I wake up.

I can immediately hear the roar of a much larger crowd. Something presses to my lips, and I suck down healing juice. Giselle is there. She’s nearly as blood-spattered as I am, but I can still see the whites of her eyes and they are wide and frightened. She leans down to my ear. “I think they mean to kill us,” she says.

The fire of the healing juice burns in my stomach. I unclench my muscles and stand up. I couldn’t have more thoroughly covered myself with blood had I jumped in a pool of it, but it doesn’t matter. A headache pounds at the crown of my head in time with the beat of my heart, but it doesn’t matter. The exit to my chambers are completely blocked off by an angry mob of humans and nonhumans, but even that doesn’t matter. What matters to me most in this moment is that I’ve found the Path to save my king. Nothing and nobody will keep me from it.

I reach down and scoop up my bloody sword from the ground. The corpse of the last cow I kill still stinks up the room, which is just as well since I’m done with all that now.

I hold my sword out before me and raise my left fist in the air. “Silence!” I shout at the crowd. And it works. “If you know who I am, you will get out of my way. If you do not know who I am, this will be your only warning.”

For a brief echoing moment those further back in the crowd continue their cries of, “Witch!” and “Burn her!” but soon even they are quieted. I stalk forward and the crowd parts, but so too does the line of royal guards assigned to protect me. I know where I need to be, so when they don’t move to follow me, I leave them behind. I can still feel the Bloody Path beating in my veins and I mean to walk it, even if it brings me my true death.

I know I should bring both of my swords, but there’s no time to find the other so I continue through the crowd with just the one. I force my way into the courtyard and turn left towards the main castle, surrounded all the while by awe-struck whispers from people that were calling for my death only moments before. Too long have I been kept a secret from the public. I know stories of my exploits have circulated—the raid at Stillian foremost among them—but it has always been Leonid and I’s fear that the public would respond like this if they ever discovered how I accomplished those exploits. That I had stolen through death a power over fate not meant for mortal hands.

Nobody stops me as I walk calmly up to the front gate. I feel strength like I never have before; knowing I go to my death, knowing it will be a worthy sacrifice for a love I could only pine for in life. The guards let me through without a word and I continue towards the great hall. When I reach it I see that the hall’s massive wooden doors are closed. I panic, wondering if I’m too late, but continue on anyway, pretending all is happening precisely as I intend. I see the courtiers of the various visiting kings gathered outside: owlings, dwarves, elves, and even minotaurs. They turn to watch my approach and the owlings are, for once, not the only ones with wide eyes.

“I am here to see my king,” I tell them. “Open this door.”

The quiet voice of a brown-feathered owling answers me first. “We can’t, eh… Mistress Hand. It is barred from the inside.”

“Well unbar it!” I command nobody in particular. One of the minotaurs standing among them responds by reaching over to the door and pounding on it quite loudly. I wait and a few moments later some rattling can be heard on the other side before the door creaks open. The person that looks through the gap to see what someone outside wanted is—I am surprised to find—Darius. He looks even more haggard than the last time I saw him but nods to me when he sees me approaching as though I was expected. I push my way past him to the familiar round table with all the different leaders seated in their usual places.

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As I enter, Emperor Klotak is in the middle of an angry rant. It is a variation on the “what you offered couldn’t possibly be enough gold” theme I’ve heard him say dozens of times before. He breaks off when he sees me enter. The other leaders turn to look my way: all except King Leonid, who has his back turned.

“Who are you?” the minotaur emperor demands.

I sneer at him, though I’m sure the effort is wasted with all the blood sticking to my face. “You know who I am,” I say confidently. “You all know.” I raise my sword up high. “I am the Bloody Left Hand of King Leonid. I have slaughtered armies in his name, stacked bodies high as hills.” I point my sword at Klotak. “And I have come here to challenge your honor as leader of Klotia. I have come here to kill your Champion, Brecklin the Breaker, in single combat. I have come here to tell you we know the slaughter at Shevinshome was your own doing, but if you press your false claim of vengeance on humanity, we will return it to you ten times over. So go. Summon your Champion. I have tasted his blood and I will taste it again.”

The door was still open to the outside while I spoke. My accusation against Klotak was not just a private thing between kings any longer. I can’t feel the Path before me, but I hold onto hope that I can walk through a similar permutation of my fight with Brecklin when the need arises. The old Path I spent all night walking was ruined by my late arrival so this is the only chance I still have to avoid an invasion Umbria couldn’t possibly survive. I have to believe in it. I’d killed Brecklin before, and I could do it again.

Emperor Klotak’s nose wrinkles in confusion as he takes me in. I see him sniff the air. I haven’t seen a mirror so I can only imagine how I must look, my short hair plastered to the side of my head with blood, black death hanging off every inch of me. I wait to hear the words I know he will speak, trying to work through in my mind how the fight will go differently with only one sword this time.

He stands up. “Brecklin,” he says. The singular word hangs in the air.

“Sir?” the hulking beast behind him asks.

Emperor Klotak shows his teeth. “Get my things,” he says. “We’re leaving.”

I don’t let it drop that easily. I won’t have him gathering his army in another week to invade us anyway. “And your claim about Shevinshome?”

He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he directs his response to my king in the chair before me. “I’m done with all this,” he says. “There’s no honor in dying to a bloody witch, Leonid. You’re mad to let a monster like that into your court. Mad!”

The elf queen, Phaise, rises to her feet. “This Summit bears witness to the withdrawal of Klotia’s complaint against the nation of Umbria. If any invasions should be forthcoming by the minotaurs, I stand ready to defend humanity.”

“Aye. Me too,” the dwarf king agrees.

“Yes, I do as well,” the much softer voice of the owling leader echoes.

My heart leaps. It is just as before, only now instead of agreeing to witness a Challenge, they’ve agreed to help! And… and I am still alive! I release some of the tension in my shoulders but don’t immediately collapse to the floor, though I want to. I need to remain standing at least until Klotak is gone. He storms out of the great hall, his giant shadow lumbering behind him. A cheer goes up from the humans in the crowd outside who witnessed the exchange.

“Excellent work, Mistress Hand,” I hear Darius say from behind me. But I am no longer listening to anything he has to say. I only have eyes for my king as he stands up from his high-backed chair and turns to face me.

My heart flutters. He can’t possibly see me like this! What will he think of me? Will he call for my execution like the crowd outside my chambers? Will he even recognize me under all this—

There are tears in his eyes. Soft tears in his soft amber eyes. Who could believe such a man as he managed to scare the Klotian Emperor into retreating without a fight? Who could believe a monster such as me could find love for a man like him? He is everything I will never be, can never be.

But there are tears in his eyes, and I think they might be for me. He rushes forward to embrace me and I let my sword clatter uselessly to the ground. “You’ll get blood on you,” I say. I don’t know why I say it; he must realize that himself. His touch makes me feel guilty for all the cleaning his servants will need to do. He is wearing his finest robes, after all.

“Shhhh,” he says as he holds me tight. “That doesn’t matter. You did it, Wren. You saved us. All that matters is you saved us.”

“I saved you.” I say softly. It is a small correction, but in the warmth of his embrace it feels the most important distinction of all.