Page 173 of First Ritual
“Yes. The game is but a tool of the demon’s power. One they wield to sow division.”
“We created the game after Ryzika’s death, it was our idea.”
My mother inhaled deeply. “A powerful ruler’s death offers the perfect entrance for the demons to sow their seeds. Hope was the pioneer of creating the idea of games to divide. Prior they’d used emotions—revenge, hate, jealousy. To do so takes much power from the demon realm, and then they are reliant on just a few people to create the division needed. No, Hope saw that they could use the same amount of power on many people at once to plant a simple notion. The idea of a contest. They could play on our base natures to create two sides, to start a mob who would congregate and grow strength and exclude. A far safer way to expend their power.”
“Demon magic can be felt,” Grandmother argued. “If they are expanding into our territory, then where are they?”
Hazeluna’s gaze dropped to the ravine floor. “They surround us, Mother. Their noose is very nearly in place. I have spent the last months mapping out the gates and rifts. I must leave to protect the coven, and yet if I leave, they will surely perish.”
“We, daughter. We are not alone. Your father, your brother. We can go to the coven, form alliances with other species in the area.”
“The species we have always hurt and kept out?” Mother asked.
Grandmother nodded. “If this can happen to them, it can…” She trailed off. “The vampires and werewolves, they’re playing games too.”
“Luthers call their game Grids. It plays between the tribe and local pack. The Vissimo in Bluff City, their game is Ingenium and exists between two enemy clans who own the city.”
Grandmother’s gaze narrowed. “They come for all of us.”
“For hundreds of years. We were all fooled.”
“Then you and I must leave the area,” Rowaness said, determination etched in the wrinkles of her face.
Hazeluna took her hands. “No, Mother. I will not abandon our coven. Nor will you. You could not do so, even for me. I loved a demon, and he convinced me that his race brings only death and despair. Fire. Enslavement. He showed it to me when I threatened to follow him through the gate. We cannot allow that fate to come to fruition for our coven, nor for any creature—be they Luther or Vissimo or other. We cannot stay close to the coven, but I must stay in the area to continue my work. There is an answer to saving them. It exists, and I will find it.”
“Our focus needs to be with your babies,” my grandmother said after a beat.
“And they will need a world to live in, Mother. Never more have I looked at the future and been filled with terror at what I see. Half demon, half magus.” Hazeluna swallowed. “What do you think the world does to children like that? What will the world be like for all children if we do nothing to stop the horrors that seem so unshakeable?”
“Mothers will always be in the way. You and I will stand between these babies and the horrors ahead.”
A tear tracked down my mother’s cheek. “I won’t stop until I have fixed the world for them. There is no peace for me until demons are forced back to their mountains.”
“We tell the other races,” Rowaness said. “We tell the council.”
“Divided races. Divided council. The outcome?”
My grandmother pressed her lips together. “Division.”
“There can be no division in our response. That is simply a window for the demons’ power. Our work must be as undetectable as their infiltration has been. Yet how to achieve that remains out of my reach.”
Rowaness took her daughter’s hand. “Then the mother is not ready for you to know. Come away, Hazeluna. Come with me. Tonight, we grieve together for Hope. Tomorrow, we’ll solve the other little problems.”
Hand in hand, they walked through me to where they’d landed.
I listened to the whoosh of them returning to the forest above and stared into the pitch darkness of the ravine ahead. In that darkness was a gate to the demon world. One they intended to use to capture this coven one day.
That should matter to me, but there had been too much said. That was just one horror of the whole.
I was half demon. I wasn’t a whole magus plus a little bit of demon. To remove a little bit, I would still be as I was born—whole.
To remove half would only leave half behind. A being could not survive as half.
By slaying the demon inside, I’d be killing myself.
If I didn’t do that, then I would always, always be as I was, which felt like the same thing—a half-existence.
A numbness filled me, entering my heart and mind. My soul. I was an impossibility that I detested. And there was no longer an option to be anything else.