Lomadia didn't speak for a while after she read through the excerpt Ridge had shown her. She just rested her head in her hands, her elbows on the tabletop as she re-read the passage, tracing some words with her finger, some prompting a thoughtful expression, others making her frown. Likewise, Ridge was unsure what to say, and so remained silent, until he could bear just standing there fidgeting with his fingers no longer.
Ridge fumbled with his words as much as his fingers and thumbs. "I'm sorry...if this is a...little...hard…to take in…just…you have to…"
"Ridge, stop talking, please." She cut in, not averting her gaze from the page in front of her.
"Right. Sorry." He said, looking to the floor, burying his hands in his pocket awkwardly. His hand came across a crumpled sheet of paper, which his fingers closed tightly around, the crinkling of the page the only sound in the room, other than the ticking clock. Ridge gazed out of the window for what felt like a very long time until the owlkeeper finally piped up.
"So let me get this straight – Xephos is one of these sin things?"
"That's correct."
"And you're like…what? His guardian angel or something?"
Ridge gave a slight laugh at the idea. "I would say I fall into the 'something' category."
Lomadia looked up at him, raising her eyebrow. "A statement that enigmatic usually comes with an explanation."
Ridge shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm not particularly good at phrasing things, so I'll just come straight out with it. Xephos is the sin of Wrath, the most human of all the sins, since a small fraction of the Great Devil's power was never given to him. As it says in the story, his powers are only awakened when he feels threatened. Most of the time they are buried under his human conscience. His mother, the human from the story, planted false memories in his mind, and gave him the alias and back-story of a spaceman in order to stop the truth from surfacing, and sent him to me so I could protect him. All she wants is for her child to live a normal life."
"I get that, Ridge, but how do you fall into this?" Lomadia was still reeling from the revelation that Xephos was a demon - the seventh sin, no less. She tried to fit that idea with the images of Xephos curling up, hugging himself as he settled down to sleep, laughing with her about various anecdotes they both shared, the tenderness with which he had stroked Mr. Owl when he 'accidentally' (meaning purposefully and with an intent to cause trouble) flew into the tank's air vent and ended making a nest in Xephos' hair. None of them seemed to bode well with the diagrams of demons in the book, showing hideously terrifying figures with rows and rows of sharp teeth, glowing eyes, bathing in souls, snaking blue fire wrapping itself around its master's limbs. Lomadia didn't particularly want to accept that these images and the spaceman she had grown rather fond of were one in the same, but at the same time she knew that Ridge spoke the truth; she saw it in his eyes, heard it in his cracked voice. However long he had been keeping the truth from her, and continued to hide it from all her friends, she understood why and understood that now; he hid nothing. "How does the mother know you in the first place?"
"Xephos and I…share the same…the same mother. I...I...I am the sin of Pride. Xephos is my...brother, and we are both the sons of Satan."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The blood dripped from the tip of the red matter katana onto a black disc, forged from cold marble, with white streaks that looked like lightning carved into it, ancient scripts that could no longer be deciphered, except by a select few who understood the tongue of demons. Rythian didn't know whether to be glad or ashamed by the fact that he understood all that was scratched into the shiny rock before him.
"Now, Xephos, let's see if you're really as innocent as you would have us believe." He said to himself, shaking his red matter katana as to get all of the drops of potential demon blood off the blade and onto the altar. His duel with Xephos had only served to heighten his suspicion, and his collection of the alien's blood from that little escapade would either confirm or disprove his theory. He felt a smug smile on his lips as he thought of how Lalna had tried to analyze blood samples with science. Science one, magic nil indeed.
He placed his sword down and outstretched his hands, so they floated just a little above where the blood was collecting in a pool in the middle of the disc. He read through a bookmarked page of a book, which had been propped up by a traditional wooden stand. Initially a mere interesting read, this book on the fires of the universe now served a much greater purpose – determining whether the creature who had fallen to Minecraftia was a true innocent, or a minion to the evilest being known to any. Rythian saw the incantation heavily underlined and annotated on the page, set just below the descriptions and images of fire, enderfire, netherfire, hellfire, amongst others, as well as how to identify them. All Rythian cared about were the two profiles and properties of earthly fire, and demonic hellfire. How this blood sample reacted to the spell would reveal all about Xephos' true nature.
He muttered the incantation, a language he felt a little less corrupted for knowing; "Kuvu umilo noma qhwa efana embuly isimo salesi besk." He said slowly, letting his eyes slip shut as he felt warm energy spread over his skin before seeping out of his fingertips, embroiling the scarlet liquid in orange tentacles. The mage opened his eyes and watched the delicate and peaceful movement, lulled into a sense of false security, before the warm tendrils erupted into violent shades of jagged blue, sending a blast of cold air into Rythian's face and around the room before the blood set alight, the dancing blue hellfire flames burning bright and chilly, like flickering flames of ice and frost, sentient and creeping.
Hellfire. The sentient servant of demons. Ukushona was said to be full of the stuff.
"Kuyekwe." He said bitterly, and with a wave of his hand, the flames, though angry at their extinguishing and reluctant to die down, dimmed and faded into glowing white smoulders, leaving only frozen drops of blood behind in the dish. The room was plunged into darkness, for all Rythian's candles, lit with earth fire, had been put out by the sentient hellfire. With his superior nighttime eyesight, Rythian could just make out, written at the bottom of the page, in disturbingly bright and bold red text, a message.
A warning.
Umar bapine ke kanjalo kuyakuba siwela.
"If they fall, then so shall we fall." Rythian translated, though no one was around to hear his grave message. He felt for his red matter katana, feeling stronger and safer when he clutched its cool, hard, polished hilt, feeling the solidarity of the weapon in his hand, listening the gentle hum in the pitch black.
No one was around to hear his second warning either, but it didn't matter, as it was directed at a being not of this world – trapped on another, though longing to break free, while Rythian was alive he would strive to make sure that goal was never achieved. Alone in the dark, he spoke, his voice twisted with fury, sadness and a bitter desire for vengeance and justice.
"You killed her son, and so I shall kill yours. An eye for an eye, lex talionis."
