Chapter 175: Where is he?

Pazuzu

He had been thrown out of Verolona by Luceriel, and if he was honest with himself, the outcome had not surprised him in the least.

He had expected the proposal to be rejected outright, expected fury and resistance long before he ever expected acceptance. His mate was, after all, the Sin of Pride, and pride did not bend easily, certainly not to a demon it had every reason to distrust.

Had Luceriel simply accepted him on the spot, Pazuzu suspected he would have been disappointed by it. There was no pleasure in claiming something that surrendered without a fight.

From atop a distant mountain, far enough that the outline of Verolona blurred into little more than a pale smear against the horizon, Pazuzu watched the kingdom that had just cast him out.

Luceriel’s wards held strong against him, and layered specifically to keep demons at bay, and no matter how he tested their edges, searching for the smallest fracture to slip through, he found none. The barrier simply refused him entry exactly the way its maker had intended.

Beside him, coiled loosely around his shoulders and down along one arm, his serpent stirred, violet scales catching what little light the mountain air offered, eyes glinting like two dark coals set deep in its narrow head.

Pazuzu leaned his weight back against its thick, muscular length, resting there as though it were something built specifically to hold him.

"Do not worry, Vaelith," he murmured, running two fingers along the ridge of its skull. "We will get our fated mate back. It may take time, but we always do."

"Your Highness!"

A shadow flashed beside him, black and quick, resolving a heartbeat later into a figure with dark wings folded neatly behind his back, head already bowed. "I received your signal and came as soon as I could. You have been cast out of Verolona?"

"As you can see." Pazuzu turned toward him, a faint grin tugging at his mouth despite everything. "Is everything with Elysium prepared, Caxton?"

Caxton lowered his head briefly, dark hair falling forward, before he lifted it again to answer. "I have already removed the God of Fate and the Goddess of Prophecy from their prison. They await you at the castle now."

"Good. Then we leave."

"Should I remain behind to watch over the Prince of Pride?"

Pazuzu turned his gaze back toward Verolona, holding it there a moment longer before shaking his head. "He is the most formidable being I have ever encountered. He will find his own way through this, I have no doubt of that. Though I can already feel the weight of his visions pressing against him, faint as it is, through the bond."

"How, Your Highness?"

"I imprinted on him."

"You... you did what, Your Highness?" Caxton’s eyes went wide with something close to alarm.

Everyone understood what imprinting meant, even those who had never carried a bond of their own. It fell short of a full mating bond, but it was enough, enough to let one half feel the other’s emotions bleed through, enough to leave both of them vulnerable to whatever the other endured.

"Does he know what you have done for him? And if he does not, then why send you away at all? I confess I do not understand this bond of yours, having never carried one myself, but you are putting yourself at considerable risk. You will need your full strength when the Demon King finally comes for you."

Pazuzu let out a long breath and folded his arms. "I am doing what I can, and I hope it turns out as I intend. I have to protect him, Caxton, whether he wants that protection or not. He hates me. I understand that. But I made a promise to my mother, long before any of this began, that I would always protect my mate, no matter the cost to myself. No, Luceriel does not know I have imprinted on him. But he will come looking for me eventually, when he finally needs what only I can give him." He held his gaze on Verolona a moment longer, then turned toward Vaelith and murmured something low under his breath before facing Caxton again. "Let us pay our old friends a visit."

He raised both hands, and a portal split open before him, violet light bleeding out along its edges. He stepped through it without hesitation, Vaelith uncoiling from his shoulders to slither in ahead of him, Caxton following a step behind.

The portal opened onto a realm draped in permanent cloud, dark and heavy overhead, threaded through with pale, flickering light that never quite resolved into anything as ordinary as stars. Before them rose a castle built entirely of black stone, its towers sharp and slender against the churning sky, and despite everything most humans whispered about demons living among ruin and filth, the structure was, in its own severe way, beautiful.

He climbed the wide stone steps leading up to its entrance, Vaelith moving silently at his side, until he finally paused and bent low toward the serpent. "Go now," he whispered, and Vaelith vanished into the shadows pooling along the base of the walls.

Inside, a long hallway stretched ahead of him, demons stationed at every corner, each one lowering their head the instant he passed.

At the far end, two heavy black doors waited, and they parted on their own before he ever reached them, swinging open into the chamber beyond.

Two figures knelt at the center of the room, chained, heads bowed.

Pazuzu recognized them instantly by the faint, golden aura still clinging to their skin despite the chains meant to smother it. Solmira. Elios.

The scent of them filled the room, something clean and untouched, the scent Elysium always wore like armor. It was, Pazuzu thought, remarkably convincing. A shame that everything beneath that scent told an entirely different story, one written in the blood of demons Elysium had spent centuries pretending it never spilled.

A throne waited at the far end of the chamber, carved from obsidian veined through with deep crimson, its high back curved into the shape of folded wings, sharp enough at the edges to look as though it might cut anyone careless enough to lean back too far.

It suited the room. It suited him.

"Solmira of Elysium. Elios of Elysium." Pazuzu announced himself as he crossed the chamber, settling into the throne with unhurried ease.

Both of them lifted their heads at the sound of his voice.

"How does it feel," he asked, "to see the light again, knowing I locked every one of you away in the darkest dungeon Dahasta has to offer? Did you finally taste what darkness feels like, after everything your kind did to mine? After you locked the demons away for centuries, after you sent our people to die in that attack on Katula?"

Neither of them answered him.

He smiled, unbothered, and raised a single hand.

In the space of a blink, both of them hung suspended in the air before him, black rope coiled tight around their throats.

"I do not require an answer from either of you," he said calmly. "There is only one thing I wish to know. Where is my father? His body has vanished entirely, and I have searched for it everywhere. Where is he?"