Awake in Dreams

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Mortals’ ways of dealing with uncontrollable events never ceased to impress. They’d almost always hurt their own kind in the most creative ways in order to save themselves, like that even made sense. Whether because they were foolish or selfish, or both, Dion had long given up to comprehend.  

He shouldn’t be surprised this time: he had seen enough witch burning and vampire hunting when he first fled to the earth — but that was a few hundred years ago, and now standing in front of this human girl in a plain white dress, bound to a rock that looked more like an altar, Dion was shocked. It was the 20th century for God’s sake, who still —

“Human sacrifice? Nice.” 

Dion jumped and reached for his sword as he turned to see the owner of the voice — and relaxed at the sight of her face. Not because she looked harmless — she was at least two heads shorter than Dion and had a face so sweet that no one would doubt she was a gentle, innocent child of the angel, though if you looked a little deeper into her eyes, you would find nothing but the opposite of all these things — but because she was his sister.

“Lisa, what are you doing here?” 

“Did I scare you, brother? I’m so disappointed you never recognize your own sister’s voice,” Lisa put a hand over her chest to fake a hurt expression and then giggled. “I couldn’t find you anywhere in the house so I went into your room and saw this,” she held out a piece of paper with words the color of human blood on it. 

Dion took it, but he didn’t have to look to know what it said. It was the reason why he was — they were — here, on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, only to find they had been offered a girl from the nearest village, he supposed, in return for peace and safety that they couldn’t offer. Wouldn’t offer. Humans should know better than to expect anything from demons — awakened elves, he corrected himself mentally — like him and his little sister.      

“It flew out of the summoning cup today and the smoke was red, so I was wondering...”

The summoning cup made of bones and wood had been in the middle of their living room for centuries, even before they moved in. The first time they realized what it actually did was when the demon king of the area, Ludwig Raven, summoned them by throwing his message with a few drops of potions in an identical cup in his palace, a few seconds later they saw purple smoke rise from the cup and slowly form the king’s message in the air.

Since then they had been using the cup to communicate with other elves who had come to live on earth, or Lisa with Dion when he had to stay in the palace for royal guard duties. The smoke had always been purple, though, and they had never been able to transfer any items through the cup.  

“That is unusual...” said Lisa, who was staring at the bound girl with a glint in her eyes. “Did some stupid human send this? Why us? What do they want?”

“Perhaps we’re the closest elves with a summoning cup to them. I guess it has to do with the war going on all over Europe right now and the wolves just arrived here a couple months ago. Of course the villagers think we, demons, are the ones who killed their children and sheep,” Dion said matter-of-factly.

“Well, they aren’t completely wrong, at least not about the war. But anyways,” Lisa said with a thoughtful look that Dion knew whatever she was going to say would be a bad idea. “Now we have a slave girl to do all the chores and grocery shopping!”

 “Don’t be ridiculous, I have to take her to Ludwig tomorrow —” Dion cut her off before she could protest. “Besides, you do everything with magic.”  

He moved to untie the girl, who seemingly had fainted when she saw his wings earlier. He hadn’t really looked at her after his sister’s arrival but now that he could see her closely under the light of the four flickering torches at the corners of the altar, he realized that she was...

Well, she was pretty, he guessed, but somehow he had expected a “beautiful, pure, innocent, young virgin”. She looked pale and young all right, with long brown hair and a petite figure covered by a thin white dress that made her look like a stereotypical virgin on an altar of offering. But then he had seen many prettier elves than her and she... she was a bit too plain for a chosen sacrifice.

She is human, what should I expect? And what does that matter to me? 

He cut the ropes around her wrists and ankles with his sword and saw a thin wound along the length of her left forearm. Suddenly, he had a sickening feeling that the message was written in actual blood. The cut wasn’t very deep but certainly produced enough blood for that, and she probably wasn’t the one who wrote it. She looked so small and helpless; he bet she didn’t want to be offered but what could she do about it? Humans could be really sick sometimes. 

Shaking his head to clear the thoughts, he pulled her up by the waist and — 

Did she just wince?

He froze. 

Was she pretending to be unconscious? But as he stared at her, still and hung like a rag doll in his arms...  Oh well, maybe he had imagined it. He must have been too tired these days, running around the continent for Ludwig because of the war, and when he could stay in the palace for more than a couple days, he had to spend days and nights to question the new prisoner, who had been so determined to remain mute and deaf...

He threw her over his shoulder and walked after where Lisa had gone without a word a few minutes ago.