Page 108 of Season Warriors & Wolves

Cai bumped his shoulder hard, reaching to get the satchel from Nia. He patted her cheek. “Be safe. Alright?”

Nia nodded at him. “I will.”

On the way back to the ship, he bumped hard on Mal’s shoulder again. “Fucker.”

“Never got a piece of this,” Mal spat back. “Is that why you are so prissy about?”

“Not my type, arsehole.”

“I’m everybody’s type,” Mal shouted back and then turned to throw me a wink.

Kilian pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “We’re all going to be some eudemon’s lunch, aren’t we?”

“It will be a fine dining experience for them. The selection is impeccable,” Nia said over her shoulder, waving us goodbye.

Kilian linked his fingers to mine and pulled me on deck. “No one look down at the waters or up at the mist. No one stare directly in a eudemon’s eyes or whatever else you see when we leave land.”

“Those are tales they tell to scare children,” Thora said. “They don’t really hypnotise you to follow them and then drown you before eating your corpse.” She blinked up at Mal. “Do they?”

“Of course it’s tales,” the princeling said, and my sister let out a whoosh of relief. “They don’t drown you first. It takes away the spice.”

She nodded to herself. “Understandable.”

Cai chuckled and threw an arm over her neck. “Won’t let nothing eat you, Rora. We’ll throw him first. Once they get to his fatty brains, they won’t think about eating us at all.”

I had almost finished my almond snack and the entertainment was getting too good before even hitting waters.

Kilian did not think so though, and my grin slipped into an apologetic smile.

I put an almond in his mouth. “I wonder if I taste nice. I mean, I’m not exactly human, they might like me.”

His eyes drew tightly shut and he chewed on the almond. “Woman.”

Mal patted his shoulder, hard. “Calm down, brother.”

My husband blinked at Mal and then at me, almost incredulously. “Did he just tell me to calm down?”

I lifted another almond to his mouth. “Almond?”

“Yes, and matter of fact,” he said, folding the map and pointing away from the ship. “Go fetch some more.”

I rolled my eyes. “Prick.”

For the first time today, he actually smiled. “Are we about to have another argument? You know I love those.”

“Enough with long stares,” Mal said, sliding between us and pushing us apart. “Let’s get this ship going. I’m getting nauseous without hitting water yet.”

We’d sailed for about an hour, and according to Kilian, that was an hour too long for Golgotha to be so quiet.

The grey fog encircled the ship in the shape of a dome, repelled by the presence of my husband.

“How long has it been since someone has gotten this far in these waters and returned to tell the tale?” Cai asked, shifting his hands back and forth, drawing and guiding wind to stir us further in the depths of the eudemon waters.

“Centuries,” Mal said, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes into the fog ahead of us. “And they didn’t exactly tell any tale as much as they screamed and cried and retched. These creatures were once of heavens, still are. In the book of our goddess, they terrorised realms restlessly, they were never to hide and remain peaceful. It was what made them so powerful amongst the divine panes.”

Cai leaned on the border, staring ahead. “Never understood how a realm like Dissiri fell.”

Kilian leaned back on a sail, crossing his arms. “It is said through scriptures that the three Demon Gods were planning on claiming the throne of all gods back when all three first gods, the Goddess of Nothing, the God of Most and the God of Some, coexisted in union and not as rulers of their own part of the realm expanse. Horror did reign all over for a little while, dark skies with no sun and moon. No dead were allowed to leave for heaven or hell. To the Demon Gods, their existence was both heaven and hell. Souls and the living walked along. Golgotha did not agree to his brothers’ decisions. Reigning chaos would never bring more chaos, only hope for peace and light. And all Demon Gods fed on chaos, horror, misery. If no one prayed for it, there would be no gods at all. At this point, Fader, once the God of Some, had become an entity, built his own space and crowned Ithicea the reigning heaven over some part of the realm expanse. Golgotha seeked his help after being denied by his own mother, Nihilia, and the God of Most. The demon realms all fell as he’d predicted. The other two brothers were taken prisoner by the Goddess of Nothing for the damage they had caused over many realms and billions of lives across them. Fader tried to keep Dissiri alive, but none of his realms would relent to praying for chaos. The last offer he had for Golgotha, now a fallen god, was to live here, in a realm where human desire was darker than most. It was enough to keep him and his creatures alive, just not enough to bring life back into his realm.”