Our journey to thialia's ho was both quick and painfully slow. The demoness was still barely mobile, but she staunchly refused any form of assistance.
And her wings were still gone. That worried more than I could put into words.
The captain had requested her lodgings be built at the very edge of the city. When we finally arrived, it took a mont for the doors to recognize her magic and swing open. She all but collapsed on her way across the threshold.
As soon as I followed her, heat slamd into . It was such a marked difference from the world outside, even for my demonic body, that I actually stumbled.
I looked around with so apprehension. Sure enough, a huge fire was roaring in the massive hearth thialia had commissioned for her ho. It was also radiating so much mana that I would've known it was magical even if the flas weren't purple.
The effect it had on our host was imdiate. Her shoulders relaxed, and a spring entered her step as she crossed to the fireplace.
"Oooof."
I glanced back at the silly cat who had made the noise, only to find her expression scrunched between discomfort and bliss.
"You okay there, Mia?" I whispered, using a trickle of mana to mute our conversation further.
"Yes. This is… hot. A part of really likes it. Reminds of ho a little, but…" She grimaced, then did a full-body shake. "It's almost too much."
I caught her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze as we trailed after our hostess. This was the one of the very few tis Mia had ever ntioned her ho or past to . The fact that she had done it so casually made my chest swell with all sorts of emotions.
Still, I forced myself to focus on thialia. Whatever was wrong with her had to be more than a simple weakness to temperature. That just wasn't a thing demons were supposed to suffer from.
The captain had already collapsed into an armchair positioned right in front of the fireplace. I felt so trepidation as we settled on a nearby sofa, but to my relief, the heat didn't get unbearable. Still wasn't pleasant, though. After only a few seconds, I was well past comfortable levels of 'toasty.'
At least the purple fla was fascinating. It crackled and swayed at all tis like it was caught in a strong wind, yet never once faltered. It also lay right on the crystalline floor of the hearth with no visible kindling.
thialia stared at it, eyes darting occasionally towards and Mia.
"So… I suppose I should answer your questions now, huh?"
"It would be preferable." I hesitated, then went on carefully. "Listen, I'm not going to force the issue, but I really do consider you a friend at this point. I an, you were the one who taught how to fly. We've definitely fought alongside each other enough tis. I'm not going to swear eternal loyalty to you or anything, but still. I promise you can trust us."
Mia didn't say anything, but the fervent sincerity in her eyes when she nodded was probably as effective as my little speech.
thialia sighed and leaned back in her armchair, gaze fixed on the opaque crystal ceiling.
"Okay, okay. So… It might or might not surprise you to hear this, but I'm not an ascendant demon. I am the daughter of two Abyss-born, from a family of so minor renown. Not enough that everyone celebrates when the legion recruits one of ours, like with Wilhelmina and her sister, but… yeah. You know?"
I didn't 'know', actually, but it wasn't hard to guess. I just nodded, encouraging her to continue.
"Well, with that kind of fa also cos enmity. My family has a long history, and we've made more than a few enemies along the way. None of those enemies are content to sit around and ignore us, so it's pretty much scheming and struggling and killing. All. The. Damn. Ti. When a mber of our family wants children, it's always a risky period. They need to be hidden. Protected. Cherished. You know how we procreate, right?"
"Obviously," I scoffed. "Even if we didn't know about it beforehand, that's one of the first things the Abyss beams into your mind after ascension."
thialia giggled. She was looking better by the minute. However, I also noted that she was using her proximity to the flas to… feed?
Yes, I thought, watching so of the mana and innate power of the fla streaming into her. She's feeding on the fire to maintain her health.
"Well, my mother wanted kids, but she also didn't want to be seen as a coward. She was the head of the family, you see. So, while pregnant with , she went on an invasion. When she was assassinated during said invasion by a rival house, I died right alongside her."
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We must have failed to keep the shock off our faces, because thialia outright laughed.
I couldn't help it. My mind was spinning. None of my Abyss-inherited knowledge applied to that scenario. In fact, everything I knew suggested strongly that a pregnant demoness should not leave the Abyss at all.
"But…" I sputtered, "what happens then?"
"What happens… varies. A lot. If the child is young enough, then they simply vanish when the mother reforms. People think the child gets absorbed by the mother's soul because the two are still seen as one entity by the Abyss. If the child is old enough in the womb, they could reform separately from the mother. The children in those cases don't always survive."
If I was flabbergasted before, I was now horrified. The images of half-ford demon babies squelching to the floor of the Abyss filled my mind.
Suppressing a full-body shudder, I managed to speak calmly. "You survived."
thialia nodded. Her voice took on a decidedly cruel tone of amusent. "I was just old enough to avoid absorption and young enough to avoid getting forcibly ejected from my mother. Unfortunately, I didn't dodge all consequences. I was… damaged, by the experience. A part of is just missing."
She slouched further into the chair, fixing her eyes on the hearth. "My family all have a high affinity for fire. The theory is our original ancestor was so kind of ascendant demon with a fire elental heritage in their mortal form. Regardless, we're all deeply intertwined with flas."
Suddenly, she grabbed a soul out of her pouch and chucked it into the hearth. I watched, fascinated, as the soul lted away, seeming to screech in great agony before its energy was converted into fuel.
The purple flas jumped even higher. thialia just looked bored, like this was sothing she was far too accustod to.
"I have an affinity to fire, but I'm almost dependent on it. I need flas. Especially soul flas. I need heat, too. Lagyel wasn't too bad, even though the nights were almost torturous, but here?" She shook her head. "I'm not doing well here. As you might have noticed, unlike most of our kind, I'm highly vulnerable to the cold."
"I'm sorry," I whispered after a few monts of uncomfortable silence.
I wasn't sure what else to say. Though Glaustro might have chosen the world solely because of Wilhelmina, our plans had evolved since then. At this point, we all wanted to make Breskwor our headquarters.
But for thialia, it was the very definition of a personal hell.
The smile she shot was sad. "It's fine. I can keep the issue at bay by feeding on souls and spending ti with my fla here. I was just a little careless today. I pushed too hard. I want to find that bitch so we can all relax, but with all that Divinity out there…" She scowled. "I can hardly sense anything else."
I blinked. "Wait, what do you an?"
"I an… it's too intense, isn't it? The Divinity? It's why I haven't been able to sleep well since we got here. I had no clue what it was at first, but then you ca back from that scouting trip and told Glaustro about it. It sings to . I want to go out there, track it all down, and devour it. I want it so badly that…"
She blushed and trailed off, looking away from us.
I gaped at her, unable to form a coherent sentence as my mind swirled through possibilities.
Mia didn't have the sa issue.
"You can sense Divinity from here?" she asked sharply. "Where is it coming from?"
thialia looked confused, but she answered nonetheless. "Well, I can feel a concentration of Divinity in the major's tent. I think he's studying or devouring bits of it right now? I can feel it flicker. Then there are the four groups to the south, two to the north, and five to the east. I can't really feel anything to the west past so vague impression, but I think that's just because the source of Divinity there is too far away."
This ti, even Mia was rendered speechless.
"What? What is it?" the captain demanded, looking back and forth between us.
"We can't sense Divinity that far out, thialia," I explained slowly. "I don't know about Mia, but I need to be fairly close to a source to sense it. It's almost like Divinity doesn't want to show itself to ."
"It's true." Mia leaned forward now, taking in thialia with an intensity that verged on predatory. "That is an amazing ability. Why didn't you say anything sooner?"
"I thought it was normal? I could sense sources of Divinity from the mont we set foot on this world. I just didn't know what they were." thialia sounded defensive, but it was quickly giving way to excitent. "So, not everyone can sense it? But then… why can I?"
"I don't know, but I do know this is going to be incredibly useful for us." I stood and began to pace around the room like a caged animal. "We've been forced to hunt down the locals, steal their mories, and then hustle to get to any sources of Divinity before they could be hidden or moved. This presents an amazing opportunity. On top of that…"
"We'll know exactly when Wilhelmina makes her move," Mia purred, making no attempt to conceal the malice shining in her eyes.
I gave the cat a grin of my own. "Exactly. If she tries to move or devour one of the sources of Divinity nearby, we'll know! There haven't been any that just vanished recently, right?"
thialia shook her head.
"That's good," I muttered. "Very good. She hasn't healed yet, then. Hasn't even started. Unless she's moved beyond your range already? But in that case…"
"Hayden, stop." Mia's voice snapped out of the spiral. "We need to tell Glaustro all about this. Now. He'll be able to help us plan."
I nodded eagerly and was about to storm off right that mont when I noticed the grimace on thialia's face.
"Sorry," I stamred, only then rembering why we were there in the first place. "You should stay here. Keep resting as long as you can. We'll go talk to Glaustro and bring him here. I'm sure he won't mind."
She smiled, and I bit back a sigh of relief. For a mont, I'd been afraid that she might not want to share her abilities with Glaustro. We would've had an entirely different problem on our hands then.
"That sounds good. I'd be thankful if we can et here. I wish I could go, but —"
"No worries, really," I rushed to assure her. "I just wish I understood why you can sense Divinity so easily. Is there anything special to it, like an accompanying emotion?"
She shook her head. "Just a sense of the Divinity. Well, and the hunger. That's normal though, right?"
I hmmd, eyeing the demoness. Yes, that was true. The nature of Divinity made it extrely appealing to demons. However, the way she said 'hunger' twigged sothing in my mind.
It was a desperate word, filled with a quiet sort of intensity. Wilhelmina was desperate to get Divinity in order to heal. What if my subordinate officer was in a similar situation? What if only Divinity could fix what was 'broken' in her by the circumstances of her mother's pregnancy?
I had no answers to that. What I did know was that I needed to fetch Glaustro, and fast.
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