CHAPTER 14: DAIMON

“Let me see.” Kadem allowed her eyes to meander through the young people in front of her, “Girl, you have the turquoise eyes of the Daimonlance… but that hair… So the Daimonlance clan and the Eirian clan were forced to make peace, despite it all.”

After a brief perusal of Aldous and Bayard she carried on, “I suppose you have no remarkable lineage.” Black hair and ginger hair were common among humans, as were black and brown eyes. Contrarily, Gorken gave her pause. His skin and hair the color of bronze were ordinary amidst humans too… but his green eyes brought her a discomfort that couldn’t be baseless. And yet, as much as she strained her memories, she couldn’t quite place the source of the turbulent disquiet that swarmed over her. Kadem resented her foggy mind. I may need more time to fully awaken.

Kadem’s focus on forebears and genealogy reminded Malia of her uncle, and of Cain. Involuntarily, her hostility toward them seeped through her words, “Why do you care about that? We haven’t even told you our names.”

Kadem shot her a sharp look, “Keep your animosity where it belongs, girl. It would be useful to know your names though.” Before Malia could reply, she added, “And tell the two demons to come inside.”

Gorken, Aldous and Bayard introduced themselves as Malia fetched the twins. Hedera and Licorice walked in begrudgingly, their heads hanging low and their tiny bodies tense.

“Curious.” Kadem examined the little girls, “You’re weak enough to be intimidated by my presence, but strong enough to avoid becoming fallen demons.”

“I’m not intimidated!” Hedera snapped back.

“I am.” Licorice admitted.

“Licorice and Hedera are smaller and weaker than every fallen we fought on our way here.” Malia was confused, “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean?” Kadem peppered her words with pointed annoyance, “There’s more to strength than muscly arms, Plum-head. Perhaps it would be faster if you told me what little you know and we began from there. What do you think a demon is?”

Aldous replied this time, “They’re violent beasts that attack everything in their path. These two may be exceptions,” he spared a quick glance at the twins, “but every other demon I’ve encountered has been like that.”

“Do all of you agree with him?” Kadem raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Of course not!” Hedera was outraged, “You’re talking about the fallen! The rest of… us… Us?” her anger evaporated, her claim lost its drive, “The rest of us… We are… Who’s we?” Who do I know other than Licorice? Inside Hedera’s head it was as if every page of a book she had spent years writing had gone blank. No, that wasn’t it. Every page had been irreparably stained with dark ink, sentenced to stay unreadable. Her slim hands would never be able to clean it off, no matter how much she rubbed. Her arguing impetus morphed into dejected tears, “Why does this always happen?” She covered her face, “Why?”

Licorice’s discreet tears mirrored Hedera’s sobbing. Regardless of how many times it had happened, of how familiar they should have been with the recurring oblivion, the twins couldn’t refrain from crying.

Bayard crouched next to Hedera and patted her head gently. It was a gesture he had consistently valued, back when he was a lost child in an absurd world with no place for him. He couldn’t help but wonder if in his sister’s eyes he had been as little and lovable as Hedera was to him in that moment. Breya’s hands had probably been smaller than his were right now.

Hedera gazed up at the kind human, her golden eyes shimmering. His big hand almost dispelled her helplessness. Bayard didn’t say anything as he wiped away her tears. Her face still settled on his, she stopped weeping.

“Do any of you know what the word demon means? Where it comes from?” the silver witch didn’t change her fierce tone, but Malia took note of the fact that Kadem had waited for Hedera to calm down before continuing.

“…I don’t know its origin.” Malia answered.

“Neither do we.” Gorken confirmed. “Konrad might know, but I’ve never asked.”

“The term demon comes from a word in a language long forgotten. A demon is an emissary of nature, a servant of divinity.” The silver woman spread her arms, seemingly signaling at the tree around them, maybe even at the forest outside, “And what is nature’s one and only principle?”

“…Survival of the fittest?” Aldous asked, unsure.

“Balance.” Kadem’s cadence made the word mighty. “Demons are the guardians of balance. That is their purpose.” She pointed dramatically at Malia, “And tell me, Plum, what is magic?”

“It’s the physical manifestation of will power.”

“Exactly.” Kadem started playing with one of her silver curls, “In other words, magic is the ability to change reality by simply willing it. There’s no bigger threat to natural balance than that.”

Hedera and Licorice nodded quietly, approving of Kadem’s statement. The rest of the group was expectant, waiting for Kadem to connect her reasoning to a clearer explanation. That seemed to displease the silver woman, “Let me make a wild guess. I have enough hints to deduce Plum hasn’t been part of your human team for long. Has the number of fallen demons attacking you increased since she joined you, by any chance?”

They stayed silent, but all of them knew the answer to the question.

“And have demons gone out of their way to attack you, even far from their usual territories?” Kadem went on. “It doesn’t come as a surprise; you aren’t making any attempt to hide your magical presence, let alone have control over your magical energy. I’m sure any demon could smell you from a mile away.”

Malia gaped at the ground, bashful. Kadem instead was determined to keep silence at bay, “I won’t lie. I don’t understand the nature of fallen demons myself. A regular demon wouldn’t attack without a reason, no matter how repulsed they may be by magic. But all that’s left inside a fallen is their primitive desire to eliminate magic, and so they’re drawn to it. They just emerged one day, and I don’t know why.”

Bayard addressed the witch for the first time, “Then the demons we’ve come to know are not the rule, but the exception?”

“They’re not just an exception, dear boy.” Kadem replied, “They’re an eyesore.”

“You said they showed up one day,” Gorken spoke, “but how long ago was that? Humans have been dealing with demons for as long as we have records.”

Kadem let her head hang back in response, and then she exhaled loudly “Plum, how many years has it been since Queen Aitana Daimonlance ascended the throne?”

“...Why?” the question was unexpected, but Malia remembered the information, “Queen Aitana died around three hundred years ago.”

Kadem was momentarily taken aback. She ran a hand through her silver hair absentmindedly. No wonder my brain is clouded. Silver child or not, this is ludicrous. “…I truly let myself go…” she muttered at last, “I’ve been sleeping for three hundred years… that would mean the fallen first appeared around four hundred years ago, if my recollection can be trusted.”

“Are you making fun of us?” Malia was too baffled to actually feel indignation. She didn’t believe Kadem was lying to them, but she couldn’t believe what the woman had just said either. It was one thing to depend on Konrad’s records of myths and rumors, to deduce that there might be generations of people living hidden in the Gray Forest, and magic users at that… but for a single woman to be over four hundred years old? That’s impossible.

Kadem rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation, but before she could answer, Aldous interjected, “What do you mean? Kadem’s an immortal, right?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Malia retorted, “Immortals don’t live forever.”

Aldous paused in disbelief, his face frozen by the insanity of it all, before yelling at Malia, “Then why on earth would you call yourselves immortals?!”

“Children, settle down.” Kadem chastised them, “I’m not an immortal, because when I was born the distinction between immortals and humans did not exist. Rest assured, immortals and humans can’t live forever. And neither can I.”

Gorken had been keenly staring at the floor, listening and exerting his mind to stay composed, “Then you’re… human?”

“Yes, just like you and your companions, and just like Plum over there too.”

“Wait a second,” Aldous pointed his finger at Malia, “she’s a human too? But she can use magic! She has weird hair! Even if her kind made a very poor name choice, those differences still stand!”

“Not all immortals can use magic.” Malia countered faintly, “The Daimonlance clan and the Eirian clan both carefully maintain the physical traits that define them through arranged marriages…” She had always known humans and immortals weren’t all that different, but she had also come to accept that the distinction had to be more than simple lineage. But what if it isn’t…?

“So you don’t live forever, and not all of you can use magic? What the hell?!” Aldous blurted out, agitated.

“Don’t ask me! I’m the one who ran away from the palace because things didn’t make sense, remember?!” Malia screamed back at him.

“I thought you had come all the way here to obtain information from me.” Kadem’s voice was knifelike, “But it appears you consider arguing among yourselves to be a wise move. Do let me know when you’re finished.”

Aldous and Malia glimpsed at each other, and in sharing their embarrassment they reconciled.

“Good.” Kadem read their mood, “I may not know as much as you expect. I was only a young child when the division between humans and immortals came to be; all I have is a vague remembrance. What I know is that one day a handful of powerful clans seized power and began calling themselves immortals.”

Malia folded her arms, “Then… it was completely arbitrary? There’s no difference between the two?”

“Not quite.” Kadem replied, “It is true that before that day, such a difference did not exist. There were those talented with magic, and those unable to use it. But we were all humans. After that day, however, those who had not been among the clans that proclaimed themselves immortal became empty shells. People forgot how to speak, how to fight back, how to think, how to feel. It was as if they had all become mindless puppets. And on that same day, fallen demons started roaming the land.”

Kadem’s dignified features and her wise attitude were fleetingly replaced by childish anguish. It was short-lived, a swift glimpse of a past long gone. But Malia saw it.

“Once I was old enough to understand what was happening,” Kadem explained, “I tried to convince people to join me and fight back. To recover what had been lost. Those outside the walls of the great castles had been reduced to slaves whose only purpose was to serve as manpower, to build roads and to tend to the land. But there was no one there. No matter how many people I talked to, I wasn’t talking to anyone. And then I… went to sleep. And here I am.”

Every sound faded, as if to compensate for the commotion that apprehended each of them inside their own skull. The thoughtful void prevailed until the delicate sound of Hedera’s snoring brought them back to the space they occupied. The small demon had sat at the table after Bayard had comforted her, and evidently she had made the mistake of leaning her head on the wooden surface. Her minute body had snatched the opportunity to recover from the strain of apprehension, and so she had fallen asleep. Licorice yawned softly, dragged into drowsiness by her link with her sister.

“The brat is not entirely foolish.” Kadem shrugged, “You all need rest. Don’t bother denying it, I can feel it. This room is yours for the next few hours.”

Kadem was right. They were exhausted. It went against their sound judgment to lower their guard and fall asleep all at the same time. But their puzzling trust in Kadem spoke louder than their rationale. She was powerful enough to annihilate them, and instead she had chosen to answer their questions and heal their wounds; it was hard to doubt her at that point. Her warm lair felt like a safe shelter, a refuge from danger and sorrow. A place for slumber.

They were making themselves comfortable, and Kadem was about to enter her passageway, when Malia stopped her with her crystalline voice, “…Why did you change your mind? Why are you helping us?”

The silver woman looked back at the princess after a pensive pause; then she smirked, “Because you’re incredibly irritating.”