"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

-William Shakespeare "The Tempest"

-Ӝ-

II.

AND DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO

-Ӝ-

Days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, and in that time Kaz's smiles grew few and far between; once he learned that Pekka never intended to release or kill him, he'd simply decided that joy was an emotion that he didn't have the luxury to feel.

Every day was consumed by work; whether it be jumping through fiery hoops or sprinting laps around the arena on a lunge line, Kaz's feet were always moving.

In the time he spent with Pekka- who was dubbed "the Demjin trainer" by his colleagues- he learned many things, usually at the end of the club.

New words were added to his vocabulary, such as "Please," "Thank you," "No," "Stop," and "Bastard." He had an idea of what they meant, but he rarely spoke if he was able to help it: Pekka warned that if Kaz spoke, the audience would begin to question whether or not his showing in the circus was humane- whatever that meant- and had demanded him to never utter another word unless he was told to.

He'd tried to speak only once after the initial meeting with Pekka:

He hadn't been able to jump through the flaming hoop and the odd furs that clothed him had caught fire, giving him severe burns and forcing Pekka to let Kaz rest for a week afterward. Pekka had been furious, and the next time Kaz stepped foot into the rink, Pekka had whipped him.

"No!" Kaz had insisted as the weapon made a gash on his cheek, albeit a shallow one. It still hurt, though. "No! Stop!"

For a moment, Pekka had obeyed, his eyes wide in shock.

Oomen, a man who often attended their sessions and shouted out obscenities when the Demjin lost his footing, had frozen where he sat in the stands.

And for a split second, Kaz thought that he'd done the right thing. That this was why Pekka beat him so much: because Kaz didn't use his words to just ask for him to stop.

For a split second, hope bloomed in his chest.

"No?" he supplied helpfully as the whip dropped to the human's side, and he'd been so naïve and oblivious to the way that Pekka's eyes darkened.

That day, Pekka had beat him into silence.

He hadn't spoken a word since, unless the human had instructed him to do so.

"We're not ready to put him in the shows yet," Pekka sighed to Oomen one night as Kaz was released into his cage, where he immediately flew to his trough and tried to inhale as much water as he possibly could. It was a hot day, even though night had long since settled, but the tent had trapped in heat like a furnace, and Kaz's hair was plastered to his head with sweat.

Never before had he felt such heat, much less undergone rigorous exercise within it: the Sikurzoi's temperature never came above ten degrees, and he felt incredibly out of place here, where the trees grew tall and the ground was flat and covered in dirt rather than rocks.

"He shuffles his feet a lot," Pekka continued as he cleaned off the whip, which was slicked from Kaz's blood. "He doesn't have that 'wow' factor that we were looking for. He could easily pass for a human in dress-up when he's not using his wings."

"Ah, but have you seen when he starts to run hard? He picks is feet up, and it looks like he's barely touching the ground," Oomen remarked, pressing against the bars. Had Kaz not been so exhausted, Oomen's face would've been ripped clean off. "Is there any way to get his feet up higher?"

"We don't have the time to teach him the old fashioned way," Pekka growled, running a frustrated hand down his face. "Jan wants him showing by at least next month."

"I think I have an idea," Oomen murmured, but Kaz barely heard him, too busy collapsing onto his bed made of straw to really pay attention to a conversation that he could hardly understand.

That's how he found himself standing in the middle of the arena, watching with mild curiosity and fear as Oomen and another circus hand by the name of Matthias lathered up his ankles with some odd clear fluid that smelled something awful.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Matthias asked, his brows knitting and his accent thick. He was an immigrant from Fjerda who knew next to no Kerch, and he was paid so little that Kaz was pretty sure the blonde-haired man slept on the property- unlike Oomen and Pekka, who left when it grew dark.

Matthias continued, picking up the bucket of the liquid and eying the droplets that dribbled slowly from the gloves he and Oomen had worn, "It could cripple him permanently."

"It's not your place to put your two cents in," Oomen spat, and Matthias raised his hands in surrender, withdrawing to put back the bucket.

Kaz watched him leave, his heart rate picking up.

Pekka sighed, his lips curling in disgust as he glared daggers into Matthias' back, but eventually waved the whip and got Kaz walking the perimeter of the arena while he began to speak in hushed tones with Oomen.

"It's not working…"

"It takes a while, be patient…"

"He's still not picking his feet up…"

Kaz ignored them, the alien words filtering through one ear and popping out the other. He just kept walking, staring at the arena walls like he'd done for the past months and imagining that he was back in the Sikurzoi.

Though the heat was hard to ignore and the air was hot and stale, he could still imagine, if only for a handful of moments at a time, that he was flying above his home- above the jagged peaks and rolling canyons cut through by gyrating, serpent-like rivers.

He fanned his wings out, allowing his eyes to fall closed as the membranes of his bat-like wings caught an invisible air current. The wind whipped at his face, and eagles circled beneath him. If he concentrated hard enough, he could reach up at touch the clouds…

And then he felt it.

Casting a furtive glance in Pekka's direction and- after a raging internal battle- concluded that the human was too engrossed with his conversation with Oomen to notice if he stopped, Kaz halted, staring down at the small path that he'd worn in the sand from his many hours marching about.

At first, he hadn't really noticed it much, and thought that the sensation may be a result of the dehydration or the heat. But the more he stood there, the more prominent the feeling grew.

Burning.

He drew in a ragged breath and looked down, his eyes widening in horror as he saw that the skin on his ankles had turned an angry red, the mysterious clear substance still glistening in the light that filtered through the red-and-yellow beast pelt.

He whimpered a bit, shuffling back as his ankles grew hot and irritated, the pain spiking whenever he put weight on his foot.

"Ay, Demjin, who said you could stop?" Pekka demanded as Kaz began to back up in hopes of escaping the pain, but it followed him, and he felt his hands beginning to shake.

"Cut him some slack, but don't let him jump around," Oomen suggested mildly.

"Don't tell me how to do my job," was the sharp reply, the whip uncoiling with a loud snap, and Kaz yelped, partially out of fear and partially in pain as his left foot connected with the sand and agony surged through his veins. "Go on, keep walking!"

Kaz continued on, his mind racing and his wings thrashing in an attempt to keep some of his weight off of his feet. He was too terrified of punishment to actually fly up, and choked down cries of pain as he marched along, his feet recoiling from the ground as soon as they possibly could.

"There it is!" Pekka crowed, "Good Ghezen, I thought it wouldn't work!"

Kaz was breathing heavily, pain clouding his mind and making his vision swim as he marched around the arena, occasionally leaping up and yelping as his feet connected heavily with the ground.

They tortured him- for that's the only word Kaz could possibly use to describe this- for hours, making him run and walk and even go through the routine that he and Pekka had rehearsed a million times before. The liquid dripped down and splashed onto the tops his feet, making them burn, too, and Kaz had to force the tears back as Pekka made him jump through the hoops and balance on the bottles like he'd been taught.

His legs were shaking pitifully hard as the soles of his feet clung to the milk bottles, his ankles screaming as all of his weight was lowered onto them.

"Now that was a circus act!" Oomen cried as Pekka and Kaz bowed side-by-side.

Like they were friends.

Pekka held the bow for a bit, and Kaz did, too, trembling so hard he feared he would shake right out of his own skin. Once Pekka broke character and jogged over to Oomen to enthuse about the performance, Kaz's knees buckled and he collapsed, whimpering softly.

He wasn't sure how long he lay there, just staring into nothing and praying that the earth would swallow him up, but eventually Pekka and Oomen left, leaving Matthias to bring Kaz back to his cage.

His wings and hands were tied as a precaution, but Matthias made the knots loose. Had Kaz had enough energy, he would've been able to slip out of them easily.

Matthias escorted him down a path he'd trekked a thousand times before until they reached the yard full of circus train cars, which served as enclosures for all of the animals there.

Because that's what Kaz was, no? An animal.

Kaz was limping terribly, and Matthias extended a hand to try and help support him, but Kaz jerked away from him, baring his teeth.

"Everyone so touchy," the Fjerdan tutted in his broken Kerch. "I do not blame you, though. You have reason."

Kaz was shocked when the Fjerdan walked into the cage with him, and suddenly felt self-conscious. Nobody ever went into the cage; they'd either crammed Kaz inside or clubbed the back of his claves until he stumbled in and they could close the door and lock it, but not once had they followed.

Kaz had inadvertently made this his home, the place where everything bad had already happened and he was just there to sleep it off, and now someone was encroaching on this personal space.

Now the Fjerdan was inside, taking in the thin layer of hay that passed as a bed, the water trough full of sloshing, brackish water that was dredged up from the nearby river, and the pitiful slabs of rotting meat that Pekka admitted were the leftovers of the nearby butcher. It smelled terrible, like spoiled meat and a bit of piss from when Kaz had to pee out of the bars because Pekka had forgotten to take him out to the woods, and the Demjin ducked his head shamefully before shuffling over to the hay and collapsing on top of it.

Matthias was not welcome here. He was not meant to feel the terrible memories that permeated the walls, not meant to listen to the phantom echoes of tears that had long since dried, and he certainly wasn't meant to see Kaz where he was most vulnerable.

"Go," Kaz rasped, pointing out the door. He'd learned that "go" could mean both "leave" and "walk", and he was glad that it wasn't really up for interpretation. His throat felt dry, but he didn't really feel like hauling himself over to the disgusting water. He just wanted to sleep, and hopefully, he wouldn't wake up the next day.

"I need to untie you," Matthias replied simply, and in doing so tossed the ropes to the side like they disgusted them. "You are very handsome creature."

Kaz looked over sharply to glare at him.

"Demjin is 'demon' in my native language. You are far from demon. You are not bad."

Kaz looked away, curling his wings around himself and hoping that if he ignored the man, he would go away.

"You were not meant to be here. I would free you, but you would die. Your home is far." Matthias leaned back against the wall and slid down, running a hand through his tangled blond hair. "My home is far, too. We are alike, you and I."

Kaz didn't really agree, but he didn't argue. More specifically, he didn't know how. He fell asleep to the rumbling sound of Matthias talking about someone named Nina.

From that night on, Matthias talked to Kaz. Even though the Demjin could barely reply, it eased some of the loneliness that had knotted itself in his stomach, though he would never admit that to the Fjerdan, who he still growled and hissed at even though the last thing he wanted was for the man to leave.

They kept applying that clear liquid, and eventually Kaz considered it to be an everyday thing. Matthias, if he had time, would clean his ankles after Pekka and Oomen had gone, and then apply a paste made of plants to the severely burned area. But Matthias' homemade remedies did little to help the fact that the substance was still being applied every day, and every day it was able to do a bit more damage.

Kaz feared that by the end of the month, he would not be able to walk.

"It is hard life, but it is life," Matthias reminded Kaz every night, especially when the Demjin was contemplating throwing himself into the river when he was taken out to do his business.

He would drown, and it would be good, but Matthias didn't seem to think so.

The Demjin's attitude grew worse, to the point where he'd even gone as far as to nearly take Matthias' fingers off when the man had reached through the bars in an attempt to console.

That night, Kaz had feared that the human wouldn't show up, that he would give up hope on Kaz just like how Kaz had given up hope on himself, but no matter how many times Kaz cursed or roared or snapped or bit, the Fjerdan always returned.

"I don't think he needs it anymore. He can pick up his feet himself," Matthias insisted one day as he led a terribly limping Kaz into the rink to have the liquid applied.

"His first show is tonight, we can't let up now, you stupid grunt!" Pekka snapped, shooing the man away and leaving Kaz by himself to suffer.

When the session was done, Kaz was shocked to find himself being steered away from his cage and towards the river. The closer that he, Oomen, and Pekka got to the banks of the raging rapids, the tighter their grips on the ropes that bound him. The three of them walked for a while until part of the river tapered off to a quiet pool, into which the Demjin was unceremoniously dunked.

Kaz yelped, spitting out water as his wings thrashed, but upon finding the water was blessedly cool, he calmed down somewhat and eyed the club on Pekka's belt warily while the two men lathered up his hair with a sweet but artificial-smelling substance. Rough fingers scratched at his scalp, and a coarse rag rubbed his skin raw, but the cold water was a balm for Kaz's ankles, and he slumped a bit, his eyes fluttering closed.

After that, he was toweled off and led to a section of the park that he had seldom seen but often heard. Many nights, if he hadn't passed out as soon as he'd entered his cage, he listened and heard people laughing and talking from this section. Their voices had sounded a lot like the voices of Kaz's kind, and from afar their odd human language was garbled. He'd leaned against the bars and closed his eyes, listening to the blur of voices and pretending that they came from the many Demjin that participated in the migration every twelfth moon and not from cold, heartless humans who would rather see him dead.

There were so many people, more than Kaz had ever seen in his life, and they were all dressed in loud, flashy feathers and glittering sequins. They did a double take when they saw Kaz, their eyes going wide with fright, and that came as a shock to Kaz.

Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?

The hustle and bustle didn't stop because of Kaz's presence, though, and despite the whispers and the nervous glances, the performers eventually eased when they found that Kaz wasn't going to attack them.

Even if Oomen and Pekka hadn't been flanking him and holding his restraints tightly, Kaz was limping too badly to really chase anyone.

"Stop your feet-dragging," Pekka hissed, low and threatening, into Kaz's ear, and the Demjin recoiled a bit but obeyed, choking on screams.

"Help me!" he wanted to cry to the performers, for surely there had to be at least one of them who was as merciful as Matthias. "Please help me!"

But he feared the consequences, feared that none of them would show sympathy and he would be dragged back to his cage and left to starve for a week, so he remained silent.

In this section of the park, it was much less ramshackle than the area where they kept the animals. The tents- for that was what Matthias had called them- were neat and lit from the inside, and Kaz watched in awe as humans slipped into them with normal clothes on and emerged with elaborate costumes. For a while they weaved through, stopping occasionally to chat with loitering employees, all who cast furtive glances at Kaz every now and then over Pekka and Oomen's shoulders.

Eventually, they made their way to the performance tent, from which hundreds of muffled voices drifted.

Many performers were lined up and ready to go, too giddy with pre-show jitters to really size up Kaz all that much, and for that the Demjin was thankful.

"Most of the people here were drawn by the posters advertising the Demjin," a weedy man with a dreadfully receding hairline told Pekka, clutching his clipboard tightly and tapping at certain areas with his pen. "Many are skeptical, and I'm afraid they might up and leave if we don't present the Demjin first."

Pekka cursed, mulling it over a bit.

"He's supposed to be the final act."

"I know, that's why I told you this. I knew it might pose a bit of a problem."

"Maybe we should take him around the arena, show him off and also get him habituated to the noise," Oomen suggested. "We don't want him spooking during the act, after all."

Pekka nodded, and Kaz was practically dragged into the backstage part of the tent, under the stands where the performers waited.

He began to grow nervous, balking and straining against his bindings as the clamor and roar of voices assaulted his ears.

"Poor thing's scared to death," Kaz heard one of the lion tamers mutter.

"Even Demjin get stage fright," an acrobat replied.

"Don't be such a bastard," Pekka snapped as Kaz whined, pulling back with all his might, and the Demjin let out a sharp yelp as Oomen shoved him forward.

Kaz was terrified.

He had no idea what was going on.

All he knew was that the stands were filled and it was loud, two things that weren't high on the Demjin's list of things he liked.

Upon Pekka's sharp command, someone pulled back the fabric concealing the backstage and revealed the arena like it was any other day.

Only this time, instead of empty stands and dull colors, the tent was alive with decorations and spectators, all crammed onto the benches like sardines in a can. The poles for the acrobats had been set up, complete with tightrope and swings, and a small podium was in the center for the ringmaster.

As soon as the audience caught sight of Kaz being tugged into the arena, they erupted into cheers.

Kaz cried out in his fear- a cry that was drowned out by the roar of the crowd- and his heart was as quick as a jackrabbit as his lungs struggled to get enough air in and out. He fought against Pekka, his pupils but pinpoints in his irises while the crowd "Ooh"ed and "Ahh"ed as Kaz struggled to get away.

He wasn't even trying to escape his handlers.

If he'd gotten away, he would've gone straight to his cage and cowered there for the rest of his life, but the crowd didn't know that.

To them, Kaz was fighting for his freedom.

In their eyes, he was an untrainable beast who'd been caught and overpowered, his wild nature harnessed enough to have him perform in the circus.

In reality, he was just a small, timid juvenile who wanted to go home.

He said so to Pekka, knowing fully well that the man wouldn't beat him in front of this many people.

"Go home," he pleaded hoarsely. "I want to go home."

"I know you're scared, but don't be," Pekka assured, his words sickly sweet. He gave Kaz's cheek a pat. "This is your home now."

Kaz felt like he would burst into tears had those tears not already been wept dry a long time ago.

For a while, they walked him around the arena, right on the perimeter where he could see the eyes of the spectators zeroed in on him. They were loud and obnoxious, and more times than not Kaz spooked, jerking so rapidly that his bindings were nearly ripped from Pekka and Oomen's hands. After a few laps, though, he grew accustomed to it, and instead of concentrating on the faces, he concentrated on the space in front of him, which looked so familiar and yet so alien in the bright, festive lighting.

They brought Kaz back outside after as the show began, letting the Demjin lie in the dirt and shield himself with his wings.

Many times, a performer who wasn't in the arena came up to ask, "Is he okay?"

"Yes. It has stage fright," would always be the response.

Kaz was shaking hard, and he had trouble breathing right, his inhales shaky and his exhales ragged.

"Calm yourself," Pekka ordered, nudging Kaz with his boot. To any outsider, it would seem like a playful, joking gesture, but Kaz knew all too well that it was a threat.

I will not hesitate to kick you, it warned.

Kaz tried to ease his breathing, but every now and then the crowd would erupt into applause and shouts and he would be thrown into a fit all over again. Pekka made various half-hearted attempts to console, but eventually Kaz grew irritated by them and didn't hesitate to gnash his teeth in warning the next time Pekka tried to swoop in.

"Listen, you should be grateful that we were the ones who found you," Pekka growled, and Kaz somehow managed to shrink farther into the dirt. "We could've been hunters or traffickers. You could've been a laborer working in the mines- never seeing daylight for months at a time, or worse," a wicked smile spread over Pekka's face, and Kaz's trembling grew more violent. That smile never meant good things, "a bed slave."

Pekka continued, "That's what you were going to be had I not rescued you. Traffickers would've gotten to you first, and who in their right mind would pass up this pretty face." His grin turned into a sneer, and Kaz tried to curl in tighter on himself. "I bet an old widow or a rich mercher would pay big bucks to have an exotic little thing like you keep their bed warm at night."

"It would rip their throats out," Oomen deadpanned plainly, folding his arms over his chest.

"Ah, yes, then maybe you'd be sold to the haggard crew of a vast ship to keep morale high during long trips at sea. All of them strong enough to keep you on your hands and knees."

"Let the poor thing alone," came a voice from behind them, and all eyes turned to look at a lithe Suli acrobat who didn't seem the least bit happy. "Can't you see you've terrorized him enough?"

"And who might you be?" Pekka scoffed, and Kaz tried to use his eyes to give the young woman a warning. Angering Pekka was worse than angering any god imaginable, in Kaz's opinion, and he wanted to save this beautiful young woman from the fate that Kaz suffered constantly at the hands of his brutal trainer.

Did humans beat other humans like how Pekka beat Kaz?

"That is none of your concern," she replied shortly. "But we are both acts in this show and therefore we are both equals, no matter which one of us is wearing the costume." She glared down at the glittery one-piece she boasted as if it had offended her just by existing. "And I'm telling you, politely, to leave the Demjin alone. He is frightened enough by the crowds."

And with that, she turned on her heel and left leaving the three men staring after her with identical expressions of surprise.

"That little whore, thinks she's so damn special-"

"You're on in ten minutes," the weedy man with the clipboard reminded Pekka, and Kaz was abruptly hauled up and back into the tent, where the waiting performers watched in awe as Pekka removed Kaz's bindings.

The Demjin's first instinct was to bolt, but Pekka smoothed the whip down his back, a warning, and Kaz could only stand there, trembling, as the clear liquid was applied to his ankles by Oomen.

He whined, the burning still agony, but was silenced by a glare as Oomen began to apply stripes of brightly colored paint to his ankles to hide the agonized skin.

He's not sure how long they waited at the entrance to the arena, listening to the ringmaster rattle off foreign words that seemed to make the crowd excited, and in that time Kaz was able to process the fact that the whip Pekka was holding was different from the one that he used during the training sessions.

It was bright pink and had glittery stripes along the handle, and there were brightly- colored feathers tied at the end like it was some sort of cat toy.

The audience would probably think of it as a prop, Kaz realized, rather than something that could slash and hurt.

"And now, I present, the one and only Demjin!" the ringmaster crowed, followed by a cacophony of cheers and yells.

"Razrushost," Pekka muttered, and Kaz felt his burning feet turn to lead.

That wasn't right; Razrushost was the cue for the routine.

It wasn't like they were doing the routine in front of all of these people, right?

"Razrushost!" Pekka demanded, his voice sharper now that Kaz had refused to respond, and he cracked the whip, effectively spurring Kaz into action.

The Demjin just let his mind do the work, let it recall the hundreds of times they'd gone over this. All he had to do was follow what they'd rehearsed. He spread his wings and launched himself into the air, and people let out shrieks and cries of shock and delight as he flew laps around the large cage that separated him from the audience.

The hundreds of sets of eyes threw him off a bit and made his heart relocate itself into his throat, and the Demjin accidentally circled five times instead of four, distracted by their burning gazes. He quickly corrected himself, spiraling downward towards the center as Pekka jovially greeted the crowd, who cheered for him as the Demjin descended and alighted onto the ringmaster's podium, choking down a scream as his ankles blazed white-hot.

Kaz forced a smile and waved at the stands, only now realizing that he was meant to be waving at the people sitting in them rather than the stands themselves. It was surprising how much the routine made sense now.

Pekka smoothed the whip over Kaz's back again, and gave the cue to begin.

Kaz launched into the air and clung to the bars, scaring the living Jesus out of a ton of people, who quickly got over their fear and began to grin, waving at him. Hesitantly- since Pekka hadn't explicitly instructed him to do so- he waved back, and that just made them more excited. He went around the rink for a few moments, waving to various people and forcing himself to seem happy, before Pekka's whistle signaled him into the next portion of the act.

The hoops had been set up some time between Kaz's habituation and now, and Kaz leapt through each one with ease, though he nearly bit his tongue off every time his feet hit the ground and agony spiked up his ankle and calf.

"Not that impressive, right?" Pekka announced to the audience, his tone still jovial despite the fact that the line had been rehearsed tons of times prior. The audience disagreed, and there were many murmurs of how awe-inspiring it was. "I think we can do better."

We.

As if Pekka was the one jumping through the hoops.

The crew filtered from backstage and bustled to the hoops, the crowd chattering excitedly as the rods holding up the hoops were elongated, raising them higher off the ground. The highest had to be at least ten feet up.

"Do you think the Demjin can do this?" Pekka boomed as the crew made themselves scarce, and there was a motley of replies, ranging from "Of course!" to "Not on your life!" He let them converse and argue amongst themselves, grinning as hasty bets were made, before saying, "Well, let's see!"

Another signal, and Kaz was taking off towards the first hoop, leaping through it easily and tucking and rolling before coming back on his feet. The cheers were deafening, and a bead of sweat ran down Kaz's temple as he made his way to the next hoop. His feet felt like they were on fire, and that was probably the reason why Pekka always kept Kaz running, so people wouldn't notice his limp.

The hoops were raised and raised, and eventually set on fire, but Kaz was going through the motions at this point, his mind focusing on not making Pekka cross and on the agony rather than the actual performance itself.

It helped him cope, in a way.

He balanced on the bottles, played soccer with a beat-up ball, did handstands and backflips, and broke a slab of wood with his horns. He slapped Pekka's rear like he was taught and Pekka pretended to be offended and chide him as if it hadn't been rehearsed, causing a bountiful amounts of laughter from the crowds.

Kaz was exhausted by the time to two of them bowed and waited for the cheers to die down, and nearly passed out as he dragged himself backstage, the ringmaster hurrying back to the podium to announce the show's conclusion.

As he hobbled along behind Pekka on the way back to the cage, his restraints back in place, he saw people siting around a large bonfire and rejoicing from the successful performance.

Idly, he wondered if he should throw himself into the blaze; Pekka was the only one holding the ropes that bound him, and he could easily muster up enough strength to rip them out of his hands and leap to the flames.

Would anyone miss him?

Matthias, perhaps.

And Jordie.

The thought of Jordie made his stomach twist. The migration up north was set to begin in a few moons, and if Kaz didn't show up…

Jordie would probably think his younger brother to be dead. He'd probably stay behind, risking his life to try and uncover Kaz's remains. Perhaps he'd died of a fall? Or had a mountain lion get him? But he would find nothing, because Kaz's bones and ashes would probably be fed to the dog trainer's collies, his horns mounted on the wall like trophies.

It would be a disgraceful death.

As Kaz was loaded back into the cage and served dinner, which was more prestigious since the slabs of meat weren't rotting, he realized that he didn't care if his death was disgraceful, didn't care that he wouldn't be buried with all of the rituals of his kind.

As long as it was death, it didn't matter.

And that scared him.