5 November 2023
Their little campfire burned low, barely enough to cook on. Considering how deep they were into demon territory, it would probably have been better to do without completely, but none of them really pushed the issue.
Caldwell was telling them about some yearly festival they had back in his hometown, but Kyra was only half listening. Instead, she watched Gavin and Fera carefully. There was an odd tension between the two. Gavin’s jaw had been clenched all evening, and he didn’t sit next to Fera like he’d been doing. For her part, Fera shrank into herself, and she couldn’t stop fiddling with the engagement ring Gavin had given her. It was the exact opposite of how Kyra expected them to react after Gavin finally popped the question.
She knew Caldwell had been trying to ease the tension in his own way but it didn’t seem to make a significant difference. So as soon as there was a lull, she interrupted his story. “So what the hell is going on with the two of you? You’re acting like someone died, not like you just got engaged.”
“Actually, I… I turned him down.”
Kyra blinked slowly. She looked down at the ring Fera was fiddling with, then back up to her face. “What.”
Fera’s shoulders curled in even tighter. With no small trace of bitterness in his voice, Gavin said, “Tell them. They’re your friends. They have a right to know.”
At his words, Fera’s hands clenched tight. Kyra’s own stomach twisted,, but she never took her eyes off of Fera. For several long moments, no one spoke.
When Fera finally did speak, her voice cracked. “I… Even if everything goes well, I… I won’t be coming back. Even if the demon king dies, he’ll just come back. We have to seal him up, and to do that, I… I have to seal myself in with him.”
By the time she finished speaking, tears dripped down her cheeks. Despite that, still, she smiled, small and soft.
Kyra couldn’t tell if her thoughts had frozen in place, or if she was thinking so many things at once it all bled into nothingness. Once she’d started to calm down, her thoughts flickered to a desolate homestead, long ago. To the bloodied face her her dear husband, Roylan. To the immobile bodies of her two sons.
It was happening again. She’d finally healed enough to reach out to other people, to care about other people again, and she was going to lose them. And once more, there was nothing she could do about it.
She barely noticed the roar of anguish that tore through her throat, or the crack as she hurled one of her prized axes into the nearest tree. By the time her mind cleared, her own cheeks were wet, and she collapsed to her knees.
Kyra thought back to the bastards at the church, the ones sitting pretty on their thrones, while they sent a young girl–barely even nineteen–to give up her life for them. “Damn them. Damn them all.”