“Entities?” Maiya asked.
“Organizations. The Guild of Merchants. The Order of Mejai Sorcar. But do you know which among them is the oldest? Which among them has existed ever since the fall of the Imperium? Which thrives even to this day?”
“The Children of Ash,” Maiya said bitterly. She’d never thought about it before, but now that she did… Not even the Order of Mejai Sorcar boasted that record. They formed centuries later. Yet records of the Children go back all the way to the Age of Gods. She’d know. She’d researched those records extensively as preparation.
The Blessed Chosen smiled wryly and leaned back as if having made his point. “Odd, is it not? That an organization such as ours should bear that distinction?”
Maiya considered the implications of the man’s words and summarily rejected them.
No gods watch over this cult, she thought. Don’t fall for his lies.
Maiya only wished she had more conviction in that assertion.
“There is still time. Leave this place. Never come back.”
Maiya remained silent.
The big man stared at Maiya for a long moment. “I see. Then I will have you under guard from now on. I don’t know why I waste my breath, anyway. You may think you have control over your actions, but the gods prevail. They always have.” The last few words came out as a whisper.
Then, abruptly, the Blessed Chosen stood, forcing Maiya to do the same in reflex.
He strode to the door and left without a second glance, slamming it behind him.
Maiya was, very suddenly, alone. Alone, and utterly exhausted. Like a marionette with her strings cut, Maiya crumpled next to the corpse at her feet. She tenderly held the girl’s quickly cooling hand and blinked back her tears.
Ira. I need to see you.
36ASHFIRE PROVIDENCE
Vir stumbled into the clearing, screaming through his mouth gag. His wrists were bound together, making it difficult to run. His feet caught on a vine, and he fell over, his face scraping against a root.
He desperately regained his footing… and ran headlong into a barrel-chested brute of a demon.
Vir looked up at the tall red demon and paled.
“Well, well,” the demon said, cracking a toothy grin. More than a handful were missing. “What do we have here?”
Vir took in the Ash’va, pulling not canvas-topped wagons, but cages. Cages filled with demons of all kinds. His panic-stricken expression devolved into pure horror.
“Here. Let me help you with that.” The demon reached out and yanked off Vir’s gag.
“No. No, please!” Vir begged, stumbling away from the demon. But with his hands tied, there was little he could do.
The demon smashed his stomach, sending him doubling over and writhing in agony on the ground.
“Looks like we’ve got a runner!” he shouted to the others, who encircled Vir. He’d curled up into a fetal position, his eyes wrenched closed against the pain.
“What’s the story with this one?” someone asked.
“Dunno. Just ran right out of the forest.”
“Think it was another group?”
“Nah, shouldn’t be anyone else around here.”
“Oi! Where’d ya come from?” one of them asked, wrenching Vir up and onto his knees.
“I-I didn’t. I didn’t mean to! It’s not my fault! I swear!” Vir said, pleading with them. “Please, just let me go.”
Several rough-looking demons surrounded him.
“A runner, then,” one of them—with an especially gruff voice—kicked Vir’s stomach with his boot, sending Vir to the ground, crying in agony.
The demon grabbed Vir’s Calling badge. “See? An Outcast. Must’ve run from Samar Patag. Then was caught by the guards, like.”
The ruffian put his boot on Vir’s head, driving his face into the soil. “Grakkin’ chal’s what he is. Didn’t learn yer lesson da first time, did’ja? Well, yer mine, now.”
“Aspect of the Final Sanctuary,” someone said, rudely lifting Vir’s shirt.
“Good. He’ll fetch us some coin, then. Not a bad gift from the gods. Not bad at all.”
Someone snapped a collar around Vir’s neck, and he felt it glow with prana. Only then did the demon remove his boot and turn away. “Throw ’im in with the others,” Vir heard the demon say.
Vir grinned, his face still plastered against the dirt.
Well, that was easy enough…
Vir was rudely shoved into a cage housing a half dozen other demons. Before he could even grow frustrated at his treatment, his eyes landed on a creature he hadn’t expected to see. A creature he’d once fought in the Ashen Realm, on the Mahakurma’s back long ago.
“What?” the creature hissed, its forked tongue flicking out as it talked. “Got a problem, kid?”
“No. My apologies,” Vir replied calmly, with a tone that lacked even a trace of the fear and anxiety he’d shown his captors.
It wasn’t a humanoid bipedal who spoke those words, but a Naga. A red-skinned half-demon, half-serpent creature that formed the majority of Clan Panav’s population.
Contrary to their bestial looks, most Panav tended to specialize in healing magic, and most of their bloodline tattoos skewed that direction.
Vir scanned his fellow prisoners, finding them all to be able-bodied males, who, like him, wore similar metal collars. Vir noted they were both smaller and more basic in design than the Artifact collar Cirayus wore in the Human Realm. After analyzing them with Prana Vision, he concluded they were far less advanced as well. Likely not an Artifact, but rather a creation of demonkind.
Surprisingly, not all demons wore the collars. Prana Vision gave him a clue, and the tattoos confirmed it—only the small minority of demons who lacked a tattoo went without.
The situation was the same in the other wagons he could see. Collared prisoners and dead looks. Given their destination, it made sense.
Finding no place to sit, Vir stood in a corner, squashed between a four-armed red demon and the Naga. The Naga’s tail took up a quarter of the cage on his own.
“So?” the Naga gruffed. “What brought your sorry soul here? You looked like you were running from something.”
“From the Chits,” Vir replied. “I was captured escaping Samar Patag. Figured I’d try my luck and make a run for it.”
Several of the demons in his cage snorted or shook their heads.
“A pity. Where we’re bound, well, you’ll wish for that safe Kothi prison, that’s for sure.”
There was a hollow emptiness to the prisoners’ expressions. As though they’d given up on life itself. Which, Vir reflected, wasn’t entirely unsurprising.
“Why?” Vir asked innocently. “Where are we going?”
“This is a slave convoy, boy. Use your head. Only one place we’re needed. The Boundary.”
“We’re to become fodder for the Ash Beasts, that’s what.”
Vir’s expression darkened. “But… I thought they’ll train us as warriors?”
The Naga snorted. “Training. Sure. They’ll give us some rusted iron, have us swing them around for a week, then send us into the Ash.”
“Into the Ash?” Vir asked, eyes widening in horror. “I thought we were defending the Boundary!”
“And what better way than to defeat the beasts before they can venture across the Boundary, eh?” the red demon said. “Not a terrible idea. If we were well equipped. If we had a way to get back.”
“They send us into the Ash… without any way to get back?” Vir asked. This wasn’t what Cirayus had said.
“S’right. Dem Kothis got this great idea that we don’t need no feedin’ if we’re off fightin’,” a third demon, a two-armed red demon, said. “This way, dey don’t e’en need to clean up our corpses. The beasts’ll do a fine job of that.”