His eyes opened slowly. A plush bed at his back. Dark draperies overhead. A headache beat at his skull, pressing up against his bones. Mouse rubbed his face and sat up, expecting the jingle of chains. “Ugh, Cel, what happened?”

He froze. No jingle. He glanced down at his wrists. Bare, no markings. A simple white shirt hung loose over his body, but that was all. No dress, no pants, no padding. He curled his legs under him and looked around, confused.

No Cel. No Dayander, either. The palace looked nothing like he remembered. Black walls all around, papered in velvety charcoal. Red trimmings. Gold posts on his bed, and the windows locked shut, no balcony in easy reach.

He climbed out of bed and tried the window, jiggled the lock. No luck. I’d need my trunk to have a hope of escaping.

Mouse froze, then, and backed up, back to the window. Wait a second. Where am I?

As far as the eye could see, wasteland stretched before him. Ashen skies, dim, barren earth. Only a few scrubby plants clung to the earth. Black creatures moved through the wastelands, but twisted, misshapen. Blighted.

This isn’t the palace. This isn’t even the human country. This has to be—

“Welcome to my home, Mouse. Or should I say… Twain?”

He whirled. Lilith stood in the door, leaning her voluptuous form against the crimson doorframe. She dragged her eyes up and down him, and giggled. “My, my. You had me fooled—had us all fooled. Whoever would expect Moussaesa’s brother to take her place in the harem?”

Mouse—Twain pulled at his shirt, suddenly self-conscious about all the legs it revealed. “What am I doing here?”

Lilith crossed to him. Sliding a hand around his shoulder, she stared out at the window. “Would you rather be at the palace?”

Twain flinched from under her hand. “Would I?”

She smiled, just a little. “Dear Mouse. What traitorous underlings you have, to conspire to assassinate the king. How lucky that Sabelyn caught them before the poison struck the king’s heart, but he has months left to live. With her brother off to handle the inevitable retaliation against you poisonous moon elves, Sabelyn has no option but to ascend to the throne, albeit temporarily. And if her brother never returns…” She sighed deeply, then giggled.

Twain stared. His stomach went cold. Cel? And Dayander? Are they okay? Did they escape? “You’re insane.”

“Not at all. But you… everyone knows you are. Especially now that it’s all been revealed.”

“They know? That I was Mouse?”

“How could they not know?” Lilith returned.

Okay. Fair. I wasn’t exactly disguised at the end there. Twain scrubbed his face, hair falling around his shoulders. He backed away and sat on the bed. “What—what was that? With Zalazar. What was that for?”

The mattress creaked. Lilith sat beside him, warm and soft, and leaned against his shoulder. “The springs are one of the great sources of magic in this world. A source of purity, of dispelling, of cleanliness. If we want to blight the world, then we must start there. And from there, we can infect the water, and infect the water everywhere.”

“You want to blight the world?” Twain asked, staring at her. Why?

Lilith sighed. “This is where mine and Sabelyn’s goals misalign. She believes she has found an instability in the Barrier, a weakness at its heart.” She prodded a finger into Twain’s chest. “A source of blight in the heart of the palace, in the center of the Barrier.”

“Xenozar,” Twain realized.

Lilith smiled gently. “She believed she could use the springs to purify Zalazar, a weaker, derivative version of our king.”

“Your king?” Twain interrupted.

Lilith’s finger wandered his chest. “You’ve dreamed of him, yes? The first, the only, the true Dark King. The one you call Xenozar, who was bound into the heart of the Barrier in its very conception, as the Blight for the Barrier to repel. How does water know to refuse oil if it has never met oil?”

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Twain pushed her hand off his chest and raised his hand, asking for a pause. “Wait. Xenozar is… the Dark King? I thought that was only a legend.”

The edges of Lilith’s lips quirked upward.

He rubbed his forehead. “And, wait, the Dark King, the Mage-Emperor’s opposite, is not only real, but he’s been bound in the Barrier as… an example of blight, so the Barrier knows what to not allow?”

“And a power source, among other things,” Lilith confirmed.

“Right. So Zalazar is…”

“The modern ‘Dark King.’ Like a Mage-Emperor, they are born from time to time, only from the blight instead of pure magic,” Lilith said.

“You wanted to spread the blight. Sabelyn thought she could purify Zalazar. Which means Sabelyn… wants to destroy Xenozar,” Twain realized. “Shore up the Barrier? But why?”

“Mmm, I may have convinced her that the Barrier is deteriorating, and that’s why blight has been running amok in the capitol lately. It took quite some doing to smuggle that much blight into the Arena, you know.”

“Damn. I knew Sabelyn was looking for a way to take power, but I never suspected…” Twain shook his head. He laid back on the bed, tired suddenly. If she could succeed in eliminating Xenozar and Zalazar, she would become a hero in her own right. No one would threaten her place on the throne. Even destroying one would be sufficient.

Though that aside, I understand wanting to destroy—or remove—Xenozar. The idea of putting the Dark King at the center of the Barrier—what madman came up with that?

Watching his expression, Lilith smiled. “Do you know who came up with the Barrier?”

“The second Mage-Emperor, right? Or was it the third?” Twain’s brows furrowed.

Lilith shook her head. “No. The Dark King.”

Twain blinked, confused. “But… why?”

“Locked in endless wars with the Pure Lands, as they were known before the Barrier Alliance, his creations dying by the dozens, our King searched for a better solution. A superior way to conquer the lands.”

“So he did it by… making it so very little blight could pass through the Barrier? Wouldn’t that just hinder him?” Mouse asked.

Lilith shook her head gently. “Tell me, is the human army prepared for blight? For war, even?”

Mouse widened his eyes. “No way…”

“The Barrier Alliance has grown complacent. Only the border countries, the moon elves and the beastfolk and the undead, retain any real ability to combat darkfoes. Sabelyn has thrown one of the best anti-blight armies into chaos, and by extension, all the other border races as well. Our King has sunk blight deep into the center of the Barrier Alliance, right under the watch of the human country and their Mage-Emperor. One last push, and the Pure Lands shatter and land in our hands.”

“And that is?” Twain asked.

Lilith put her hand on his leg. He flinched away. “That is your job, Twain. You must free our King. He did not account for the strength of the Mage-Emperor to grow with complacency, as pure magic inundated the Pure Lands. Felix is one of the most powerful Mage-Emperors to live. Remove him, and our King is free to conquer the last part of this world that remains unconquered.”

“I—I would never! And even if I did, how would I get into the capitol? Didn’t your friend Sabelyn make me a villain? I can’t walk around the palace anymore.”

“You can be very cute, Twain,” Lilith said, her eyes crinkling with her smile.

“What does that mean?” Twain demanded.

She laid beside him, on her side, hair curling around her face and her breasts pressed together, almost spilling out of her low-cut dress. “Reihann has captured your Mage-Emperor.”

“Who?”

“The dragon princess. She spirited him away, out of everyone’s reach. Sabelyn, myself, no one can reach him. But perhaps you. You might hold the key.”

“Let me get this straight. You want me to find Felix and kill him so that the Dark King, who isn’t a legend, turns out, can conquer the Barrier Alliance.”

“Capture and convince him to lower the Barrier, distract him, trick him into disrupting the containment barrier around our King… it isn’t necessary you kill him.”

“Right. Why would I do that?”

She stood. Twain sat up, watching her go. Across the room, she threw open a cabinet, revealing three glass plates.

No. Not glass. Crystal.

Hung in each of the crystal plates, a reflection of a moon elf shimmered. Twain stood, hurrying over to get a closer look. In one, Dayander hung in chains, his eyebrows bloodied, worn, wrinkled chest bare and striped with whip marks. In the next, Cel laid bound, blindfolded, stretched out on a table, her limbs drawn nearly to their breaking point. The final one held a short-haired moon elf, bound and gagged, sitting silently in a half-submerged cell. Twain frowned and leaned closer.

His eyes went wide. “Moussaesa!”

“So? How do you feel about finding your Mage-Emperor now?” Lilith whispered in his ear.

“You—you filth!” Twain shouted. He swiped at Lilith.

Blight surged up in him. He staggered and bent over, coughing as something welled up in his throat. Over and over, one cough on top of another. He fell to his knees, unable to hold himself up or stop coughing, until black splattered on the carpet before him, not blood but blight itself, welling up from inside him.

Lilith chuckled. “I wouldn’t do anything to anger our King. As deep as his blight is wedged inside you, your life quite literally hangs on his whim.”

“Trash,” Twain spat, the taste of blight on his tongue.

“Call me what you will. I’ll give you some time to think. You can press that panel if you make up your mind.” She gestured at a silver panel beside the door, inscribed with a magic circle, as she left, hips swaying down the hallway.

The door swung shut.

Twain put his head in his hands, curling up over the stained carpet. Dammit! Dammit, dammit, dammit!