ASMODEUS
I called to her too many times to count.
Sable. Sable. Sable.
Her name became a song in my bones. There was no need to know anything more, only the echoes of her soul beyond the rift that I opened up. The taste of her every emotion from within the belly of the beast, fear and confusion and panic, a whirlwind tempest — but threaded most intensely with longing.
But not longing for me. A longing for something she couldn't reach, something unearthed that I couldn't touch. It was beyond me. When I reached for her, my power curling forward as I tore open the beast's regenerating flesh over and over to force my way inside, her soul pulled away, clinging to whatever it was she had found in its depths.
But I wouldn't let it take her from me. Even if she begged for it, I would never let her go.
I had made my vow. Not even the fall of Hell itself could break it.
Asmodeus!
And finally, she called.
For me.
I'm here, I answered. I will always find you.
Don't be afraid, love.
Think only of me. Nothing else.
Asmodeus!
I tore open the divide and stared into the yawning abyss beyond it, the endless, lightless sea of darkness inside the beast. It was impossibly cavernous, extending beyond the bounds of the physical boundaries enclosing it, but it was no surprise. This abominable miscreation had power beyond the ordinary. Manipulation of a mundane thing like space was hardly unexpected, and something like this could never slow me down. I held open the sides of the gaping wound, securing my grip against the thick, clinging fluid that passed so poorly for blood, and wrenched them open wider. The gash tore, the reforming threads of healing flesh snapping all over again at the corners.
Sable.
There.
Beyond, in the heart of all the dead darkness, her soul sang to me.
It wasn't alone. She wasn't alone. Something else was with her, the tendrils of their power a glimmer in the distance, too far to make out even with my acute senses. Heat raged out of me, boiling out of my skin as my tail lashed around me, ready to maim, tear, kill whoever dared to touch my queen. They would die a repulsive death, gasping and thrashing in a pool of their blood under my very eyes, with Sable in my arms. The last thing they ever saw would be me feasting on her, partaking in a meal they were unfit for and would never be worthy of even in their wildest dreams—
With no warning, Sable came hurtling out of the darkness.
There was no time to think, but I had no need for either. Catching her was all that gave my existence meaning, protecting her, saving her, gathering her back to me and feeling the warmth of her body and soul melting into mine. I let instinct guide me: with clawed grips drawing ever more blood, I wrenched wider the gaping tear into the strange, arcane space long enough for Sable to reach me. Then I released it, just as her presence materialized and solidified inches from me, the void-like matter comprising the deep darkness seeping away at breakneck speed from her as her body emerged. Face. Neck. Shoulders. The rest of her body followed, swiftly throwing off the last of the dark vine-like tendrils.
I pulled her towards me as I fell away, wrapping my arms around her back and waist and locking her body against mine. Safe. Returned — no blood, no wounds, not a hint of pain. But there was a crease in her brow as her eyelashes fluttered, signs of a turbulent return to wakefulness. What had happened to her when she was trapped inside the beast? The darkness that had pulled away from her had done so willingly, delivering her to me before withdrawing back into the void. What was it that lay in the center of it? What had taken my Sable from me, even if it had returned her in the end? Who dared?
I crashed into the wet ground on my back with a skidding impact, still holding Sable tight so that not a hair on her head touched the muddy grass now streaming down the slope around me in ruined clumps. The earth had stood no chance under the weight and violent writhing of the great beast. Now pitted with the stomping of its feet from when it tried in vain to throw off both Mammon and me, it didn't take a powerful imagination to envision the gruesome splatter one would become if caught under such titanic force.
But Sable was in no danger no matter how strong or swift the beast. Whatever its powers, whatever its origins or master or summoner — because such a thing had no business existing on this plane unless dragged here from another dimension on a leash — it would not get its fangs into my Sable again. To have let her slip away from me once was already unforgivable. It would take rending every strip of flesh from my bones to take her from me again.
I was on my feet and darting down the hillside in an instant. Behind me, the brawling continued, the titan's rumbling roar building and filling the air once again. Dwarfed as Mammon was, the unexpected surge of savage power that had exploded from him served him well, buying him time for me to take Sable to safety. So it was as I expected, then. Although the enigmatic darkness inside the beast had seemingly released Sable back to me, the beast itself had no intention of letting its quarry go. A mere inconvenience. The contradiction hardly deserved consideration. All that mattered was making it to the coastline. I hadn't forgotten that the creature could clearly travel and hunt in water as well as on land, but if it meant to pursue us there, it would have to change its shape to something smaller and less dense. How could it stay afloat otherwise? It was more advantageous for us to take to the sea again than to continue to fight on land. As long as Mammon held out long enough, I could surely outrace the creature. Now that I knew what it was capable of, I wouldn't fall for the same trick twice and allow it to ambush us.
"Mm... ah?"
Sable's quiet moan as she returned to consciousness pierced my heart, but the pain was as sweet as it was sickening. The same cruel strength that seized and gripped my entire being offered comfort in its desperation. Awake. Alert. Sable's body had been safe, but there was no guarantee her mind had escaped unscathed with it until now. That was all I needed. She was all I needed.
"Be still, love. I have you."
"Wh... L... Lust?" She immediately struggled in my arms, but I knew her far too well. I tightened my hold on her unthinkingly. "Wait, g-go back, we have to go back, stop—"
I never stopped sprinting. She was delusional, too confused to understand what was happening. Explaining the situation would be no help while she was so disoriented.
Her struggles intensified. It was nothing to me, of course, human frailty offering no possible resistance against my strength, but a familiar gleam in her palm snatched my attention when she shoved her hand before my eyes.
"Look! It's your Shard, it's made of the same thing the other one is. Isn't it! It's your Shard!"
"Sable, where did you find—"
"We don't have time for questions. Go back! We have to get him. We have to bring him with us."
"Mammon is safe," I argued, but as if she had wielded a Command against me, my legs slowed, pace barely at a run. "But you're right, there's no time. I—"
"I'm not talking about Mammon!" she cried, growing increasingly distraught. "I'm talking about...!"
I said nothing, waiting with bated breath, but she floundered as if something had stolen the words off her tongue. She looked around wildly, searching for even the slightest reminder of whatever it was she had been about to say, but surrendered and focused her attention upon me once more. Only then did I realize she could see me, though she tilted her head away at an odd angle as she stared at me as if she could only see through one eye, not both.
"We have to go back!" she insisted. "We're not leaving without him!"
I couldn't comprehend how she had found my Shard, or how I had missed its presence when it had been in her hand only inches from me. But something else was wrong. Although I could sense the thin thread of its essence that mirrored mine now that I knew it was there, its power was far too weak. It should be responding to me elementally, reaching for me to join our strength back together the way they should. But it took honing my senses and all but excavating them to dig out the fragile connection. Could I even exploit it at all? What had happened to my Shard since I lost it?
It must have something to do with the return of Sable's sight, or at least its partial return, and despite her apparent memory loss, she knew far more than I did of what insanity or miraculousness had happened here. But with no clear explanation of its workings, I could never accept the risk of putting her in any more danger.
My only choice was defiance. To protect my queen, it was the easiest decision I had ever made.
There was still a thin trickle of power remaining in this Shard. With Mammon at a distance, it would take me to his side as soon as I attempted to use it. But then I would have access to the Shard buried inside him, and provided that I still had a reflective surface to escape through, I could take Sable away from here, no longer pinned to this island. True, my strength was finally waning, but that much I could manage easily. To do so would mean rejecting Sable's demand to save whoever it was she wanted to go back for, but her safety was paramount. If she had the strength to punish me for it in the future, she was welcome to deal it out as she saw fit. Until then, I relied only on my insight, and my insight warned me: there was no time left.
Nature was on our side, at least. A well-timed, soft ray of light beamed across the ground, gently tickling Sable's cheek with a brief glow before moving on. I glanced up. Sunlight? So the storm had finally broken. I never even noticed the rain stopping. But now, with sunbeams breaking through the cloudy sky and the mist melting away...
Before the idea had even finished forming, I was on the move. Not away to safety, but closer, back to Mammon. This was the only way, the fastest and surest, to protect Sable.
"Mammon! To me! Follow!"