we were all slaves to the central mind, then we’d be angels, wouldn’t we?” His faceted eyes glittered. “And so, she tried to step past me. I barred the way with a wall of blue flames. She cut through it with a blade made of darkest night. Then she transfigured me into a newt by speaking a word from the language of Yan, a people that have not strode across any Realm since the suns were first lit. She thought that would put me out of her hair for a time, so, she was a mite shocked when I simply resumed my form.”

“So easily?” Cae asked, leaning forward, already entranced by the narrative. She could see it, not as clearly as Alia’s fanciful journal painted pictures ... but in her mind’s eyes. Alia, her face half burned and half masked, casually flicking dusky fingers and casting forth magics that would be begged for by the many sultans and satraps of the mortal realms – as casually as a wealthy man tosses forth gold coins.

Degi chuckled, his voice rich with amusement. “Have you ever tried to ... change the shape of sorrow in your heart? To not feel despair, simply by willing it? You cannot. Fire can be quenched. Rot can be scraped away. Even Ruins can be rebuilt. But ... Despair? Sorrow? We can only be altered and washed away through one method.”