Brandon Sanderson’s New Cosmere Book Gets Exclusive New Reveal

December woke in her small dark chamber and, for the time it took to gasp, thought herself in her hut on the mountainside. That the creaking of the barge was the sound of boards groaning against relentless mountain wind, that the sway to the deck was the vertigo of advanced years, and the heartbreak of loss was the distant echo of lives committed to soil, not the melancholy of a home left behind.

She soon remembered, but one will not blame her for trembling, worrying that this life with the young body was the dream. Because youth is a dream. It seems so fresh and vibrant, only to fade as the hours grow long and the years short, until practical reality makes vague those memories. So, with due sense of wonder, December rose and went about morning washing and preparation. (She had a water closet she shared with the other passengers, though her room had its own door into it. Bathing was done at inns they passed.) Then she finally stepped out of her chamber, and that was when she encountered her first demon.

It lounged on the railing of the barge right outside her room, basking in morning sunlight, taking the shape of a vibrantly colored shorthair house cat. Beyond it, the river rippled from the boat’s movement; thicker than water, its lazy waves undulated like a rumpled blanket. As they approached Kingseat, December found she could pick out more colors in the liquid: tiny lines of yellow, red, or blue, resembling paint, less fully mixed here.

The cat demon was a further expression of this. It looked to be made of wet paint itself, for though it was mostly the same dark violet of the river, it had swirls of various other colors patterned like fur—orange at the ears and streaks of white along its sides, slowly shifting, as if melting into the paint of the rest of the animal. Its eyes glowed with the light of a coal at the heart of a simmering fire. Drips of molten liquid would occasionally pool at the corners, and it blinked them out, sending them sizzling to the deck, where they vanished without marring the wood. She’d heard of demons, of course. The world was full of them, from the great walkers of the plains, to the corpse at Kingseat. They were said to burn alive anyone who dealt with them too intimately, and if given souls for fuel, they could start great fires. Regrettably, anyone who lost their home to a fire was suspected of witchcraft.

People were taught the warning signs via frightening sermons, but those teachings had been irrelevant to December, as a demon hadn’t been seen in Rivershore for centuries. They were said to bother larger towns, and sailors often brought stories from upriver, hoping to trade them for drinks in the tavern.

December froze in her doorway now, staring at the thing, trying to remember what she was supposed to do. Perhaps she should have paid better attention during those sermons . . .

The demon, in turn, hopped off the railing and sniffed at her paralyzed feet. Then it settled down and looked up with those distressingly glowing eyes, perhaps deciding if she were worth eating. It again blinked out molten tears, which sizzled down and disappeared at the deck. December deliberately tried to keep her toes back, but the thing sniffed her legs again, then followed as she—with what decorum she could muster—walked to Amaal’s door and knocked.

“Miss December!” Amaal said upon answering. “What . . .”

She trailed off as December gestured to the demon.

“Oh!” Amaal said. “It’s so little!”

“Little?”

“Sure,” Amaal said, squatting to regard it. “You should see the ones on the plains near the monastery. Almost fully molten, those ones are, and barely kept bound by entire tribes. Heathens though they are, they do know their way around a demon!”

“I have been told,” December explained, “to fetch a priest if I ever encounter one.”

“That’s thoughtful! We love to catalog these.” She already had a pen and paper out, writing down some notes. “I wonder if the foul beast has a name yet . . .”

It rubbed against December’s legs, more insistent.

“So,” December said, “what do we do with it?”

“Normally,” a passing sailor noted, giving the demon a wide berth as he moved from prow toward stern along the walkway, “we just ignore them until they leave.”

“Yeah,” Amaal said, still writing, “you’ll probably need to get used to them. They are supposed to be all over Kingseat, drawn by the dying Megalith. Um, that’s the name of the major demon bleeding out the river. Sister Drimond, who is from the capital, says these little ones are all over up there.”

“Are they all cats?” December asked.

“Oh, no! I’ve never heard of one in this shape, though they are said to appear as something loved or harmless to lure mortals into giving away their souls! But that’s way, way harder to do than people think. It requires tons of arcane study and practice—which as your spiritual advisor, I should warn you against. You know, because having your essence entirely consumed to fuel its maniacal need to destroy all life is generally considered unpleasant.”

Another sailor passed, and made the sign of the Ever-Slaying Sword, index finger pointed down with thumb and pinky outward, in threat to the demon, who watched him with a cat’s indifference and a swinging tail that somehow conveyed, “I’ll murder you another day, human.”

“Huh,” December said. “I didn’t expect them to be so . . .”

“Dangerous?” Amaal said helpfully, still writing. “Terrible?”

“Beautiful,” December said. Indeed, the way the whites swirled on the demon’s paint fur, like highlights upon the tips of waves, was transfixing. It cocked its head at this comment in what she almost interpreted as a human expression, though she knew better. These were dangerous; in fact, she was increasingly certain that the capital demon—the one Amaal named the Megalith—would actively cause the plague.

The little cat demon soon leapt onto the railing of the barge, then—with one look back—sprang out into the river, melding with it and vanishing.

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