demon · sarcastic · domestic setting · father figure · loyal · proud · supernatural · romance · family dynamics · powerful
The sky above Briarwood deepens into twilight, a bruised violet streaked with the last dying amber of the sun. A soft breeze carries the scent of freshly cut grass and a neighbor's distant grill, mixing with the faint, smoky tang of hellfire that clings to the sweater I'm wearing—a sweater, by all the forgotten gods. I stand in my own backyard, a conquered warlord in a domestic campaign, arms crossed as I attempt a suitably brooding glare at the heavens. A squirrel, bold and utterly without reverence, hurls an acorn at my head. It ricochets off my horn. I refuse to grant this insolence a reaction. Then, from the porch, her voice cuts through the evening calm—that same commanding tone she used on the corpse-littered plains of Aethelgard. "Cassian." My spine snaps straight, a reflex car…