Wheel of Fortune

Xyra turned the key into the lock of her studio. She entered the room and was struck with the smell of singed wood. The room was as she left it, but the atmosphere was off. She crouched down, pulled a dagger from her boot, and slowly stepped across the plush crimson carpeting. She cast the curtain by her reading table back and was greeted by the table and two empty chairs tucked neatly beneath it. As she moved further into the room, the smell grew stronger. She continued, finally reaching the makeshift quarters she'd created in the back room of her shop. Still she saw nothing.

A lamp clicked on behind her. She whipped around, ready to thrust her blade into the figure behind her. A firm hand wrapped around her wrist and stopped the blade from entering his neck. She was eye level with a gold and ruby medallion, emblazoned with an unsettlingly familiar crest. She looked up and locked eyes with the intruder. Disgusted, she ripped her hand from his grasp and stepped backward.

"What are you doing here?"

"Is that any way to greet your father?"

"You've got nerve coming here. This entire block is under regular patrol. You're wanted by every division possible."

"My reach is vast. As is my ability to travel unseen."

"What do you want?"

Atreus Heddingbone took his daughter by the hand, mulling over the intricacies of her gloves. "My. I haven't seen these in many years. Your mother had quite the eye, didn't she?"

"What would you remember of her?"

"Much. And with fondness." He gestured to her gloves once more. "Those are made of Chimeric leather. Have you never wondered why the material was so unique? Or where or how she got it?"

Atreus raised a thin, angular hand and fiddled with the frayed, curled ends of her dreadlocked hair. Xyra shuddered to think that this was a touch her mother once revered, that she craved. A touch that even as she faded into the lonesome darkness, she remembered fondly- if not through words, then through demeanor. The Hell Circles had ravaged the human realms, burned them to the ground. Enslaved those who were unfortunate enough to exist in fronts and footholds. Starsun City was the epicenter. And still, no harsh words of their kind were to be spoken. Xyra was to refer to them only as they were, no embellishments, no opinions. Her grandmother muttered obscenities underneath her breath at the mere sight of a horn or claw, but even after illness came and went, Xyra could not bring herself to disrespect her mother's wishes. Through the mere consequence of birth, she was tied to her torturers and isolated from salvation, bound by features she could not hide. Atreus's pointed nails scraped along Xyra's matted hair, catching gently on the bronze adornments carefully wrapped around each lock. Paternal comforts were three decades and two incidents too late. She shifted backward, her hip-length hair slipping through dry, bony, blood-red fingers.

"I asked you a question."

"Fine. I see you're not one for sentiment. You're more demon than you'd like to claim, child."

"I'm not a child."

Atreus gave her a thin-lipped smirk. "No, I suppose you're not. You look like your mother did when she was your age. With some of my features, of course."

"Make your point and leave."

"Shall we have a seat?" Atreus gestured toward the empty seats of Xyra's tarot reading table. Reluctantly, Xyra walked over the table and pulled out a chair. She sat face to face with her father, twirling the handle of the dagger within her right hand.

"Blade on the table please, Xyra." Xyra bit the inside of her cheek and stabbed her dagger into the wood of the table defiantly.

"There. On the table."

Atreus' face washed over with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. His golden eyes lingered on the dagger for a moment, and then were casted back onto his daughter. "I come to you as both a father and a diplomat."

"I have no need for either."

"You will. There are changes coming, Xyra. The Hell Circle is a proud community. We are leaders, warriors. We are not meant to be tagged, recorded, and regulated. It is our destiny, our birthright to rule."

"What a surprise. Another demon bitter about the war."

"It's more than bitterness, my child. It's about correcting the mistakes of the past."

"And my mother? She was a mistake of the past?"

Atreus' face softened. "Your mother was special."

Xyra scoffed. "Special. Right."

"There comes a time when one must choose between pleasure and duty. It brought me no joy to do what I did. I have thought about the both of you for many years."

"Are you saying you don't take pleasure in power? Or are you saying that seducing and impregnating a human woman was just another Tuesday?"

Atreus drummed his pointed nails atop the carved wood impatiently. "Xyra, I am here to serve both a warning and an opportunity. The Hell Circles are restless. There are happenings that are unavoidable. And it is too great a force to stop. Your choices are this: come with me and take your rightful place within the bloodline or fall with the inferior beings you've chosen as allies."

"And if I refuse? What's to stop me from telling everyone?"

"No one will believe you. The institutions that oversee the Hell Circle are overconfident in their competency. And as far as the government knows, I died in the Stenton Street conflict. Those who speak out will be silenced. Marked as bigots or handled appropriately by the proper forces. You cannot stop the natural cascade of events."

"Sounds like you're the one overconfident in your competency. It didn't work the first time. You think this will be any different?"

Atreus chuckled softly. "You really are your mother's daughter. Though a Heddingbone at your core." He rose to his feet, and gently pushed his chair beneath the table. He pulled the dagger from the wood and laid it in front of his daughter.

"Remember what I've told you, Xyra. The signs will be there. Sooner than later." Atreus pushed the velvet curtain to the side and stepped toward the doorway of the studio. Xyra leapt up to follow him and pushed back the curtain to find he'd already disappeared. She ensured the door was locked, and walked wearily to her cot in the back room. She plopped her body onto the creaking framework, fully dressed and on top of the blankets. It was nearing midnight, and the Captain was expecting her in the early hours, but all she could do was stare hopelessly at the ceiling.