Valiant: The Covenant Chronicles

[Covenant #17: The Lantern Tree]

Log Date: 2/7/12764

Data Sources: Jayta Jaskolka

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The House of Regret: Estate Grounds

2:31pm SGT

There’s something satisfying about the way wood crunches beneath an axe.

Perhaps it’s the crispness of the noise. You know when you’ve hit the grain of the log just right because you’ll hear a crack as it splits; it resonates, almost echoes. Or it’ll crackle when you’re hammering the wedge into a crack that’s already formed — you’ll hear the splinters prying apart, a series of small cracks and snaps that produces this pleasant, oaky crackle. You know when you’ve hit the log right, because you can hear it. And you’ll also know when you’ve hit it wrong, because it’ll sound like a dull whud or a thud that doesn’t do much to progress the split. Thuds and whuds are annoying, while cracks and crackles are satisfying — the sound of something breaking and splitting the way it should.

As you can probably tell, I’d gotten very familiar with the art of woodsplitting over the last week and a half.

It’s still a pain in the ass, and I still dislike getting up in the morning to do it. I hate bundling up, going out into the cold, and chopping wood all day. I hate how sore it makes me; how tired I am at the end of every day. I hate not having enough energy to do anything when I'm done; I hate that I eat dinner, go upstairs, take my shower, and then just fall in bed and lie there until I fall asleep. It reminds me of my days back on Coreolis, working two jobs to pay the bills, coming home at the end of the day and just eating and passing out. It was a reminder of a life I’d hated, a life I’d been trapped in, a life where you only woke up to make it through the day before coming home to collapse from exhaustion, then wake up the next day to do it all over again.

But at least with this, I could find little moments of satisfaction, in the way that the wood crunched when I brought the axe down on it.

After swinging the axe down again, I plant a boot on one side of the half-log that I’m splitting, and shove. The rest of it cracks and splits away from the axehead buried down the middle, marking another pair of quarter-logs that I can stack on the growing pile beside the shed. Compared to where I was a week and a half ago, I’m doing pretty good; today I’m up to twenty-ish logs, and I’ll probably have thirty, maybe thirty-five done by the evening. As I’ve gotten used to splitting the logs, I’ve been hitting my wall later and later every day; with each day, I’ve been able to go a little longer, a little harder. Part of it is just getting past the initial learning curve, and the other part is just raising my endurance. Learning to work through the aches and the exhaustion, to push my limits a little further every day. I figure by the time I finally manage to hit sixty logs in a single day, I’ll have a nice set of biceps and washboard abs.

Well, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration. But at the very least, I won’t be the limp little waif that I’ve always been.

Heading over to the pile of logs, I grab another one and haul it over to the splitting round, perching it on the middle. Taking a moment to size it up, trying to figure out what angle I’m going to approach it from, I wipe the back of my hand against my forehead. Standing there and gripping the axe with both hands, I realized how familiar the wooden handle feels by now. How easy it is to swing it, to feel the polished surface glide beneath my hands on each movement. In that moment, staring at the next log, I wonder how it would feel to swing this at a person. Wonder how it would strike into flesh, wonder if bones would make the same sound as wood when they crack and splinter beneath the axehead. Grisly thoughts, to be certain.

But this wasn’t the first time I’d had them.

Event Log: Rewind: 3 days ago

The House of Regret: Rear Living Room

2/4/12764 4:07pm SGT

The door slams behind me, and the first thing I do is step on the heels of my boots so I can slip my feet out of them. I’m dead tired and done with today; even though there’s at least an hour’s worth of light before nightfall, I can’t go any further. I’ve only managed twenty-eight logs today, meaning I’ll only be getting fourteen minutes of hot water tonight, but I’ve been getting good at taking quick showers. It’s going to be an early shower tonight, since I’m pretty sure the kitchen won’t have dinner ready before five o’clock.

“Early!” Taiga chirps at me from one of the chairs in the living room. “Still light out. Go back out.”

I glare at the scrawny shrike harpy. “Up yours, you little feather gremlin.” I grumble at her. “I don’t have to take orders from you.”

“You appear to have forgotten something.” Rujnu remarks from armchair beside the fireplace. She’s one of the owl harpies, and she is absolutely titanic, clocking in at somewhere around seven feet, broad shoulders and big eyes. Like Aritska, she seems a bit… brighter than the corvid harpies, and I often see her reading books. Unlike the other harpies, she’s got a much more regal demeanor, and isn’t nearly as twitchy as the shrikes and crows.

“Forgot what?” I ask, looking over my shoulder through the window in the back door, and expecting to see I’ve left my jacket or something out by the shed.

“Not out there. In your hand.” she says.

I look down. I’m still holding the axe, which I forgot to put back in the shed. I sigh, looking back over my shoulder and judging the walk back across the yard; asking myself if I really want to step back out into the cold just so I can put away an axe. “I’ll just leave it by the door and grab it before I go out tomorrow morning.” I say, less a declaration and more throwing the idea out there to see if it gets any pushback.

Rujnu raises an eyebrow. “Danya will notice on her rounds of the House. You will catch an earful for laziness.”

“Will she really, though?” I wheedle.

“Yup, she will!” Taiga chimes in. “She notices everything. One time I left my whip on the bench near the shoe cubbies and she found it and chewed me out for it. Another time she checked the armory and found that I hadn’t washed my sword after doing the stabbies, so she made me get out of bed and clean it and all the other swords in the sword cabinet before I could go back to bed.”

“Ugh.” I groan. “That woman’s got the worst case of OCD I’ve ever seen. Fine, I’ll go put it back out in the shed.” Turning, I put a hand on the doorknob, pausing when I hear the thump of boots down the hall, and an annoyed, indistinct muttering. I turn about, half-expecting to see Aritska or one of the raven harpies.

Instead what I see is Harro stalking into the room, boots stained with fresh blood, nursing a new cut in the arm of his battered duster.

He stops on seeing me, his yellow eyes darting rapidly over the others in the room. For a moment I feel conflict; the bloody cut on his arm clearly indicates that he’s hurt, and there’s a moment — a brief moment — where I feel pity for him. But then I remember how he abandoned me, and how he’d tried to kill me when I confronted him over it.

My grip on the axe’s handle tightens.

And he notices. I see how his eyes go down to the axe, and his hand drops from the cut in his arm, but stays open, as if he was getting ready to grab his buster sword off his back.

Taiga screeches, breaking our focus. “Out! Out!” she shrieks at Harro, pointing back down the hall he came from. “You aren’t wanted here! You are trouble!”

“Oh, shut it, pillow stuffing.” he sneers at her. “No one asked for your opinion.”

“Go your way, Harro.” Rujnu says, her voice calm but low as she snaps her book closed. “We have orders to protect our Lord’s avenger.”

“Oh do you now?” he snorts, looking at me. “So the red bitch is back to coddling her little princess, getting other people to fight your battles for you. You gonna scream for her to come save you like you did last time?”

“No! I’ll do it this time!” Taiga screeches, getting up on her chair and perching on its arm, her talon’d feet digging into the padding. “SISTERS! SISTERS! BRING YOUR WHIPS, THE HOUND IS HASSLING JAYTA!”

“Shut it, you retarded little—” Harro snarls, starting towards her, but stopping at the muted flurry of movement on the upper floors. Scrawny legs thumping against the floors, shoulders slamming into doors, with a racket of cawing and screeching starting to build. Voices start to spill down the stairs at the same time spindly bird feet do.

“Where is he?!”

“Bring him here, I’ll gouge his eyes out!”

“My whip, where’s my whip?”

“I can’t find mine either! Will Mommy be angry if I use a vase to bludgeon him instead?”

“Move, I’m gonna cut off his dick and stuff it in the kitchen toaster!”

“No you idiot! You have to stuff it in the toaster WHILE it’s still attached to him!”

“I found the portable toaster, sisters!”

“Goddammit!” Harro seethes, backing away as he stares up at the ceiling. “I didn’t even do anything, you stupid bitch!” He doesn’t wait for a retort, turning and pelting for an adjacent door leading from the room; seconds later, the magpie and shrike harpies hurtle into the room, the feathers in their hair fluffed out in excitement, eyes wide and piranha teeth on full display as they chirp and screech, casting about.

Rujnu points to the door that Harro fled through, and they scream and tear off in that direction. It becomes a steady flow of harpies fluttering and hopping through one door and out the other; the first few have their whips, but others look like they’ve grabbed whatever they could get their hands on. One’s got a porcelain vase; another one’s double-fisting a pair of butterknives; a crow harpy towards the end of the train is holding a cordless toaster over her head, screaming like a banshee as she follows her sisters through the door that Harro escaped through.

As the racket fades into other parts of the House, I stare dumbfounded at the door that the murderous flock disappeared through. After a moment, I looks at Rujnu and ask “Toaster?” while pointing to my crotch, asking if the girls really planned on doing what they were screaming about. Rujnu gives a quiet smile and nods.

“Jeezus.” I mutter, listening to the screaming ruckus migrates through the House. “He’s a bastard, but that’s just sick.”

“There! Took care of him for you!” Taiga says brightly, planting her chin in her hands. “Any time he bothers you, just let us know! Mommy said we were supposed to protect you, especially from Harro, so any time he’s bothering you in the House, just shout for us! We’ll come!” She ends with that unnerving, toothy piranha smile.

“Right. Got it.” I say hesitantly, twisting the doorknob and pulling the backdoor open. “I’m just gonna. Go put this axe back in the shed now.”

“Okay! See you in ninety seconds!” Taiga says, giving me a cheery wave.

I slip out with that, closing the door behind me. Crossing the backyard again, I measure the weight of the axe in my hand, and think about how good I’d gotten at swinging it. How satisfying it felt whenever it slammed into a log, burying deep into the grain of the wood with a firm, rewarding crunch.

Swinging it at a chunk of wood probably wasn’t all that different from swinging it at a person, all things considered.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The House of Regret: Estate Grounds

3:20pm SGT

Bringing the axe down again, I finish quartering the log I’d been working on, then drop the axe handle, letting it thud to the frozen ground. I crouch after that, resting my arms on my knees as I catch my breath.

I’ve hit my wall, and it’s only gonna be downhill from here. Once I hit my wall, I just get slower and slower, my swings get sloppier, and I start messing up more cuts. Lunch helps fend it off for a while, but it can only push it off for so long. Although the entire time I spend splitting wood is a grind, the part that comes after I hit my wall is the worst part of it. It’s almost like I can feel my productivity deflating like a balloon with a pinprick hole in it.

Shaking my head, I force myself back to my feet, grabbing up the two quarter-logs and dropping them on the split pile. I turn, reluctantly, to the pile of full logs with the intent of picking up another one; as I’m doing so, Raikaron’s garden at the back of the estate grounds slides across my field of view. I’ve seen it dozens of times, but this time, it hooks my attention — I don’t know what it is, but I stop, with the log in my hands, and just stare at it. Really stare at it.

I’d always gotten the sense that the garden was off-limits. The rickety, rural fence lent itself to that pretty neatly, and there was the fact that nobody ever went there except Raikaron. No matter the time of day, the air beneath the canopy of the trees always seemed dim and dusky, and you couldn’t really see very far into the garden itself on account of that. It was just a very… I wouldn’t say unfriendly, but it was a dark place. A place that was hard to see into, a place of unknown things.

A mystery, by all accounts, seeing as I’d only been in there once, and never after that.

I try to put it out of my mind as I haul the next log back to the splitting round, but I can’t help glancing back at it as I go. It wasn’t very far away; just a short walk and I would be at the gate. Nobody else was out here, and besides, I had hit my wall. Maybe if I took a break, took a walk around the garden, I could come back refreshed and crank out another ten or fifteen logs before nightfall…

All weak rationalizations of a mind eager to go somewhere it wasn’t supposed to go.

I set the log down on the splitting round, but don’t bend down to pick up the axe. I really should prioritize splitting the logs, since the amount of hot water I got for my shower depended on it. I liked my showers, and I liked my showers hot. They helped me unwind at the end of the day, but fifteen minutes was not long enough to unwind. It was only enough to get clean, but I didn’t just want to get clean; I wanted to relax while I was doing it. I should focus on splitting logs, and yet, and yet…

I let out a sigh, and after a furtive glance back towards the House, I turn away from the log and start across the yard towards the garden.

Even though it’s a short walk, it feels like forever because I’m half-expecting Danya to step out of the House and start shouting at me. But she never does, and I arrive at the gate of the garden without intervention; I push the gate open and step inside. Letting it drift shut behind me, I let out a sigh at the warmer air here, reaching up to pull off the gloves I wear for woodsplitting. The leaves are green; nothing is dead here, in defiance of the winter that the rest of Sjelefengsel is caught in.

Tucking the gloves in my back pocket, I start along the path, fingers grazing over the supple leaves of the bushes on either side. When I look up, I can’t see the sky through the canopy of the trees, though there are various fruits ripening on some of them. Others are in bloom, little white petals that you typically expect from fruit-bearing trees. It’s almost like the trees don’t want me to see the sky — like they want me to forget that I’m in hell, and that there could be a blue sky beyond those leaves, instead of a grey one.

Continuing along the path, I glance over my shoulder, making sure nobody’s following me — not like I’d expect anyone to follow me in here, considering it’s Raikaron’s garden. With no sign of anyone coming to shout at me for trespassing, I pick up the pace heading down the path. Tulips pass me by on one side, roses on another, a pond with lilypads to one side — it’s a breath of fresh air, an escape from the permanent desolation of Sjelefengsel.

It isn’t long before I’ve reached the clearing that has the big tree I saw last time Danya ordered me to the garden. It’s the same as it was before, hunched and gnarled, with a low-hanging canopy and twisting, knobby branches. With the way the branches are — how low they hang, the way they bend and twist and meander — it looks like it would be easy to climb up in the tree and roam from bough to bough. Boughs that, as before, have a multitude of lanterns hanging from their crooked arms.

Slowing down, I glance over my shoulder again, just to confirm there’s no one there to see me or stop me. But the garden is predictably empty, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be. Having reassured myself that there’s no one here to catch me, I step over the edge of the canopy’s shadow, staring up into the winding branches.

Just the same as it did last time, the air dims down to a twilight brilliance, allowing the glow of the lanterns to stand out more. Many of them are hung on the higher boughs, though reaching them seems like it’d be easy as climbing into the tree. Still, I don’t want to go that far yet, so instead, I reach up and take one of the lowest-hanging lanterns. It brightens as my fingers skim over the glass, but does nothing else, so I push it upwards, unhooking it from the branch and lowering it into my hands.

The lantern, like all the others, looks like blown glass, the surface faintly rippled like a globe of frozen water. As a result, it’s hard to get a good idea of what’s inside it, and I’m not even sure there is anything inside it — as before, there’s no apparent source for the light they give off; they just seem to emit it. On a whim, I roll it over in my hands to see if that will affect the glow it’s giving off, but nothing rattles around inside, and the glow remains steady. Then for a moment, it seems to get brighter, but I quickly realize it’s not the lantern getting brighter. It’s the air around me getting dimmer as a shadow falls over me.

With the beginnings of dread starting to harden in my stomach, I turn around to see Raikaron standing right behind me in her usual vest and slacks, green eyes glowing behind her glasses.

I take a few quick steps away in panic, but my foot catches one of the thick, gnarled roots. I don’t even think about what comes next — I let go of the lantern and throw my hands out as I go sprawling, keeping myself from landing too hard among the roots. The breath sticks in my throat when I see the lantern hit the ground, but it does so with a dull thud instead of shattering, and I exhale in relief. The next moment, I’m back to holding my breath as Raikaron’s shined shoes flatten the grass, and she crouches down to pick up the lantern, holding it up and brushing it off.

“You have a penchant for seeking out new debts of trouble before you’ve even paid off your last ones, little flower.” she remarks as she stands, looking at me. “I know youth is impatient, but I thought a partial college education would at least temper that somewhat.”

I cringe backwards, my heart racing as I back myself against the trunk of the tree. Even with her calm tone, all I can think of is how she stood in the lobby after chasing out Envy and Spite, wiping orange ichor off her bottom lip. Underneath the whitecollar shirt and the neatly folded tie, there is something that is not human, something ancient and terrible to gaze upon. I know she isn’t going to break out that form, but the simple knowledge that it existed at all was terrifying in and of itself.

“How you recoil, with all the guilt of a child caught sneaking into the pantry.” she remarks as she reaches up, hooking the lantern back on the bough it was hanging from. Ducking under it, she comes towards me, crouching in front of me and leaning in, her face mere inches from mine. She searches me with those toxic green eyes, her expression giving away nothing. “Do you remember what I told you about roaming in strange gardens?”

“I’m sorry.” I whisper, looking down.

“No, you are terrified.” she corrects me. “I can sense it. Feel it. Taste it. You have often resented me, and often feared me, but you were never terrified of me.” She pauses to let that sink in. “Has this anything to do with Spite’s rough eviction from the House over a week ago?”

I summon up the courage to look at her out of the corner of my eyes. “Danya told me a long time ago that when Lords have problems with each other, they resolve things civilly. I didn’t expect you to… you know.” I trail off, leaving it at that. Accusing Raikaron of tearing off another Lord’s arm just seems so… classless.

“Yes, I suppose…” she murmurs, her eyes wandering. “A lapse of judgement on my part. One can only endure so much vexation before needing to answer it, but my answer perhaps contained a bit more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary on that day.” She looks back to me. “So it is my temper which terrifies you.”

It feels like it would be impolite to affirm that, so I simply shrug.

“Have I ever touched you in anger, Jayta?” Raikaron asks. A direct question, one that is impossible to avoid with her crouched in front of me.

I shake my head.

“Then why do you recoil?” she asks.

It’s a struggle to answer it, but I force myself to look up and meet her gaze. “You aren’t human. You’re a… thing, this… thing packed away into a pretty body and fancy clothes and made to look human, but underneath it all, you’re still this… thing. Looking at you feels like looking at a lie. Everything about you feels real, and yet I know there’s something beneath it, something big and scary hiding like. Right there in front of me. There’s a bigass monster crouching less than a foot away from me right now.”

She’s quiet for a moment, processing that. “You speak as if you would prefer to see me as I am.”

“Well, yeah, I feel it would be more honest than…” I motion to her. “…all this.”

“Why is this not honest?” she asks, tilting her head to one side. “I labored quite thoroughly over this vessel. I designed it with great care and attention to detail, not just for my own comfort, but for the comfort of those who would have to interact with it. If I was not proud of it, I would not be using it as an expression of myself.”

“Well… because it’s not really you!” I protest weakly.

“Then you would prefer to see me as I am.” she says, brows furrowing.

I hesitate. “Um… yeah…”

“Every day.” she continues.

I bite my lip, then nod.

“And you would not recoil from what you saw, or turn your gaze aside.” she inquires.

I open my mouth, then hesitate as I flash back to that day when Spite got his arm ripped off. I remember what I saw; a long, thick black tongue, inhumanly shaped and over twenty feet long, the bulbous, sticky end bristling with dozens of writhing hands that latched onto Spite and dragged him back down the hall. And that had only been a tiny glimpse of the full Raikaron — a black tongue with a hundred hands, grasping, hungry… ravenous.

I couldn’t begin to imagine what the rest of the real Raikaron looked like.

But that hesitation is a damning hesitation, an answer unto itself. “You hesitate, and so your claim lacks conviction.” Raikaron says softly. “You would extol a virtue in theory, but fail to follow it in practice.”

“No, no—” I say, quickly, leaning forward a little.

“You ask for something without truly realizing what you are asking for.” she overrides me gently. “You only think you want to see my natural self. And yet in your own words, you know there is a ‘bigass monster’ ‘packed away into a pretty body and fancy clothes’ right in front of you. You say you want the truth, yet when you caught only the barest glimpse of the truth several days ago, it terrified you. It still does terrify you. Your body betrays it, your mind betrays it, your words betray it.” She tilts her head to the other side, leaning forward by imperceptible millimeters. “Tell me, Jayta, why do you describe my natural self as a monster?”

“I— well—” I stutter, coloring. “I— I mean, it—”

“It looked different than what you are used to.” Raikaron says softly. “The little bit that you saw was unfamiliar to you, and it was big, and strange, and therefore scary. You are not the only one to have that reaction. Why do you think my kind create vessels to inhabit when we visit and reside in the Waking planes? Why do you think we assume forms that are similar to the ones that mortals are trapped in, and that are pleasing to behold? It is because you recoil when you see what we really are, and call us monsters.”

“I— I didn’t mean it that way…” I blurt out, desperate to mount some defense against Raikaron’s relentless logic.

Her eyebrows bend upwards at the tips. “Then how did you mean it, Jayta?”

My mouth hangs open, and then closes when I realize I don’t have an answer, have nothing to say to that. I shrink a little, looking away and feeling my face heat up with shame and embarrassment. I’d meant exactly what I’d said, and I just didn’t want to admit that I’d said exactly what I meant.

Reaching up, Raikaron takes off her glasses, and folds them shut, tucking them into her pocket. “Is this not enough, Jayta?” she asks, holding out her hands towards me. “Go on, touch them. Is this not real enough for you? What is the difference between our skin?”

I look at her hands, then up at her; she nods when I do so, and I reach out hesitantly, touching my fingers to hers. They are soft and warm, probably no different from my hands, at least before I started chopping wood. My fingers are stiff and hardened now, some of them starting to develop calluses, but if I stopped chopping wood long enough, they’d probably go back to the way Raikaron’s were right now — soft, warm, silky.

“It’s just…” I sigh, folding my fingers around hers. “…it isn’t actually you. It’s just something you’re wearing. Bodies are like clothes to you, just outfits you can change in and out of.”

“Perhaps. But you don’t walk around naked, do you?” she asks.

“I— I— uh, no.” I stammer.

“Precisely. You wear clothes because people would stare if you did not. You would feel exposed, and vulnerable.” Raikaron explains patiently. “So too for me. As you’ve so eloquently stated, bodies are like clothes to me. I do not wish to go about nude any more than you do.”

I scowl at her. “This is why I don’t like talking with you! I always lose when we start debating!”

She shrugs. “If your ideas and worldview cannot hold up under scrutiny, then perhaps that is a sign that they are flawed and deserve reconsideration or an upgrade.”

My hands pull away from hers as I continue scowling at her. “I don’t need moralizing from a demon lord, thank you very much!”

“Clearly.” she remarks drily. “What would a Lord of Sjelefengsel know about morality, after all? It’s not like we embody the vices of mortality, or are tasked with sifting and punishing the depravity of mortals.”

I fold my arms, pouting at her. “Exactly! All you know is sin; it’s all you deal with, day in and day out. You’re not exactly qualified to teach morality.”

“Quite the contrary. An education in vice is, by merit of opposites, also an education in virtue.” she says, reaching up to her breast pocket and pulling out the folded napkin there. “In knowing one, you know the other. If you know what earns you a place in hell, then by inference, you can determine what would earn you a seat in heaven; and vice versa. Archangels and demon lords are experts in morality; we must be, if we are to be discerning in our work.”

“Well, I still don’t need your advice about it.” I grumble as she starts dabbing at my face with the napkin, cleaning away grit and dirt from where I’d wiped my face with my gloved hands more than a few times.

“I would dissent on that count.” she murmurs as she methodically works around my face. “Scientists have a reputation for glossing over ethics in pursuit of knowledge, and you were an aspiring scientist, were you not? I think you could stand to learn something about morality from those who regularly assess and mete out punishment to the damned.”

“That’s just a stereotype perpetuated by the entertainment complex.” I complain, squirming away from the napkin a little.

“So you say.” Raikaron says, her free hand reaching out to cup the underside of my jaw and hold my face still while she continues cleaning it. “Yet the history of our resident librarian speaks to the truth from which the stereotype springs.”

I grit my teeth a little at the touch, conflicted about it. My first instinct is to growl at her, though by now I know better than to bite the hand that feeds me. And yet at the same time there is something about it that feels good, as odd as it is. It’s a firm grip, but with soft fingers, warm and steady; it’s been a month since someone has touched me like this, held me in some way. It also keeps me from looking away her, so I have time to study her face, the way her intoxicating green eyes lock onto new smudges to wipe away, or the way her crimson brows furrow together in expressed focus.

Well, at least until she notices me staring.

“No retorts and no questions to the last counterpoint?” Raikaron asks, letting go of my jaw as she turns her attention to my hands, looking them over.

“Mek already told me what got him sent here.” I say, looking away the moment she lets go of my face. “So… yeah. Fine. Whatever. Like I said, this is why I don’t like talking with you.”

“Because you always lose when we debate?” she asks, her fingers running over the toughened spots on my hands.

“Yeah.”

“If it helps, I am not doing it to prove you wrong.” she says, looking back up at me. “Hell is a chance to change who we are. A chance to learn things we did not learn during our mortal tenure, to learn from the mistakes which sent us here. I don’t debate you for the sake of proving you wrong — I debate you for the sake of showing you another way of seeing the universe. To show you that your way of seeing things is not the only way.”

“But I don’t want to debate you.” I blurt out, then look away, frantically searching for something to cover over those words. “Just… teach me things. I wanted to be a scientist. I like learning, understanding how things work.”

“Yes, I suppose…” she says, letting go of my hands. “The curse of empirical curiosity. You’re not interested in the why, you’re just interested in the how. I can see how that might lead you to the places you know you should not go.” Resting her arms on her knees again, she looks up at the lantern-laden canopy above us. “You came to see my tree, didn’t you. It left an impression on you.”

I look up as well. Seen from this angle, the lanterns tucked away in the tree’s canopy are like a constellation of stars, both illuminating the branches and casting shadows over them. “Why is it out here?” I ask. “As a matter of fact, why is any of this here? Where does the water come from? I’ve seen how desolate everything is outside the estate. And why is warmer in here? Every time I’ve come in here, it feels like it’s spring, or the start of summer.”

“One at a time, little demon.” she says, turning and sitting on one of the tree’s roots. “Pick a single question, and I will answer it.”

“Okay.” I say, looking around. “Just… why the garden? Why is it out here? Why isn’t anyone allowed to come in here?”

“Well, that’s very simple.” she says, folding the napkin. “The garden is to house the tree. Everything else in the garden — the flowers, the fruit-bearing trees and bushes — are all an outgrowth of that purpose.”

“So all of this is just for the tree?” I say, motioning to the rest of the garden outside the shadow of the tree’s canopy.

“More or less.”

“Which means that the tree is important for some reason.” I say, looking back at the warped and hunched trunk of the tree. “What’s the big deal with the tree?”

“The tree itself is a little bit of home.” Raikaron says as she finishes folding her napkin and tucking it back in her breast pocket. “It’s not native to Sjelefengsel. It’s a specimen from the Dreaming; a vestige of the place I came from, and my link back to it, should I ever wish to visit.”

“Oh.” I say, staring back up into canopy. “So it’s important to you. I guess that’s why people aren’t allowed in the garden?”

“You deduce correctly.”

“What’s up with the lanterns? It doesn’t look like there’s anything in them, so I can’t figure out how they glow.”

“Ah, the lanterns.” she smiles, lacing her fingers together. “Each one represents a soul, sold unto me by way of a contract.”

The breath goes out of me, and the constellation of lights above us is suddenly far less enchanting, and much more sinister. I can’t even begin to count all the lanterns hanging on the branches, but it’s a lot. Possibly hundreds.

“Those are all… souls?” I say, my voice catching in my throat.

“Yes and no. Some actually contain souls. Others represent a soul that is owed to me through a contract, but has not yet been collected. Your lantern, for example, is presently empty.” she explains with a smile aimed up at the pastel spectrum above us. “If you should be killed in the course of an assigned task, your soul will return to the lantern that has been reserved for it.”

I swallow hard. “I would be stuck in that lantern… forever?”

Raikaron brings her eyes back down to look at me. “No. I could recreate a vessel for you, just the same as I create vessels for myself.” Reaching out, she pinches at my shoulder; it takes a moment, but I realize she’s plucked a hair off my work shirt. “I would just need a small sample of you, of which I have plenty, and that would serve as the template upon which I could recreate your body. Once it is completed, I would return your soul to your recreated body.”

That’s a lot to take in. “So if I die… you can bring me back?”

“That is one of the benefits of a contract with me, yes.” Raikaron says, taking her napkin back out of her pocket and folding it around the hair she plucked. “Your soul belongs to me. If you die, I can recreate your body, down to every freckle, and restore your soul unto it.”

I’m dumbfounded. “But… but why didn’t you ever tell me that? I’ve gone on tasks where I’ve been scared for my life and thought I was gonna die for good!”

“I can technically do this for anyone that has sold their soul to me.” Raikaron says, tucking her napkin back in her pocket. “But just because I can does not mean I will. Creating a vessel is not easy; it takes time, effort, and a certain supernal attention to detail. Due to these factors, it is a privilege reserved only for myself and the most loyal and valuable of my subordinates, people that would be extremely difficult to replace if they were lost.”

“Oh.” I say quietly. “Yeah, I suppose that makes sense.” After a moment, I have to ask the inevitable follow-up question to that. “So if I…?”

She returns to lacing her fingers together. “You want to know if I would bring you back if you died.”

I nod mutely.

“I think I will leave that ambiguous. I do not want you to abandon caution on your tasks simply because you think I will resurrect you if you fall.” she answers. “Carelessness too often comes of those that are not compelled by fear of death. You see this with Harro; he knows he will return if he is killed, though that is by the law of Sjelefengsel, and not by my hand. If it were up to me, I would prevent his resurrections altogether. Death has lost its sting for him; he no longer fears it, and that absence of fear gives him the courage to be flippant and disrespectful.”

“But why would he get resurrected, and not me?” I ask. “I’m a demon too. Is there something special about him or his punishment that means he gets resurrected?”

“You are a contract demon. You are not in hell because you were sentenced to be here for your mortal sins; you never died, as the damned have.” Raikaron explains. “When the damned are killed, they are reconstituted in the sulphur fields if their deaths did not satisfy the conditions of their sentence. Contract demons, on the other hand, are still considered living mortals that just happen to be in the employ of hell. When they die, their contract is considered fulfilled, and Sjelefengsel lays claim on their soul. Though for demons in the direct employ of Lords, their souls first return to their Lords, who can decide whether they wish to reconstitute them, or let their souls pass on to become part of the core which powers all of Sjelefengsel.”

“Oh.” I need a moment to process that. “Well I’ll, uhm. Do my best not to die, then.”

“Good. Because even if I did decide to bring you back after dying, you would spend at least a month in your lantern.” she says matter-of-factly. “Creating a vessel takes time. A month would be a rush job, with only limited time permitted for quality checks. Sjelefengsel itself can reconstitute a body in a week in the sulphur fields, and do it for multiple thousands of demons at a given moment, but it has access to the aggregate power of billions of years of damned souls. My power is, as can be expected, somewhat less than that.”

“Yeah. Of course; that makes sense.” I agree nervously. “Are you, uhm… mad at me for coming into the garden without permission?”

She studies me for a long moment, then looks away. “That is hard to explain. You have done something you should not have — you trespassed in a place you knew you should not go. Most other Lords, I anticipate, would be understandably irritated or incensed by this. But I know you, and I know youth. It is prone to poor choices. To that end, I am not surprised that you would do this… merely disappointed. If you wanted to see the garden, you simply had to ask — there was no need to skulk around like a thief in the night.”

I look away, fidgeting with my fingers. Something about that stings more than her anger — like she knew I would do it, and was resigned to the possibility of trespass. My disobedience hadn’t surprised her, because her expectations for me were set low, and I’d met them exactly as she’d expected. It was clear she didn’t think much of me, and didn’t hold me in the regard that my position in the House would otherwise merit.

“You’re always so busy, though.” I mumble softly. “It doesn’t feel like I can interrupt you. And Danya says your time is valuable, and I shouldn’t be wasting it or distracting you…”

“I will be the judge of how my time is used, not Danya.” Raikaron says, looking at me now. “If you have something to ask me or talk to me about, I will make time for you, Jayta. I did not give you the rank and position you have with the expectation that we would never interact.”

“Okay.” I say quietly. The idea that I can just go to Raikaron and talk to her whenever I want — it’s a weird one. Even though she’s right here, telling me I can do exactly that, there’s still a part of me that says that can’t be right, that there’s no way I could go to her whenever I want and talk with her.

“At any rate, I believe we have spoken long enough.” she says, standing up. “The day fades, and you are running out of time to secure more hot water for your shower tonight. You should get back to that, and I should get back to my duties as a Lord of Sjelefengsel.” She holds a hand out to me, an offer to be helped back up to my feet.

Reaching up, I take her hand, standing upright with her help. “Before I go… I was wondering… could you reduce the number of logs I have to chop before I can have my hot water back again? I’m getting better at it, but I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to chop sixty logs in a day. I can get to forty-five, maybe fifty, maybe a little more than that, but it’s just… it’s not physically possible for me. I’m too small.”

“It always seems impossible until we do it.” Raikaron says, reaching out and placing a couple fingers under my chin to tilt my head up slightly. My first instinct is to pull away, but her neon green eyes hold me still. “Sixty logs is what has been asked of you. Will you at least try to reach that mark?”

I squirm, averting my eyes. “I mean, I can try, but if I can’t, I’ll just be stuck chopping logs until Aritska tells me to stop…”

“I’m not asking you to succeed.” she says firmly. “I’m just asking you to try. Can you do that?”

I bite my lip, then nod wordlessly.

“Good. That’s all I ask. Keep pushing every day until you have reached your peak, and when you can improve no more, that will be enough for me.” Leaning forward, she combs my bangs away from my eyes, and plants a kiss on my forehead — again, my first instinct is to recoil, but then I realize that the aches and stiffness in my arms, legs, and back are starting to disappear. I try to stop myself from pulling away, but I’ve already followed through on it, resulting in an awkward kind of pull-back, halfway jerk-forward motion.

“What did you…?” I murmur, touching my fingers to where her lips had been pressed against my forehead.

Raikaron raises an eyebrow in amusement. “If you would rather I not do so…”

“No!” I say quickly. “It felt… uhm, nice. Not the kiss, the pain relief. I mean, that’s not to say that the kiss wasn’t nice, but it was… I thought you were…”

“Well, I don’t run about kissing people’s sweaty foreheads for my enjoyment.” she points out.

I fluster at that. “Look, you and Aritska are the ones that ordered me to chop wood for ten hours a day and then only give me a tiny bit of hot water for each log chopped!” I protest.

“A valid observation.” she admits, her mouth curling a little at the corner. “Would you like me to finish?”

After a moment of hesitation, I nod.

“Very well.” She leans forward again, and I close my eyes as she presses her lips to my forehead once more. My aches and soreness start to evaporate again, and I feel warm and relaxed. I’m still tired, and I probably won’t be chopping wood all that much faster, but it’ll make it easier to endure the last hour or so of daylight that I have before nightfall comes.

“Now go on, get along.” she says as she pulls her lips away from my forehead. “You have work to do.”

“Yes, my Lord.” I say, giving a little bow before turning and walking away. As I go, I reflect that those three words were something that, months ago, would’ve had to have been dragged out of me, resentful and sulky. Now they came more easily, and were spoken with tones of appreciation, rather than resentment. As I dwell on the difference that five months had made, I couldn’t help but wonder:

Did Raikaron finally break me?

I reach up, touching my fingers to the spot on my forehead where she’d kissed me. Part of me said that this wasn’t right, that I shouldn’t be okay with any of this. Part of me kept telling me that this was hell, and I was shackled to a demon lord, and none of this was normal or acceptable. That I was being brainwashed into thinking this was all okay, and that I needed to snap out of it and see things for what they were.

But that part is faint and weak, dwarfed by the part of me that now understands that hell is more than just a place for the damned. The part of me that knows that hell exists to help balance an imbalanced universe. The same part of me that now understands that hell isn’t just place to be punished; it’s a place where you have a chance to change who you are.

Pausing at the edge of the clearing, I look over my shoulder. Raikaron has turned back to the tree, her arms folded behind her back as she stares up into the canopy. She’s painted in the kaleidoscope of colors cast by her lanterns, their lights reflected in her limpid eyes.

There’s a part of me that understands that some demons, while not good by any stretch of the imagination, are not quite evil either.