Lauki's Arc

Chapter 1 of 18

Lauki wanted to marry Torra, and her family would burn him alive for asking. He crouched behind a black boulder and watched the fortress across the lava moat. Horned towers rose from dark stone. Heat rolled off the molten channel and dried his lips. He touched the ivory horns on his own head. He could not hide them. He could not hide the red eye or the gold one. Torra lived inside those walls. He meant to reach her. Skeleton knights in black plate lined the bridge. Their armor drank the firelight. Lauki knew what happened to demons who came here. They died screaming, and no one mourned them. He pulled his hood low and started across the bridge. He kept his eyes down and his hands loose. Ten steps. Twenty. A gauntlet clamped his shoulder and spun him. The hood fell back. Lauki's horns caught the glow. His red eye burned bright in the heat. The nearest knight drew a black longsword. Its helmet was white, shaped like a skull, with two pale horns curving up. A black rose marked its tabard, edged in red. It did not shout. It only raised the blade. "I came to speak to Torra," Lauki said. "That is all." The skull tilted. "You are a demon," the knight said. The voice came dry and slow, like wind through bone. "Demons burn here." Lauki's heart slammed. Fire climbed his fingers on its own. He shoved it down. If he burned these things, every horn in the fortress would answer. Then he stopped fighting the fire. He let it pour out, but not as a weapon. Flame ran up both his arms and wrapped his whole body. He did not aim it at the knight. He wore it. The skeleton knight lowered its sword an inch. "You carry the flame," it said. "Torra's line was born from that same flame. Long ago." Lauki froze. "Torra is part demon?" "Her blood remembers the fire, even if she denies it." The knight sheathed the blade. "I am sworn to that blood. Not to the ones who hide it. Show me your face, demon. All of it." Lauki let the hood stay down. He stood in the open with his horns bare and his fire wrapped around him. The other knights turned but did not move. The skull-helmed one raised a hand, and they held. "They will let you pass while I stand here," the knight said. "Only while I stand here. Torra does not know what she carries. Tell her, and her family will know a demon told her. They will come for you both." The knight stepped aside. The bridge lay open to the black doors. Lauki walked forward. He no longer needed to hide his horns. He needed something worse now. He had to tell Torra a secret that could turn her family's fire on them both.