"Why do you have that?"

His voice jolted Cass out of her internal discussions with Salos.

Her bed was not the only one in the infirmary, and she was not the only occupant.

Kohen sat on the bed beside her. He stared at the soul scalpel in her hands.

"You should not have that," he said.

"You know what this is?" Cass asked, waving it at him.

"Obviously," he snapped.

Cass glanced at Salos. Did that mean this was common? His little cat shoulders shrugged.

"The better question is the one I asked you." His words carried authority, pressuring her to talk. But compared to his father or grandmother, it was laughably weak. Barely even a suggestion. "Why do you have that?"

"Where do you think I got it from?" Cass glared at Kohen. She didn't feel a particular need to hide where she'd gotten the scalpel from, and if he'd just asked her politely from the start, she probably would have just told him. Just because he'd come in strong, demanding things like it was owed to him, she was reluctant to tell him anything.

He smugly raised an eyebrow and snorted. "I'm asking the questions. Where did you get that?"

Why had she put so much effort into saving this boy again?

What do you think? Cass asked. Does he actually know what this is, or did he just Identify it and see it was unusual?

It is difficult to Identify things belonging to others unless permission is given, Salos said. So, if he recognizes this, it is likely because he's seen one before.

You think the cultists used it on him? Cass asked. She still didn't know how he had become a demon. Maybe the cultists had done it to him?

Only one way to find out. Salos grimaced.

"The cultists had it," Cass said, finally. "Where have you seen these before?"

"Cultists?" he sneered. "You mean the Order of the Copper Crescent?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess." They were a cult. They sacrificed people to their god for fun and profit. She couldn't imagine why he cared enough to make her use their full name.

Or maybe there were more cults wandering around Vaisom, and she needed to be more specific? She shuddered at the thought. She sure hoped not.

Then again, a cult to Dexterity would not surprise her, given Dexterity's temperament and reputation.

He winced, his hand holding his forehead. His long fingers curled into a silver streak of hair amid his purple locks. Through grit teeth, he said, "That should not have left our halls."

"Our halls?" Cass's frown deepened. Kohen shouldn't have any connection to the cult or the Temple.

"Cursed demon," he hissed. His hand clenched tighter at his scalp. "What have you done to me?"

"What?" Alarm shot through Cass. Not her own. Not entirely.

Salos launched from Cass's lap. He slammed into the Veldor boy, pinning him back on the bed, his claws hovering over his throat.

"Salos, stop!" Cass yelled. She'd put way too much work into saving him to let Salos kill him now. Also, she had questions.

Salos froze, but did not retract his claws. "He knows."

"And he's an 'esteemed' noble of Vaisom," Cass reminded Salos. "I doubt the penalty for murdering him will be less than the penalty for being a demon."

Salos grumbled.

"Besides, I doubt he'd be able to report us without outing himself." Cass shot Kohen a pointed glare.

He glared back from the bed.

"Well?" Cass pressed.

The words came like pulled fingernails. "I have no intention of telling the Jothi people about our states."

More odd phrasing. Phrasing that echoed the ramblings of the demon he'd been.

"Salos, let him back up," Cass said.

Salos grumbled but slunk off his chest. His gold eyes promised violence if Kohen dared make the wrong move.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Let's start over," Cass said, forcing her voice to soften to something more conversational and less accusatory. She stuck a hand out to him. "I'm Cass Yuan."

If she were wrong, he'd introduce himself as normal and all would be well. If she was right—

"I am—" he paused. His mouth cycled through a series of shapes, but no sound escaped his lips.

Cass waited patiently. She hated when she was right.

Vaisom Noble? (lvl 33)

His status still called him a Vaisom Noble, but she didn't know what to make of the question mark attached to it. Also, 'Vaisom' wasn't a race. One could be a Vaisom Noble and be a human or elf or demon, and that description still wouldn't be wrong.

Whatever she'd done to 'fix' him in the Temple hadn't returned him to his previous state. He wasn't the demon of Blood and Lightning anymore, but he wasn't the Kohen Delim Veldor he had been either.

Was he still a demon? Cass wasn't entirely sure, but she doubted the answer was strictly 'no'.

Where, exactly, was the line between demon and not? Salos had once described demons as monsters with broken souls. Amalgamations of pieces stolen from others in an attempt to make oneself whole again, yet inexplicably twisted for it.

But Salos was a demon, yet he was no amalgamation.

Kohen was not broken—there were no rough edges yearning for completion—but was he solely himself anymore? Almost certainly not. Did that make him a demon still?

And what about her? Was her connection to Salos on the same level as two souls mixing? Or was there a harder delineation? Was the fact that they were still two people enough to confidently call her a slyphid and him a demon? Or was the flow between them enough to 'taint' her as well?

"I am—" Kohen(?) tried again. Again, whatever he intended to say caught in his throat.

"It's okay," Cass said quietly.

"Why," he whispered. He stared down at his hands. "I can see it. I know it. But it slips away every time I try to say it. Even as I think it, it squirms out of my grasp." He looked up at Cass, red eyes wide and scared. "What happened to me?"

He looked so small all of a sudden. So fragile.

What do you think? Cass asked Salos. Is he in the same place as you?

No, not by a long shot, Salos said. He has his own body; I only have a manifestation of your energy. I am bound to your service; it is unclear if anyone holds his reins.

Does the system own him then? Cass asked. Since he doesn't seem to have a name?

That might be it, Salos agreed.

What does that mean, practically? Cass asked.

Outside a system curated zone, probably not much, Salos said, but his words wavered with uncertainty. I don't think I have ever seen someone with this level of sentience owned by the system.

"Kohen," Cass said softly. "Does that sound familiar?"

He frowned pensively. He mouthed the name.

"Kohen Delim Veldor," Cass said for him.

"Was that it?" He repeated the name over and over, yet something about it sounded awkward on his tongue.

"What do you remember last?" Cass asked him.

"The cathedral of Fortitude," he said. "I was attacked by a—a demon? Or Ahryn was. No. A cultist was going to sacrifice Ahryn. She tore open my soul. I had to consume the soul core to survive. To protect the ritual?" He shook his head, grabbing it between his hands. "None of that makes sense. And I know it doesn't. But that's what I remember."

"And further back than that?" Cass asked. "Do you remember what you were doing this afternoon?"

"I was competing for a dragon." He looked up, his eyes wide again. "The dragonlings! I need to go. What time is it? The choosing ceremony is tonight."

He threw the bleached sheets off and pushed himself out of the bed.

"Wait," Cass said. She had more questions. Her word rippled through the room with more force than she'd intended.

He froze a step from the bed.

Cass froze too. Had that been—

No. She didn't have that kind of power. Not over him.

"I'm coming too," Cass said. That hadn't been what she'd initially intended. But suddenly the only questions that mattered were ones she didn't want the answers to.

"Fine," he said, his tone arrogant again. "But keep up."

He didn't wait for her to stand before speed walking out the door.

You are going to just let him go like that? Salos asked.

Cass pushed herself back to her feet, trying to ignore how her entire body swayed under her weight. I'm going with him, aren't I?

But you could have—

I just want to get back to Alyx, Cass lied. A different nest of questions waited there, but at least Cass had been preparing herself for the worst answers to those.

Salos hopped onto her shoulder with a disbelieving side eye.

She followed Kohen through the palace halls. It was as grand as she'd remembered it. Long, wide corridors stretched around her, into vaulted, stained-glass ceilings. Beautiful colors drifted down, coloring the white stone floors in the patterns from above.

Kohen walked with purpose, sparing not a glance at any of it, directly through the palace to a wide courtyard.

It was a nine-sided court, paved in cobble and glass. Planter boxes overflowed with greenery around the edges. Cass might have called the courtyard an atrium, as walls of stone enclosed it on every side. The palace walls, opening into the palace halls with yawning arches, surrounded it on eight sides. The last wall, a natural stone face opening into a gaping cave, gave Cass pause.

And it was entirely empty.

Only the three of them—Cass, Salos, and Kohen—stood under the moonlight.

"No," he muttered. His hands clenched at his sides. "No. No. No. It is supposed to be here." His head whipped back and forth, like he could make the dragonlings appear if he only looked hard enough. "It is supposed to be here. I have to be a knight. I can't—" He spun and turned on Cass. "You!"

Cass stepped back. "Me?"

"You did this." He pushed a finger into her chest. "Did Alyx put you up to it? Knock me out until after the ceremony? Was that her plan to steal the dragonling from me?"

Cass slapped his hand away. "That's crazy. I saved your life."

"This was your compromise, then? Ruin my future instead?"

Ungrateful. He'd nearly killed her while she'd done everything in her power to save him. "What are you talking about? Ruin your future? You didn't have a future." If he'd still been rampaging by the time the duchess arrived, he definitely would have been killed, never mind what she or Alyx might have wanted.

"Where is she?" Kohen demanded. "I didn't take her for a coward to send her minion. How much does she intend to insult me?"

"Are you listening at all?" Cass yelled back. "There is no plot. No secret conspiracy against you."

"Liar," he hissed. "You are a liar." He punctuated each word with a jab at her chest.

"Stop that!" Cass slapped his hand away, her voice ringing through the atrium. It resounded with authority. No, this was more than the authority that backed the duchess's words to her subjects. It was far more than the weight Kohen so often brandished on those around him.

There was no denying it.

Her words were a Command.

And he complied. Because he didn't have a choice.

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