This is set a fair while before most of the stories that have come before it so far, when Tiru is only a small boy and his father, Thirrul, is still king.

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If there was one thing that demons were absolutely not built for, it was parties. Though, grudgingly, I could see why Cabe was so enamoured with the idea of attending this one. Vendisport was a peculiar sort of city. It was still full of Remans; there was no avoiding them. Even the southernmost tip of Aclata, the absolute furthest one could be from the most holy of holies, Halireamer and its horde of pompous, god-bothering wankers, you could not escape the fact that Vendisport was part of the Golden Continent. What made Vendisport so interesting was the fact that, among the golden children of the Sun god, were what the Remans typically referred to as “Unnaturals”.

Their king had spent a long time struggling to make the tenuous ceasefire between his countrymen and every flavour of non-human a reality. It was still very much a work in progress, and sitting in a corner watching Cabe’s eyes sparkle as he furiously scribbled in a notebook, it was plain to see that it still wasn’t a favourable solution for most upper class Remans. They had accepted the king’s decree begrudgingly - after all, he was infinitely preferable to the murderous bastards who had come before him - but they made it patently obvious that they did not have to be happy about it.

If middle-aged, balding gentry with bodies most resembling lumpy ham could kill with a look, I reflected, then the Nightfolk within this room would surely have been in trouble.

As looks very well couldn’t - at least not those of Reman upper society, though I suspected there was at least an ‘Unnatural’ or two that could have given it a red hot go and actually succeeded - we were all safe for the time being. I had to commend Cabe though. For a human, he was surprisingly interesting. It seemed diabolically stupid to me to come to a region known for its discontent between humans and non, to then spend all your time trying to speak to every supernatural in sight about their experiences. “Scholar” in this case seemed to be code for “stupid”. But if I was being honest with myself, that is what drew me to him. It took some balls to stand before a creature that could snap you like a twig, and try to ask prying personal questions.

Even the act of securing himself a demon as a bodyguard had been a monumentally dumb idea. If he’d been unlucky enough to summon a creature that had actually wanted something from him instead of just an excuse to exist in the mortal realm for as long as possible, his fate could have been a dire one. There were still demons running around that demanded things as archaic as souls or firstborn children, after all

Lucky for him, all I was looking for was a warm body to piggyback off and a contract that allowed me to trail him for an indefinite amount of time. The fact he was determined to follow around any supernatural he saw, and to actively seek out clusters of them, was something of a bonus. Nightfolk tended to be a whole lot less boring than the average human. That, and it gave the wretched little creature that lived in the back of my mind chanting “maybe” some hope. Stupid, unrealistic hope but hope all the same.

Even now, the thing a normal person would call a “heart” hammered moronically every time someone new waltzed into this stupid, gaudy building. Did it make any sense to hope that she was here? Nope. I was on a totally different continent, one that was frosty at best towards supernaturals, one that I knew no God Touched had been born on for centuries due to their particularly bad habit of slaughtering them as babies. Not only that, but it had been decades since I had last had a window into the mortal world. Slaughtering your contractee will do that, and I had been punted out of existence so quickly that I didn’t even know if she had managed to escape. I’d tried, and it still filled me with some small measure of satisfaction that there would not have been many left to impede her fleeing after the bloodbath that was me bowing out in one final blaze of glory.

This was a fairly boring sort of party, and not at all the sort of thing I could see her at. It was disappointing, and aggravating all at once. Demons shouldn’t feel like this. Demons shouldn’t feel, period. Especially after years of floating around in the nether. Cabe appeared to be having next to no luck with his endeavours to uncomfortably interview every Unnatural in the room, so it was a relief when he retired to one of the little balconies bordering the hall so that I could quietly seethe over my own stupid brain in peace.

Or could have, if it were not for the horses.

They filled the little courtyard below, a sea of restless horseflesh surrounded on most sides by curious gentry. Most were held, or ridden by folk in strangely unreflective, uniformly dark amour, except for a handful already being led away to stables by bewildered looking stable hands. It looked like very carefully ordered chaos, like it was habitual for them to randomly turn up unannounced in courtyards in the dead of night. There would have been close to thirty riders, all patiently standing or sitting astride their mounts. Only three seemed to be headed anywhere, the rest were simply waiting.

The three were dressed identically, to each other and to the mass of their fellows. None of them outwardly looked like they were in charge, and yet the others seemed to defer to them. It was almost like the rest circled them, in a protective sort of ring that was only really visible from above. The ring only parted as the three reached the steps that led into the hall, and fell into roughly defined columns in their wake. It was like a dance, and fascinating to watch. Cabe was practically vibrating with excitement beside me.

“I’d guess from the way I can hear your heart hammering from here that you know what all this is about?”

If eyes could sparkle, Cabe’s would have, as he turned towards me and clapped his hands together.

“I never thought I’d be lucky enough to see them in the flesh. And so many all at once, oh!”

I wondered if he was about to swoon, and whether it was part of my contract that I had to catch him before he hit the deck. But before I knew it he was scrambling inside, following the three that had entered the grand hall. I started to turn to follow him, but something caught the corner of my eye. In the mass of swirling horses below, only one stood still. Its rider was the only one without a helmet, rather sporting a rather unsettlingly blank, rounded mask, and it only took a moment to realise he was looking up. At me. It was a strange sort of feeling. I would bet I had never seen him before, if I could see his face. There was an unnatural stillness to his posture, a hunched wariness that stood him apart from the others far more than the drab black fabric he wore amongst all that queerly shining black armour.

I turned to follow Cabe, trying to shake off the feeling of eyes on my back.