Starkeeper of the Fractured Crown

Her movements were fluid, precise, everything done with a purpose. A fighter. That’s what I saw, a fighter.

When she was done mixing the water and Asilos Root, she turned to me, stepping between my legs, allowing me to get a closer view of the beautiful being that she was.

She was a little malnourished by the sight of her flaking, cracked fingernails and sunken eyes. I couldn’t see much past her hood and veil, but I could see her eyes. Hazel. Gold around the pupils, sliding into green, andthen a ring of shadows around the iris.

Whoever this partner was, he or she was lucky. She was beautiful for a human, someone I would bed without thought.

“Stop studying my face,” she requested. Her voice was low, husky. It reminded me of the kind of voice women in brothels used to seduce their clients.

“And if I am?” A mission. I was here for a specific purpose but perhaps there was something else I could occupy my time with while I was visiting.

By the quick crease of her brow, something that disappeared between one blink and the next, I knew that she hadn’t expected that from someone like me. A Fallen. The enemy, in her eyes.

“Stop,” she frowned and started carefully putting the muck on my skin, freezing at first only to warm a moment later. Her touch was as gentle as Rose’s had been, although her fingers weren’t as graceful. “You have a lot here, when will you and your friend be moving in?”

She carefully slid the muck over my cut, into it, the soothing of the icy pain nearly instant. “He left.”

Why would he leave her alone? “Another friend then? Or have you decided to move in alone?” Brave, staying out here alone, surrounded by demons. A risk taker.

“You talk a lot,” she noted, moving slowly across the gash, forcing me to close my eyes.

I smiled, pulling slightly at the cut, holding back the wince if anything just to impress her. “Someone has to fill the silence.” A beautiful woman alone in the middle of a demon infested forest, maybe she wanted some company. Maybe I could convince her that I was perfectcompany.

“Silence fills the silence.”

“People feel more comfortable among strangers if one of them is easy to get along with,” I explained, feeling the Asilos Root begin to tingle across my skin.

She had made it to my nose, almost making me sneeze. “Hmm.”

So, maybe she just didn’t have it in her to talk. That was fine, we could sit in silence.

Minutes passed when she finally stepped back and admired her work. After another second, she turned for the sink. “Ten minutes and we’ll wipe it off. It’ll scar, but I’m sure it’ll get you all the girls you want.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Is that what you think we do in Oridian? Fuck girls.”

“No,” she replied, setting her things in the sink. “I think that’s what those apart of the High Court do. Any High Court, not just the Fallen.”

She wasn’t completely wrong. We had all had our fair share of pussy and cock. Before Rose, I had been a bit of a whore. After her? It took me a while to jump back into the game, but I did. I had never had human pussy before. “Why do you believe that?”

She flicked on the water. “Because that’s what you do. You’re powerful, you have money, you have all of these people fawning after you day and night. I don’t know why you do it, but I know it happens, whether they want it or not. I’ve spent plenty of time studying the inner workings of the basic High Court. I watched mine. It’s no secret that ‘monogamy’ doesn’t exist among the wealthy.”

Monogamy existed if we chose for it to exist, most just liked to have their fun. I was one of them. Not with Rose, but now? What was the point in allowing myself to be consumed by one person when I could enjoy them all for a while?

Not forever, just…just for a bit. Just until I could get Rose out of my head. It wasn’t right to commit to someone if I couldn’t trulycommitto them. “The world has changed,” I explained, slightly offended. “If you want monogamy, all you must do is ask. At least that’s how it is among us.”

She turned at that, something like quiet disbelief in her eyes. “No, it hasn’t.”

And the way she said it made me pause.

“You need to stop moving your face,” she instructed, straightening, her tone clipped. “Don’t move.”

I tracked her into one of the bedrooms. I wanted to know more about her. I needed to know how she had gotten all of this information, why what I said made her so upset. Why she was living here alone. Was she working with Raphael? Who was moving in with her? Why did she need this information?

I wanted answers.

3

My Bible, Chapter 7, Verse 8