Brimstone (Fae & Alchemy, #2)

by Callie Hart

“Fisher.” His eyes came alive at the sound of my voice. “Hmm?” “Stop.” His nostrils flared, his jaw working. “I can’t help it if he doesn’t want to live.”

“Where’s the redhead?” “Who?” “The annoying male with witty comebacks.” “You think Carrion is funny?”

“What does that mean, called by the gods? Like, you found religion?”

“Fuck you, Lorreth.” He made a face. “You kiss my commander with that mouth?” “I’ve done far worse than kiss him with it.”

“Fisher? Fisher. Are we nearly at the door? Ow, what the hell was that? Something hit my arm really hard.” “It was my fist. Now shut. The fuck. Up.”

The smuggler was standing frozen in the middle of the hall with his hands outstretched, knees bent, ass sticking out like he’d shit himself.

“If you exhaust all of your magic, you’ll be as powerless as me, then?” I scoffed at that. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll still know how to hold a fucking sword.” “All right. There’s no need to be rude about it.

If you’re not careful, I’ll start to think I’m rubbing off on you.” “Don’t use the word rub and then refer to me in the same sentence, please,” I volleyed back at him.

“You have no flaws, Saeris Fane. You are perfect in my eyes, imperfections and all. I’m in love with every part of you. Your stubbornness. Your wicked tongue. Your foul temper when you’re tired.

“The way that you love me. Some would say that is your weakness.”

“Some would say that,” he agreed. “But they would be wrong. It’s my strength.”

“Is it weird, knowing that people’s balls retract up into their bodies whenever you’re around?”

“In Ammontraíeth, is it considered incest if you sleep with your maker? ’Cause it sounds to me like someone was fucking Daddy.”

“Dreams are just vapor and smoke,” I said. “They mean nothing unless you’re willing to live them.

“Hey, don’t drag me into this. I don’t know what behooves means, either.”

In your shoes, I can see how, well, no, wait, satyrs don’t wear shoes, do you. Let us check that body, and we’ll be out of your hair. I mean fur. I mean—”

A tight, unhappy smile contorted Carrion’s features. “Well, fuck me,” he whispered through clenched teeth.

“My name is Carrion,” he said. “Nice to meet you all. I really like your horns.” There were historians among the crowd. Someone would record this moment—the day the satyr community received the Daianthus heir—and when they documented the first thing their Forgotten King had said to them, it would be this: I really like your horns.

“We believe that animals are too pure for this life. They are all ascended beings who live in the after. Everything is perfect there. No pain or misfortune or heartbreak. But sometimes, they peer beyond the veil between this life and the next, and they see us here in the depths of our suffering, and they choose someone. One soul they want to help over any other. They come to us as… dear friends”—he

“It feels like trying to make sand flow backward in an hourglass. It feels like being surrounded by people and being the only one who can’t find the air in the room. It’s drowning on dry land. It’s the hollow ache of something that you know, from that moment on, will always be missing. It is a pain so acute and incurable that poets, pirates, and politicians alike die from it. And it never ends.”