Demon Forged

was in between.
    “Do you even consider yourself human anymore?”
    “No.” She met Taylor’s surprised glance. “Because I am not. A human’s free will is always honored. A Guardian’s is not.”
    “Is that the only distinction you make?”
    “Distinctions?” Frustration rattled against her nerves like a knife against her teeth. “What good are distinctions? There is no comparison to be made. No humans train for a century as Guardians do. No humans live sixteen centuries. Or longer,” she added, thinking of Michael. “Are Guardians what humans would be if they had longer lives? Or have we been changed in an even deeper way by the transformation? It is impossible to know. But I do know that I must honor your free will, and I don’t have to honor a Guardian’s.”
    “Or a demon’s? Doesn’t that make you more like them and less like us?”
    Irena stared at her.
    Taylor sucked in a slow breath between her teeth, as if preparing to run from a predator, but trying not to startle it first. “Forget I said that. Right now, I guess I’m grateful for those Rules.”
    Irena forced herself to let go of her anger. Evenly, she said, “Do not compare us to them. We were human. If we Fall, we become human again. Demons never were, and never will be.”
    “Fair enough.” Taylor nodded. “And when you were a human, what were you?”
    When they were sitting at a small table by a window, Irena told Taylor about her mother, who’d come from a defeated tribe of people—Irena didn’t know who they’d been. Her memories of life before Rome were only brief flickers sparked by the scent of burning peat, or the gentleness in a father’s voice, or a dog’s sharp bark. Clearer were the years as a slave—and of watching her mother executed after she’d killed the Roman senator who’d raped her daughter.
    “Jesus,” was Taylor’s reply, and then she said nothing for several seconds. “But I guess you don’t have to worry about that now.”
    “Do you think there has never been a rape in Caelum? A murder?” Irena used her fingers to tear a chunk of bread from the coarse brown loaf between them, and dipped it into the small dish of sweetened butter. Taylor had barely eaten from her share. “They are infrequent, yes. But not everyone transformed has been worthy of their wings.”
    “What do you do when that happens? It’s not against the Rules, is it?”
    “It is against decency.” Some rules shouldn’t need to be spoken. “There is a trial. If the Guardian is found guilty, we are not forgiving.”
    Irena paused, thinking back over several trials she’d witnessed. Michael had never seemed to enjoy administering the sentence—a Fall or an Ascension. Each time, Irena sensed that Michael thought he’d personally failed by transforming the Guardian who’d committed the offense.
    But she didn’t know if he had a choice when transforming Guardians. If a human sacrificed himself to save another’s life or soul, Michael was called to offer that human a place in Caelum. He’d never said whether he could resist that call.
    Quietly, she continued, “But of course, what you say is true. I do not have the same worry now.” And after her transformation, she’d have given anything to Michael, who’d given her the strength to prevent her body from being taken against her will. Who’d given her the ability to choose who and when. That had been power far greater than her physical strength.
    A power that she’d still had with the demon. The demon hadn’t left her without a choice; her heart had. Irena couldn’t regret it—her body meant less to her than her heart—but she should never have had to decide between them. That was indecency.
    And that was on the demon’s head.
    His decapitated, charred, and roasted head. Invigorated by the image, Irena cut into her steak.
    “So what did you do after your mom died?”
    “I endured. I dreamed of killing them all, but when I finally got the opportunity, I escaped Rome, instead. We traveled—” She frowned, trying to remember how long it had taken. “More than two winters. We walked from Rome until we reached the Black Sea—what is now the Ukraine. There, we settled. Or attempted to. I don’t know if we remained after the nosferatu attacked us.”
    “You killed one?”
    Irena shook her head. “I died trying, but injured it badly enough that I saved the others. After Michael arrived, he finished what I’d started.”
    “Yay, Michael,” Taylor said,