Chapter 94: Everything a Person Costs

The demon went rigid.

Two razor-thin lines of blood opened across both of his thick forearms at once. His severed hands dropped cleanly into the mud, releasing Lyra’s throat as black demonic blood poured across the cobblestones.

Up and down the street, the screaming died away.

Directly behind the demon stood Kōya, blue lightning crackling along the dark steel of Stormfront in his right hand. Already shrugging out of his heavy jacket with his left hand, Kōya tossed the warm wool around Lyra’s shivering shoulders.

"Put this on," Kōya said.

Lyra caught the coat with trembling hands, pulling the lapels shut over her torn dress.

Staring down at his bleeding stumps in shock, the demon wheezed, "You—"

Kōya flashed forward with Stormfront. The lightning impact hurled the demon backward across the lane, smashing his spine into the brick facade of the opposite building as Kōya drove the blade through his shoulder to pin him against the masonry. Arcs of blue current spiderwebbed across the brick.

Kōya looked into the creature’s eyes, his voice colder than winter iron. "Who sent you?"

Despite the black blood pouring down his arms, the demon let out a weak, rattling laugh. "You think pain makes me talk?"

Kōya leaned his weight onto the hilt, grinding the steel deeper into bone. "I asked a question."

The demon’s grin vanished. Before the creature could spit a curse, Kōya wrenched the blade free, spun seamlessly on his heel, and drove a brutal roundhouse kick square into the center of the demon’s sternum.

Brick and mortar exploded inward. The kick launched the demon straight through the load-bearing wall in a cloud of red dust, dropping him out of sight into the dark interior.

Lyra stared at the gaping four-foot breach in the brickwork. "Where did he go?"

Kōya scanned the dark cavity beyond the broken masonry. To ordinary eyes, the hole showed only shadow; to Kōya’s senses, a faint, crippled pulse of demonic mana flickered inside a narrow foundation recess beneath the collapsed floorboards. Alive, and playing dead in the dark.

Kōya memorized the foundation recess and left him there—because across the street, a tall man in expensive, multi-layered robes had halted beside the boardwalk after watching the entire exchange.

Hidden within the folds of his silk lapel glinted the silver insignia of the Slane trade council. It was the same senior councilman who had watched Kōya from the third-tier balcony of the underground arena the night before.

Walking slowly across the rubble, the councilman stopped three paces away. "You really are troublesome, boy."

Kōya rested his hand near his hilt, narrowing his eyes. "Who was that creature?"

"You already know what he was."

"A demon."

"Yes."

"Working for which house in your city?"

The councilman glanced toward the breached brick wall, then back to Kōya’s face. "You can deduce the answer to that yourself."

Kōya held his stare without blinking.

The councilman’s expression sobered, his eyes dropping briefly to the bulge of the iron qualification token in Kōya’s pocket. "Now you’re ready."

"For what?"

"You survived the pit brawl, proved your blade, and demonstrated in broad daylight that the rumors from the cellar weren’t exaggerated," the councilman said quietly. "Stay alert."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning people you haven’t met yet will be watching for you." Turning away, the councilman stepped back into the flow of the street. "We will speak again inside the hall."

Once the silk robes vanished into the crowd, Lyra stepped up beside Kōya. Buried inside his heavy jacket, her cheeks were flushed bright red.

"Are you hurt?" Kōya asked, checking the red mark on her throat.

She shook her head quickly. "No."

"Good."

After a quiet beat, she looked up at him. "Thank you."

"Of course."

Looking at his steady profile, the words he had spoken at the city checkpoint echoed in her ears: She’s with me. Lyra belongs to no one. Her heart gave another hard thump against her ribs, and she dropped her eyes to the mud.

By the inn porch, the old innkeeper was on his knees hugging his sobbing daughter to his chest. Looking up with tears in his eyes, he bowed his forehead toward Lyra and Kōya.

"You stood right in front of that monster for my girl," the old man choked out.

Lyra shifted uncomfortably on her heels. "Anyone on the street would have done it."

The innkeeper looked at Kōya’s blood-splattered boots and the hole in the brick wall across the lane. "Not everyone could have done what he did."

Kōya shrugged one shoulder. "She was in the way."

Wiping his streaming eyes on his apron, the old man stood and ushered them toward the door. "I don’t have the gold to repay a life debt, so sit down inside and let me feed you a hot meal before you go."

Refusing was pointless; within ten minutes the innkeeper had set out warm barley loaves, sweetened tea, and sliced orchard fruit on the taproom table.

Across the board, Lyra watched Kōya quietly for several seconds while he ate with one hand and traced his charcoal supply list with the other.

"Medicine, bandages, climbing rope, travel rations," Kōya read off, then looked up. "Let’s go shopping."

Caught staring, Lyra blinked and stumbled over her tongue. "Shopping? Right now—when we barely know—" She caught herself and stopped.

Kōya looked at her with a creased brow. "Our medical pouch is empty, our camp gear is broken, and your sleeve is torn from the fight."

Looking down at her frayed cuff peeking out from under his jacket, she let out a defeated sigh. "You’re right."

Kōya stood up and buckled his sword belt. "We need everything packed before the auction doors open."

At the mention of the hall, Lyra’s face darkened, and she muttered a rapid, venomous curse under her breath.

Kōya’s ear twitched. "What was that?"

"Nothing."

"What did you say?"

"I cursed that slave broker to die in a ditch."

Kōya nodded once. "Good. He earned it."

A bright laugh escaped her as she stood up and adjusted her satchel strap. "Fine. Let’s go to the market."

With the Mega Slave Auction hours away, the central bazaar was packed wall-to-wall with incoming caravans, silk-clad merchants, and armed house retinues shopping for luxury goods, weapons, and arcane charms.

Moving down the center of the main avenue walked a Demon Peer dressed in tailored human court velvet. Even without drawing a weapon, the suffocating weight of his aura made ordinary townspeople scramble out of his path into the gutters. One pace behind his heel walked his personal demon attendant.

The Demon Peer turned his red eyes toward the iron-barred staging paddocks where handlers were marching a long line of collared women toward the hall.

"I can’t wait for the noon lots to take the stage," the Peer murmured.

His servant bowed his head. "The final consignments are being dressed now, my lord."

"Good." A cruel smile crossed the Demon Peer’s mouth. "And Zeref still hasn’t shown his face in the territory. Perhaps the fool died in the mud somewhere. Why should that bastard keep all the prime stock for his own vaults?"

The servant stayed silent at his elbow.

Looking toward the black-stone dome of the auction house rising above the roofs, the Demon Peer smirked. "That strong beastwoman he cursed under our Lord’s direct orders is on today’s main slate. I’ll buy her paper out from under him. I wonder how much of her mind is left behind her eyes."

Three lanes over, screened by the crowd, Lyra halted in front of a small silversmith’s stall.

Resting on a black velvet pad in the window sat a simple silver pendant set with a warm, faintly colored stone in the center. Lifting it gently on two fingers, she murmured, "It’s pretty."

Kōya glanced over her shoulder. "Want it?"

She turned the small price tag attached to the chain, and her face fell at once. "Too expensive." Laying it carefully back on the velvet, she stepped away. "Maybe another time."

Kōya said nothing, locking the shape of the pendant and the rack of dresses next door into his memory before following her down the street.

They bought the herbal salves first, followed by fifty feet of hemp rope, dried rations, and a replacement camp pot. Leaving Lyra outside the apothecary for two minutes, Kōya walked back to the artisan’s stall alone.

The merchant looked up with a smile. "Back for something?"

"The silver pendant in the center of the tray," Kōya said, laying down the gold without haggling. "And that blue dress on the rack."

Carrying both wrapped parcels back through the crowd, he found Lyra waiting by the apothecary post.

"What took so long?" she asked.

Kōya held out the larger parcel. "Here."

Unwrapping the paper, she stared wide-eyed at the clean blue dress—until he handed her the tiny box holding the silver pendant from the window.

Lyra stared down at the stone in her palm. "This is the pendant I was looking at."

"Yes."

"I told you it was too expensive and I couldn’t afford it."

"I could," Kōya said, already turning to walk back toward the inn.

Pressing the pendant tight against her breastbone as her pulse hammered in her ears, Lyra stared at his broad back moving through the crowd and smiled brightly. "Idiot."

Kōya glanced back half an inch. "What?"

"Nothing."

Thirty yards behind them in the shadow of the awnings, the Demon Peer’s servant tracked their backs through the bazaar. Having watched the boy hand the girl a tailored dress, a silver jewel box, and bags of supplies, the demon reached a simple conclusion: the boy held her contract. Kill him in a quiet lane, and taking her for his lord would take two minutes.

Reading the clumsy tail two blocks before they reached the inn lane, Kōya altered their course without a word, steering them past the tavern toward the dense belt of pines bordering the eastern city wall. At the edge of the trees, he handed Stormfront’s scabbard to Lyra so the coming execution would stay quiet.

"Where are you going?" Lyra asked, cradling the heavy sword.

"Checking something in the trees. Go upstairs and change; I’ll be back in ten minutes."

Trusting his tone, she headed for the inn porch while Kōya walked deep into the shadow of the pines.

Once the thick trunks muffled the street noise, the Demon Peer’s servant stepped out from behind a hemlock, drawing a jagged blade with a sneer. "You made this easy, boy. You should have stayed in the crowd."

Kōya turned slowly on the pine needles. "Why?"

"Because gutting you out here makes taking your slave back to my master simple."

"Who is your master?" Kōya asked, his face cold.

The demon laughed. "You think I answer to a corpse?"

Kōya drew the Hero Sword. The pure, ringing note of white steel clearing the scabbard wiped the smile straight off the demon’s mouth.

"That blade—"

Kōya vanished from his spot.

Before the servant could raise his guard, Kōya crossed the clearing and drove the Hero Sword straight through the center of his armored chest, pinning him off his feet against the pine trunk behind him.

"Who," Kōya said, six inches from the demon’s face, "is your master?"

Coughing thick black blood down his chin, the demon let out a weak, ragged laugh. "You... have no idea what you’ve stepped into..."

Kōya pressed the glowing steel an inch deeper into the heartwood. "Name."

Gasping for air, the dying servant choked out the name of the Demon Peer who held his leash.

Committing the name to memory, Kōya wrenched the Hero Sword free and let the body slump into the tree roots. Looking down at the corpse, then back through the branches toward the gilded roofs of Slane, Kōya’s jaw set hard. Take. Own. Consume. The brokers, the collars, the pits, and the Peers—every rotten stone of this city sat beneath the rule of the regional Demon Lord, Dravenn Korr.

When Kōya pushed the inn door open ten minutes later, Lyra was walking down the wooden stairs wearing the new blue dress, the silver pendant catching the lantern light at her collarbone while she carried Stormfront carefully in both hands.

"You left this upstairs," she said, smiling as she handed him the Lightning Sword.

Kōya buckled the scabbard back onto his hip. "Thanks."

She eyed his clean coat with mild suspicion. "You took a while."

"Had a small matter to clear up."

Leaving the question alone, she smoothed the skirt of the blue dress. "Does it look okay?"

Kōya looked straight at her. "Yeah. You like the pendant?"

Her fingertips brushed the warm stone at her throat. "I love it."

Reaching into his pocket, Kōya drew out the heavy iron qualification token from the fighting pits and looked toward the street doors as the noon bells tolled across the city. "We have our pass to the restricted tiers. Come on—let’s see who’s waiting at the auction."