Excerpt: Bonds

As Sai picked his way through the carnage at his feet he tried not to wretch. It took a lot to make Sai's stomach churn—as both a seasoned warrior and member of the cayu demon clan he was accustomed to war's ugly aftermath. But this hadn't been war. It had been a massacre.

Sai halted before a lifeless victim; the body gazed unseeing at the shocking blue sky, one bloodied hand extended toward it, supported by a large boulder—what was once a marble pillar—mouth gaped. Sai wasn't certain which wound had been the last fatal assault on the Farinon guard. Long, nasty gashes crept along the man's exposed stomach and chest, but no more blood flowed from the wounds. He had been dead for a day at least.

Pulling aside his long white hair, Sai bent down and carefully closed the guard's eyes, ignoring the flies buzzing around him. Danin had been the man's name—no, not a man. Hardly more than a boy when last they spoke, and eager to give his life for his lord. Well, it had been given. All for not.

The grounds of the palace were all like this; covered in blood, smelling of death, breathless. Even the wind stayed away. Only the sun in its brilliant sky remained to greet Sai on his entrance to the grounds.

Fear also lingered. Sai could smell it almost as clearly as the blood.

A massacre.

No survivors.

Sai tried to feel indifferent. B'korba was often ravaged by war; whether this nation or another, it made little different. Except...it was different. This nation mattered, human though it was. A demon didn't care about humans; if anything Sai should have been overjoyed that another threat was removed. One less enemy.

But the Farinon nation had called cayu clan friend, and cayu clan returned the honor. It had been so for over a decade. Things would be different now; much different. With its lord and ruler gone, and all his family with him, Farinon would change. Leaderless, it would fear all the outside world until it found its feet again. And Sai doubted the Farinon people would willingly accept an offer of friendship from the clan whom they would doubtless blame for this disaster.

Sai closed his crimson-red eyes as he straightened, white silk strands of hair cascading down his back and brushing against his ankles. Slowly he opened his eyes again and regarded the bloodbath before him. All dead. All gone.

Sori.

Taking a careful step around the body that had once been Danin, Sai flicked his slitted gaze around other familiar faces, and even some he did not know. It had been several long years since he had last visited Farinon's capitol, Vesis. After today he would never visit it again.

He picked his way along the stained-red body-strewn cobbled path leading inside and to the throne room. He dreaded what he would find there, but...he had to know. If there was a chance that Sori survived, or...just someone. Anyone. He had to know who was to blame.

It was too much to hope Sori lived, but she was a demon—her chances were better than a human's. Maybe she had gotten away. But even as he considered the remote possibility a sardonic smile touched his lips. She would not run away when her people, her new people, beloved to her, were being slaughtered almost certainly on her account.

Sai pulled open the silent wide doors leading to the nation's center. The throne room was formidable in design, yet functional. Deep purple curtains parted in the center of the vaulted ceiling, while two rows of lattice-work columns held the ceiling up and lined the carpeted walkway to the throne itself; and at its foot, spread across the dais, lay a broken body—too familiar.

Sai bowed his head in grief, but stepped forward slowly, muted footsteps on the carpet, until he reached the bloody dais heading the deathly still chamber. His red eyes fell on His Majesty King Esin, Ruler of Farinon Nation, Demon Friend. Now Esin, once dark and handsome, barely resembled a man. Despite his centuries of experience, despite all he had seen in that time, Sai turned away, sickened at the sight of his dead friend. Hatred had sprung this massacre. The conquerers had lost all sense, turned blind by prejudice and fear. They had become bestial, gruesome, heartless.

“They will call this justice, Esin,” Sai said, his voice hollow, grieved. His white feline ears on either side of his head drooped as he stared at the pool of blood that once kept his friend alive. “They will laugh and drink their guilt away and boast of how many Farinon they each have killed. They will be heroes for their brutality...for this monstrosity.” One feline ear twitched. “But I will not let their heroism turn to legend.” He turned hardened eyes to Esin's broken form. “They will pay.”