Page 4 of To Sway a Demon Heart

The Lord of Blood and I managed to avoid each other the whole next day and well into the afternoon of Samhain. The holiday would be celebrated in Shadow with a feast and a ball.

Elara had wrinkled her nose at this plan as well, her experience of Samhain in the Witchlands as a much more pious affair, focused primarily on the turning between life and death. For the most part, demons celebrated the holiday similarly, with prayers of remembrance and a small offering to the dead, praying that they would guide us into the next year and through the darkest months safely.

But the people of Shadow were a bit darker than the rest of us.

I was beyond excited to see Elara again. She and Cerridwen, mate of the Lord of Beasts, had become close friends, and they knew all about the situation with Tyr. Although we had been apart for most of the last month, we had spoken often via mirror, sometimes both of them together in Oneiros, and other times with Elara setting up an additional mirror when Cerridwen was in the Sacred City.

I wished Cerridwen could come too. She and Herne had to lead services in Beasts, where Samhain was treated more reverently. I hoped my people would be fine without me in Sun, but I knew my advisors and priestesses would take care of everything.

I wondered briefly if Tyr worried about his own people in Blood, while I smoothed my gown and checked my appearance in the mirror one last time.

Black was the traditional color of Samhain, and in accordance with that tradition, I had procured a gown of black flowing chiffon held up by a band of gold around my throat. I added some additional gold jewelry to my ears and arms to brighten up the gown as a nod to my own court. I would always prefer bright colors to black, but I thought I looked rather lovely as I braided my golden hair atop my head.

For a second, I allowed myself the fantasy of letting Tyr run his strong fingers through the braids, dislodging the pins as he pressed me against the wall and…

A knock at my door startled me from the daydream, which had left my heart racing and my face uncomfortably warm. I hurried to the door, expecting to find one of the servants or lords to let me know that Elara had arrived, but stopped short when I opened the door to find the subject of my daydream.

Tyr was made for a life amid the darkness of this court. The black jacket, accented with touches of red as homage to his own court, showed off his form and made him look like darkness and temptation incarnate. His dark red hair was almost the same color as the thread in his jacket, and my face warmed even more as he looked at me with just as much frank appraisal.

“Gods, you look—” he cut himself off as if realizing that whatever he was about to say was not going to be something an uninterested colleague might say. The heat in his gaze told me that the Pull was riding him just as strongly as it was me, and as much as I wanted to shake some sense into him and demand he take me here and now, I managed to get a hold of myself.

“Appropriate?” I asked, trying to suggest a word that could not be misconstrued as romantic. “I know black is customary for Samhain, but it’s not my favorite color.”

“No. I mean, yes,” Tyr agreed, clearing his throat a little. He swallowed as his eyes swept my form again, getting a little bit caught at the swell of the gown over my breasts. “But I was going to say beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying to beat back the Pull as it celebrated this tiny victory of approval. “You look beautiful as well.”

He raised a brow at me, a small smirk playing at his lips, and my heart lurched a little as he held out an arm for me. He must have read my momentary hesitation over taking it as confusion.

“I thought we could greet Carnon and Elara together,” he said by way of explanation. “If you want.”

“Of course,” I agreed, quickly checking that I had the key to the room in the concealed pocket in my gown. Elara had converted me to the practicality of pockets, and I had begun to have all of my dresses altered to include them.

I took Tyr’s arm and let him escort me down the hall. The witch mirror for travel in the Court of Shadow had been placed in what used to be Scathanna’s reception hall. She had clearly designed it to be more like a throne room, and we had gutted most of the decor to make the place less foreboding. I had taken great pleasure in burning Scathanna’s “throne” to cinders, and tonight the room would serve as a ballroom for the Samhain festivities.

Tables of food and drink were being prepared against one wall as we arrived. The people of Shadow were still prone to choosing dark colors for all decor, but we had cleaned out the cobwebs, and I had insisted on having at least a hundred candles burning to light the room. A fireplace warmed the space, and the decorations of weaponry and caged creatures under Scathanna’s reign had been replaced with tapestries and garlands of autumn leaves and berries, and a few orange pumpkins I had shipped in from Sun.

Shadow was designed differently from the other courts in the Darklands. Whereas all of the other courts had villages or cities, as well as a lordly residence and maybe a temple or two, Shadow was a network of underground caverns carved into the inhospitable southern mountains. It was like a city underground but without the privacy of separate dwellings. All the residents of Shadow were either some level of nobility with apartments in the cavernous city adjoining Scathanna’s court, or servants and artisans who worked for the various noble families. They had smaller rooms or family apartments in the deeper, less desirable sections of the mountain.

Everyone, it seemed, had a strict role and set of expectations, and there was very little freedom of mobility from the station into which one was born.

On our first day in Shadow, I had made it clear to the demons in lower castes that none would be forced to remain. We had offered them safe passage to Oneiros or beyond if they wanted to leave, and we had extended the offer to the nobility as well. Few chose to abandon their court, and I suppose it would be hard, spending your life in darkness, to embrace a different sort of unknown existence.

Nevertheless, we could make things better for the people here, and that came down to choosing a Daemon Lord who would uphold the values of Carnon’s court.

“It looks almost festive,” Tyr commented as we entered the hall after a mostly silent trek through the shadowy hallways between our guest quarters and the reception hall. It had taken me two full weeks to navigate without getting lost, and I was convinced that it was part of the reason Tyr offered to escort me.

“Thank you,” I said dryly, smiling faintly at the weak compliment. I had spent the entire morning helping prepare the room to set a welcoming and cheerful tone for Elara and Carnon, rather than one that felt so ominously of death. “I still don’t understand the idea of Samhain as a celebration. In Sun, it’s quite a somber affair.”

“It’s more like this in Blood,” Tyr said, gesturing to the musicians in the corner who were tuning instruments, and the long tables of food and wine that spoke somewhat of excess. “I try to think of it as a celebration for those we loved, rather than a memorial for the lost.”

“I suppose I can see that,” I agreed with a thoughtful nod. “Does it not involve blood drinking and debauchery?” I added with a little teasing smile.

Tyr didn’t return the smile as he frowned down at me. “Everything in my court involves blood drinking and debauchery.”

“Oh,” I said, letting my teasing smile fall away. This male was so difficult to read nowadays. One minute he was chatting openly, and the next, he completely shut down. It was exhausting, and my poor heart couldn’t take much more of the emotional tug-of-war. “I’m sorry.”

Tyr gave me a pained look, somewhere between exasperation and shame. “I—”