Chapter 27: Burnt Vegetables

LUCARION

I wake up warm, a steady, familiar heat, the sort that settles into your bones and convinces you to stay in bed a little longer. Shifting over the side, I peek at Flicker curled underneath my cot, his body a low, glowing mound of embers and fur. One paw rests against the leg of the cot as if he put it there on purpose. His tail flicks once when I shift, scattering a few lazy sparks that die before they reach the stone floor.

For a moment, I just watch him breathe. I can sense Emma sleeping next to me in that cave, all the fluffy animals shifting around us.

I swing my legs over the side of the cot and it creaks in complaint. “Shh,” I whisper to it, like that will help.

Flicker lifts his head immediately, eyes glowing brighter, tail starting a slow, hopeful wag. I drop to the floor and sit cross-legged. He watches me with intense focus, ears forward, body coiled.

“Lesson one,” I say. “Sit. Watch.”

I exaggerate the motion, lowering myself slowly. Flicker hesitates for half a breath, then mirrors me exactly. Front paws fold. Back legs slide out. He settles with a soft exhale of heat.

“Yes,” I grin, patting his shoulder. “Perfect.”

His tail thumps once, proud.

“Okay… give me your paw.” I extend my hand. He puts his paw on it and we shake. “Good boy.” His tail starts wagging like mad. “You learn quick.”

We go through the motions like that for a while. Sit. Stay. Roll over. When I stand completely still, he freezes too, tail stopping mid-swing, even the faint crackle of embers along his spine dimming as if he understands the point is silence. We try fetch. I demonstrate by tossing a book under the cot, then crawling and bringing it back in my teeth. Flicker watches, confused, then carefully picks it up and drops it at my feet.

Eventually we end up on the floor, side by side, my shoulder pressed into his warm flank while I scratch behind his ear. He rumbles contentedly, the sound vibrating through my arm.

***

INDOLYN

The kitchen was not designed for someone like Indolyn. It was built for things that did not tire, did not sweat, and did not resent the heat that made the air shimmer. The stones of the floor were darkened from use, and the counters bore faint scorch marks that no amount of cleaning ever fully erased. She stood alone in the middle of it with a pan.

Lucarion had said Eclipserans depend too much on demons. The words had not left her since. This was the way in. Sure, she had been spending time with him meditating, but that also involved Splendith. Showing him she was following up on his resolve when nobody else was is precisely the way to gain his favor.

She had dismissed the kitchen staff, locked the doors, and told no one. Not even Dormathis, who would have called the entire exercise inefficient. He believes that the best way forward is to seduce him, which apparently worked on previous Demon Lords, but this one… Lucarion was special.

He still hadn’t open up about earth yet, but maybe the other Demonlords took their time of it as well? Still she knew she needed to get closer to him.

Indolyn spent nearly an hour locating the ingredients. When she finally lined up vegetables on the counter, they looked stubborn and irregular, as if daring her to try. Maybe she was biased since she had actually met him and had only read about the previous Demon Lords. According to the texts, they were brash. Impulsive. Eager to assert dominance in every way available to them.

She picked up the knife. The blade slipped and struck the counter with a sharp clang. The pieces were uneven. Ugly. She frowned at them like they had personally insulted her.

“I command you to be symmetrical,” she muttered, chopping harder.

Lighting the stove by hand was worse. The flame leapt up eagerly, too hot, too fast, and sweat beaded at her temple almost immediately.

“This is absurd,” she muttered, stirring. “The heat of the Abyss itself, and for what. Soup.”

She added spices without measuring. When she tasted it, her face went still.

“Abominable.”

It was undercooked and overcooked at the same time. Some vegetables were blackened, others still raw. Her stomach twisted. She stared at the pot. Every instinct told her to stop. Delegation was civilization.

And yet, when she closed her eyes, she saw Lucarion eating Magnavex’s food happily.

Indolyn wiped her hands and began again.

***

LUCARION

I lie back on the cot. The room feels smaller than it did a moment ago. The ceiling seems lower. The shelves lean inward in my peripheral vision, towering spines crowding closer than before. The air tastes stale, like it has already been breathed too many times. This was the first time that both of myselves were trapped.

I press my palm to the wall. It is cool and unyielding. No breeze. No moss. No space to climb. Just stone and more stone. I need to get out. I need air that moves. I need light that is not borrowed from fire. Is there even a sun here? Without Lumisiel.

I try to wake myself up, but as I focus all I can do is listen to Emma breathing next to me. I can also sense the mossy stone floor beneath me and fluffy creatures moving about. But I can’t shift, not even an eyelid.

I know, distantly, that I am supposed to stay here. Magnavex made that clear. The library is safe. The library is controlled. The library is the one place I won’t run into demons.

I get up and look through the curtain at the library proper, at the desk balanced on stone blocks, at the shelves that never end. I need to move. I need to get out of this endless stone.

Flicker watches me, head tilted.

“I think,” I say slowly from the window, “we should go for a walk.”

He stands up and pads slowly after me.

I make my way through the shelves, getting lost more than once before finally reaching the entrance. I reach the small but perfectly crafted door and open it.

The statue stands there still, hunched over with a circular mouth full of teeth. It looks just like what I expected a demon to look like, though none of the demons I’ve seen thus far look like this, with clawed hands large enough to crush my skull. Horns curl from its head like jagged branches. No, not branches. I can’t imagine these horns swaying in the breeze.

The corridors outside the library are quieter than I expected. As we move along them, I notice most of the corridors are expertly made, built simply for usability.

Flicker pads beside me, claws clicking softly. His light has dimmed. Every so often he looks up at me, as if checking that this is still the plan. I do not really have one. I just know I do not want to sit still anymore.

The staircase narrows as it descends, and with it, the stone changes. The harsh obsidian gives way to smoother walls, still dark, but softened beneath layers of color. Murals cover every inch from floor to arching ceiling.

The first stretches wide across the curve of the wall, a city unlike anything I have ever seen. Spiral towers rise in graceful, fluid arcs. They twist toward a sky painted in hues of deep copper and violet. Bridges of woven metal link structure to structure, suspended in elegant sweeps that seem too delicate to hold weight, yet the figures upon them walk without fear.

The metal is not dull. It shimmers. Polished surfaces catch painted starlight, reflecting it in fractured halos. The artist layered thin veins of crushed mineral into the pigment so that even now, in torchlight, the city glows faintly, as if it remembers the sun it once stood beneath.

Further along, the mural shifts to vast plains. Purple glass lakes mirror twin moons. Forests of tall, silver-leafed growth bend in a wind that no longer exists. Mountains curve upward like the spines of slumbering giants, their faces carved with terraces and open balconies. Entire communities are etched into their slopes, homes nested within stone like jewels set into a crown.

And everywhere, them. Eclipserans in motion.

A wide plaza dominates the next stretch of wall. Figures leap through the air in some sport I do not understand, arms spread for balance as they chase a glowing sphere suspended between them. Laughter is almost visible in their posture, in the looseness of their limbs, in the careless tilt of their heads.

The further down the staircase I go, the more luminous the murals become. One mural shows demons, artisans I realize, at work. Metal flows beneath their hands like softened wax, shaped into intricate lattice structures. Another shows Eclipseran musicians gathered along a balcony, strange curved instruments pressed to their chests, strings or filaments drawn taut between clawed fingers.

There are children. One clings to a parent’s leg while pointing toward something in the sky. Another attempts to lift a tool far too heavy, watched over by elders whose expressions are carved with patient pride.

I reach another corridor and follow it, eyes on the murals, Flicker at my heels. The detail is meticulous. No face unfinished. No hand careless.

But there is something in the brushwork.

The lines are steady, yet in places the pigment thickens unevenly, as though layered over and over again. In the sky of one panel, the copper darkens toward the edge, not in shadow, but in hesitation. A faint ripple in the mineral dust suggests a hand that paused too long before continuing.

Festivals glow beneath floating lanterns. Entire districts are lit in flowing ribbons of light. Vast amphitheaters carved into cliff faces are filled with winged silhouettes watching performers suspended on thin arcs of metal high above them.

At the base of one mountain scene, nearly hidden among the painted grass, a single figure sits alone, back turned to the viewer. Not in despair. Just… watching. The artist carved the outline deeper there, pressing harder into the stone before applying color.

I take a few steps away.

Flicker does not follow.

His glow has dimmed to a low coal red. His tail, usually restless, hangs still. He sits in front of the mural, ears lowered, staring at the lone carved figure as if waiting for it to turn around.

I step back beside him. He does not look at me.

So I wait.

Eventually he rises, his glow brightening just slightly, and we continue. The murals make the corridors feel wider than they are. For a little while, I forget there is only stone beyond them.

Then I smell it.

Burnt vegetables. Distant clatter. A hiss of flame.

I slow as the scent grows stronger and stop at the edge of a doorway.

Inside, Indolyn stands at the counter, sleeves rolled up, hair half undone, expression caught between fury and determination. Smoke curls lazily toward the ceiling. A pot bubbles ominously on the stove.

She does not see me.

Flicker sits at my side, obediently quiet. I lean just enough to watch.

She chops too hard. Stirs too fast. Frowns at the pot like it has personally betrayed her. When she tastes it again, she makes a face that looks very much like despair.