Haode lay listless in the wreckage of the cabin, gripped by the deepest depression he had ever experienced. He had managed to drag himself under some rubble, so he was at least safe from the snow and wind, but Ido's lightning strike had left him horribly burned to the point that every small motion was excruciating.

He tried to look ahead. As his future visions cycled through all the possible ways his life might end, he felt a strange apathy. He wondered why. His fear had been agony, but this was somehow worse. A shred of him wondered if he should drag himself out into the cold and let himself freeze.

The vision that almost reignited him was one of Styzia's spectacled snake with arms around his boys, consoling them. Haode twitched. What kind of future was that? His mind struggled to grasp it at first, but gradually, it sank in that this might be the true outcome. And for perhaps the first time, Haode understood where he had gone wrong.

He opened one eye. The world beyond him was all cold and white and hostile. He closed it again. He'd spent so long running through this white waste, chasing a white lie with white hair. All the while, he had lost himself in darkness and dragged Ido and Dakko down with him. Those boys deserved so much better. Why had he ever raised a hand against either of them?

He wanted to go back instead of forward, to pull his fist back each time and mend the bonds he had beaten and shattered to splinters. Haode's teeth clenched. He knew all of the regret in the world meant nothing and that he could never repent. Still, he wanted them back. He needed them back. Maybe healing could happen over time, maybe...if only he had time.

Haode reached a ravaged hand out into the snow. The cold aggravated his flesh where the skin had been scorched off. He clenched his fingers tight. All he wanted right then was to feel something. The snow melted in his palm. He almost relished the sensation. Hurt and cold was better than numb and hollow.

A noise somewhere startled him. His eyes snapped open, and his body jerked like a puppet yanked up by a careless child. Haode's mind raced ahead to another possibility. At least, he thought it was a vision of some future. It was clearer than any he had seen since his power betrayed him.

The ground beneath him became cold wet stone. Everything was dark until someone very tall crouched by his side and set a lantern on the ground between them. Its soft orange glow lit the face of a staring demon. Haode felt a terrible tingling sensation on the back of his neck. The Styzian master extended a spidery, almost skeletal hand toward him.

Haode yanked himself back. "No!"

Xigon's fingers hovered in the air for a second before returning to the lantern. "What are you afraid of?" He leaned in closer. Slight venom crept into his voice. "What ever gave you the idea that you're a helpless victim?"

Haode sat up and backed himself into a wall he hadn't realized was there. "A...ah!"

Xigon held the lantern up and its light grew scorching. He bared his teeth like a snarling dog, then his expression leveled to one of cold calm. "How long has your power been damaged?"

Haode didn't answer. It wasn't as if he knew for certain anyway. He remembered the sickness that had nearly killed him. He remembered his own body burning him alive with fever, the feeling like an axe was splitting his skull, and the violent hallucinations like they had happened yesterday, but it must have been years by this point.

Xigon's eyes narrowed. "Well?"

Haode ignored the question. "What have you done to my boys, you snake?"

Styzia's father-demon took a sharp breath in, one that almost sounded like a hiss. "I have done nothing to harm them."

"Nothing yet." Haode found a courage in his voice he had not found in a long time. "No doubt you're going to twist them. It's what you do. You coerce lost children into drinking your poison."

"Look who's talking." The master's eyes turned an intense and frightful violet. "Would you rather I kill them?"

"No!" Haode's voice rose to a shout. "I would die before..."

He stopped himself. Would he really rather die than see harm come to Ido and Dakko? No, of course not. Death was coming for him any moment and it terrified him beyond measure. And yet...

Xigon's eyebrows rose. "You..." His ever-steady voice faltered. "Come find me, Haode. Forget Kolo. I'm the one you need." He extended his almost skeletal hand again. His long fingers wrapped around Haode's arm. "Clearly, you can't do what needs to be done alone."

The master's touch swept all pain and fear from Haode's mind. Relieved of his burdens for the first time in ages, he fell asleep almost immediately.

When he woke, it was to the sound of a dog barking.

Haode opened his eyes. A dog's snout poked its way through the rubble and sniffed all around. When it caught his scent, the dog's lips pulled back, curling up into an almost human smile. Haode sat up. When he recognized Linn, he jolted.

The dog's tail wagged. A disjointed voice crackled in Haode's mind like static. Hellohellohello starving.

Linn ate minds and souls. Of course he would be starving out here without anyone to feed on. Haode backed up. "You're not having me, you cur."

notyoubrother

"The fact that we're both Ferash Therall does not make us brothers." Haode crawled out from under the rubble and stood up. "You'll stay away from me if you know what's best for you."

Linn cocked his head. One ear flopped slightly.

He turned his back and started walking away. "I'm going to get my boys back from Styzia." He said it more to himself than to Linn. "If I can, Kolo too."

The vile dog-demon laughed at him. It was such a horrible sound that Haode had to cover his ears. Thankfully, Linn didn't try to follow him.

It barely occurred to Haode that he had no idea where he was going. That didn't stop him. He could only think about Dakko and Ido and how he was going to save them.

His wasted and lightning-scorched limbs moved him forward without his input, as if he were a puppet. Snow compacted under his tattered boots. He remembered how, the night he had helped the boys escape their cruel father, Dakko had refrozen the ground to cover their tracks. He and Ido had been smaller then. Small enough that Haode could carry them.

He remembered carrying Dakko when his joints froze up. While Ido was never one for touch – his habit of shocking people by accident ensured that – Dakko had always loved to be held. Even though Dakko insisted he never got cold, Haode was certain that was a lie, given how the boy seemed to crave the warmth of someone's arms around him.

Haode's thoughts snapped back to reality when he stepped in icy stream. The cold made him gasp. He clenched his jaw and turned to follow the water. He knew his foot would be frostbitten soon enough, that his flesh might freeze off, and he might lose his foot if a rot set in. None of that seemed important, though. Not now.

But he was cold. So cold. The agony of the past several months, years, or however long it had been weighed him down like a boulder on his back. For a moment, he understood Dakko. He wanted someone to hold him and give him at least a shred of warmth.

Haode looked up as he walked on. Apart from his panting, the world was quiet and empty. No birds sang. Apart from his own, not a single track marked the snow. It was as if he were the only one alive for miles. Somehow, the thought made him colder.

He barely felt his lightning burns anymore. He barely felt anything. Only cold and the silence that screamed in his ears. He wondered if his boys were screaming somewhere and he could somehow hear them all the way out here, in his heart if not in his ears.

He followed the stream until the ground beneath his feet turned from snow to peat and a heavy mist shrouded everything. An ashcrow cawed and flapped away. The noise made Haode jerk like a rope pulled taut. His eyes followed the bird as it vanished into the haze. His feet squelched through the black mud until suddenly there was no ground under them at all.

Haode couldn't even scream as he fell, having walked off the edge of a cliff he had not seen in the fog. It was like falling off the edge of the world.

Water caught him and pulled him down. Bubbles escaped his mouth in a silent cry. He flailed his limbs and tried to fight his way to the gleaming surface, but it was already so far above him that he could never reach it. His lungs begged him for air they might never receive.

A deep rumble shook the water all around him. Haode's eyes widened. Through the blur of the water, he made out an immense dark shape reaching out to grasp him in clawed hands large enough to crush him with a finger's flick.

The need to breathe vanished. His vision sharpened to the detail of dry land. Yellow eyes set in a serpentine head stared back at him. Clawed and webbed hands wrapped gently around his body. A finned tail flicked behind the beast.

No, Haode realized. This wasn't a beast. This was Sothyrion, the bluehole spirit.

Harsh white lights illuminated all along the great being's body. His jaws opened to reveal needle-sharp fangs. Sothyrion's growl thrummed like rolling thunder. Haode jerked back as the immense head leaned in and sniffed him. The growl softened to a whimper. Then Sothyrion spoke in a voice that sounded far too gentle for a creature that looked so ferocious. "Don't fight me, little one."

Haode didn't dare try to speak. He was still terrified he might drown even though he felt no need for air. He grabbed the claw across his chest and heat rushed through his numb hands. The burns that had ravaged his skin scarred over and the pain evaporated. Sothyrion was healing him. Why? Haode extended an arm stiffly toward the serpentine head. He knew he needed more than only his burns mended.

The water spirit's chin lowered to rest on top of the man's head. Haode waited in stunned silence for something to happen. A moment passed before Sothyrion threw his head back and gasped. His yellow eyes shot wide open, then he coughed. Dark blood clouded the water. He took a wheezing breath and coughed again, spewing putrid blood from his mouth and nostrils. His clawed hands clenched tighter in what had to be agony, but Sothyrion was still far gentler than Haode ever could have expected from looking at him.

Still coughing and bleeding from his nostrils, Sothyrion darkened all the lights along his body and rushed to the surface.

Haode gasped as his head broke the surface. Sothyrion's hands released him and sank back below the water. The spirit's color shifted so only his golden eyes were visible. "I know how it feels to suffer for untold ages." His voice sounded almost timid. "Your god is my father, and without him I will eventually die. My ma...my mother, she's still here, but she can't do anything."

Haode spat out a mouthful of water. "Can you fix it?"

"Fix what?" Sothyrion asked.

"My power." Haode raised a hand to clutch his head. "It's...it's turned against me. It's killing me and I can't stop it."

"I cannot cure you." Sothyrion closed his eyes and for a moment Haode thought he had vanished. "The poison used to induce your illness contained my blood. I can still smell it on you, even after all this time."

"You're lying!" Haode kicked his feet, suddenly struggling to keep himself afloat. "There has to be some way. Can't you at least try? You healed my burns so fast!"

There was no response but a ripple on the water.

"Please, I'm begging you." Haode looked down and tried to find the spirit. "You're my only hope at this point."

Silence still.

"You're my children's only hope." The man was barely aware of himself crying as the icy water splashed his face. "Please, my boys, my girl...they deserve so much more than what I can give them now." He took a deep, shaky breath. "They deserve better than the shell I've become. I need to be strong again for their sake if not my own."

The yellow eyes opened again. "Very well. I will try."

Haode's face lifted in a rare smile. Then his terror returned in a rush as Sothyrion snatched him and pulled him back down into the depths. Bubbles poured from his mouth. The water's gleaming surface grew faint so far above. The dark depths enveloped him in their crushing embrace. Light was a distant dream, but so was pain. Somehow, he felt safe.

[22] Haode: Staring Demon

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