Rhea wondered what possessed the Great Devourer to act this way. Almost as if something had happened to him. She closed her eyes and tried to reach out with her mind, to perceive his aura as she had learned to do as an acolyte of the Church.

She felt herself grow cold. His essence emanated a chill, like she had fallen into a shadowy sea. His aura was the most ominous she had felt in her life, impossibly deep, as if he were a black hole from which nothing and no one would escape. Certainly not her.

And yet, those words he’d spoken—I understand.

“What do you understand?” she growled.

“Lycanta always gets the worst of it. I understand why your people would choose to protect yourselves or try to.” He shrugged.

“Of course, we could never forgive traitors,” Darkstar said.

“You speak of traitors, but your people haven’t kept faith with those loyal to you!” she shouted back at him, venom in her voice. It brought back memories of her father, one of the few Patriarchs of the Great Families who had stayed loyal to this no-good bastard, this so-called Dark Lord, even as it had spelled ruin for them all, leaving Rhea to pick up the tattered pieces of the Brightwind family’s honor.

That was why she had come to this cursed tower, after all. That was why she had volunteered for this mission in the first place. Because she’d had something to prove. To the Church. To Sun-Domia. To herself.

And what did she have now?

Nothing at all.

“Who do you refer to? These loyalists?” the Dark Lord asked innocently, and she closed her eyes and allowed her head to fall forward in defeat.

Loyalists like my father. But this bastard didn’t deserve the truth. “I…” she whispered, as her voice failed her. Instead, she drew as much saliva into her mouth as she could and spat at the Devourer’s face.

Or so she thought, until the one called Darkstar lunged forward, shockingly fast, unerring in aim as he reached out and caught the spit on his glove.

The Dark Lord laughed but shifted his chair backward all the same. “Thank you, Lucifron,” he said. “Uh, good work.”

In response, the blue one named Lucifron smiled appreciatively, bowed, and returned to where he’d been standing by the Dark Lord’s shoulder.

Rhea sighed. She couldn’t even spit on the Dark Lord, so her hopes of doing anything else, anything more serious, were dashed. She was powerless.

“Fine,” the Devourer said, a devilish glint in his eye as if he had already divined something. As if he already knew the answers to his questions. If anything, this knowing attitude was even more unnerving than his probing from before. “You don’t have to tell me. It was someone close to you. I’m sorry, whatever it was that happened. That must have been difficult for them, and for you.”

“You don’t know the first thing about it!”

She felt the words escape her before she had even formed the thought behind them, her voice almost incoherent as she tensed her legs and lunged forward off the ground, stretching the chains to their limits.

She felt the beast within her growing, yearning to be freed. To unleash it would be a sin, an indulgence of her Void-touched nature. Worse yet, even if she made a show of transforming and trying to kill them, she was doubtful she could break through her bindings. They had seemed impervious to her Light earlier.

“I won’t pry, then,” the Dark Lord said, which seemed an absurd statement from the one interrogating her.

Rhea shook her head, frustrated and confused. “Go,” she pleaded. “Leave me alone, Devourer. I have nothing else to say to you. You’ve already talked too much. You’ve taken everything I have.”

To her surprise, his eyes widened briefly, and then he nodded. “I suppose that’s enough for today.” He rose from his chair. “This was quite helpful. Thank you.”

“Helpful?” She began to replay everything she’d said, worrying she had given the Dark Lord a shred of information he could use against her people, or the Goddess. “I didn’t help you at all.”

“Oh?” he said, then shrugged his shoulders. “If you say so.”

“You bastard,” she said. “You act so indifferent, as if you don’t even know the harm you cause just by your presence here. Why can’t you leave us be?”

“I could say the same for my sister.”

“Sun-Domia wouldn’t even be on this plane if it weren’t for you,” Rhea said. “She could love us from afar and greet our souls in the afterlife, as she wishes.”

“Do you think you would be safe in that world?” he asked. “Do you think the so-called divine races would ever accept you?”

His eyes pointedly looked at her ears, protruding from her head, covered in black fur with tufts of white. Rhea was sitting on her tail so it could not be seen, but she felt it squirm beneath her, as if she were uncomfortable being reminded of it.

“We will show them we can be trusted,” Rhea said through clenched teeth. “We will earn our place in this world. Nowadays there are many non-beastfolk in Lycanta. They see it as a bustling, safe city. None of us want to see it burn for your pointless crusade.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“They see it as a place for gambling and cheap whores.” For the first time, the demon outside the cell with the oversized horns had spoken to her. The Dark Lord turned to look at him, an annoyed look on his face. But they shrugged back, an almost perfect recreation of how the Dark Lord had shrugged earlier, and Rhea wondered if it was intentional or by accident. “I mean, so I’ve heard.” He looked past the Dark Lord, his eyes fixed on Rhea. “Trust me, dog. You threw yourself in here for no reason. We’ll always be less than them. What we seek is something they’ll never give us.”

Rhea shook her head. “I wouldn’t expect a fiend like you to understand. Mark my words, Devourer. I’ll make you regret capturing me alive.”

The Dark Lord looked at her for a long moment, then blinked slowly and stood up from his chair. “Maybe so,” he said. “But I’d regret killing you, too. So you see, you’ve left me in a bind. There’s one thing I still don’t understand, however. You don’t believe we have a Will, yet yours reached out to me earlier as if you were trying to take measure of me.”

Rhea stared at him for a long moment. Had he felt it when she tried to read his aura? He had noticed but said nothing?

“So what I think you need to ask yourself,” he continued, “is who’s really lying to you? And what do they stand to gain?”

The disrespect, the heresy of these worthless demon scum, made her want to scream. She felt the urges of her bestial nature rising within her, the indignation at being chained and insulted.

“Stop. Trying. To. Deceive. Me.”

This time she did not even try to suppress the urge. She welcomed it into herself, allowing herself to become the thing she hated.

She felt the fur regrowing on her face, hands and feet as they grew claws. Her body grew larger too, and she snarled at the Dark Lord and charged forward. This time she put everything into her legs as she lunged, every ounce of effort she could muster. She pointed her claws and fangs towards him, drool trailing from her mouth as if she had gone feral and lost all reason.

I’ll kill you yet, she thought. If it’s the last thing I do. Or at least I’ll force you to kill me, and then I won’t have to hear your lies any more.

As she felt the chain growing taut, she allowed herself to grow further, going past her hybrid form, allowing the dark urges in her soul to overwhelm her until she doubted she was even human. She was nothing more than an animal in a cage, eager to seek retribution on her captor.

Her arms continued to grow along with her wrists until she felt them strain against the shackles. It had been a long time since she had allowed this to happen. Not since she was a young pup had she given in so completely to this feeling—wild exultation and animal rage.

The chains binding her still resisted her strength, but this time she felt one of the links beginning to weaken and bend. She was making progress despite the resistance.

The Dark Lord, strangely, did not back away from her. As she stared into his eyes, she saw only the faintest trace of fear. Instead, the thing she saw most of all was sadness and disappointment. He could not even hate her, she thought. He still pitied her somehow. He had underestimated her fury.

Rhea would have to show him.

The blue swordsman, Lucifron, had stepped between her and the Devourer, drawing his blade, his lips already beginning to whisper his cursed sorcery.

She remembered the lightning magic he’d used on her, shocking her muscles and briefly paralyzing her. Couldn’t let that happen again. Rhea let out a howl, leaping away from him, back towards the wall, as his blade sliced through where she’d just been standing.

Just as quickly, she jumped up and placed her feet against the wall, then launched forward, diving back towards him, even as he was still recovering from his missed swing.

He might have been able to beat her if he’d stayed out of range of her chains. But in his haste to defend his master, Lucifron had come too close.

Her jaws snapped down on his arm like a snare trap, his bone snapping with a crunch as he screamed. He dropped his sword and it clattered to the floor.

Even still, she did not allow the rage to leave her heart. Lucifron was not her target. She opened her mouth, releasing him, and feinted for a moment towards the Dark Lord, who was backing quickly away, knocking over his chair.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the High Priestess casting something, a flame already beginning to erupt from her fingers. From the last time they’d fought, Rhea estimated she had another two seconds until the spell was released.

Just enough time, she thought, and dodged to the side, picking up Lucifron’s fallen sword between her teeth, and calling upon Sun-Domia’s light.

Please, Goddess. One last time. Let me wield your fury against our enemies, even if it brings me death.

The sword began to glow with a heavenly white light as it had so many times before. Nothing like the demon’s orange hellfire, the sword burned with holy radiance, a flame with an edge like the sharpest knife. She jumped and twisted her body, slashing her newfound blade through the chains that bound her to the wall, as close to the shackles as she could manage. By the time she landed on her four feet, she was free.

The Devourer’s eyes widened. But she could not deal with him until she had done something about his companion. She had learned that lesson the first time.

So she jumped forward, leaping towards the High Priestess, her sword outstretched, just in time to once again—

Far too late, she realized that something had changed. Last time, the orb of flame had still been wispy, flickering, by this point. This time the spell looked much brighter, emanating a white-yellow heat that gave her pause.

There was no going back now, however. As soon as she reached the High Priestess, Rhea brought her blazing sword onto the spell, pleading with the Goddess of Light for one last surge of energy, one last blessing.

She swung with all she had, but instead of passing through the flame, dispelling it, she felt the hilt grind against her teeth as if she had struck something solid.

The orb, rather than dissipating, continued to grow, flowing around her sword, enveloping her light and smothering it.

No, she thought. It can’t be. How is she so much stronger this time?

Rhea’s jaw slackened, and she let go of her sword, trying to back away in retreat. But it was already too late. The demon’s fireball flashed toward her, an eruption of light and sound. Rhea’s vision went white and she felt herself tossed backward, a leaf in a hurricane.

After a brief moment airborne, she crashed into the wall, striking her head, and she felt a sharp pain that soon fell away before her ever-dimming senses. She closed her eyes and felt herself returning to her hybrid form, no longer able to maintain the concentration required to hold her shape.

The stone hadn’t felt this cold before. The white light in Rhea’s eyes faded in intensity, only to be replaced by a growing darkness. She collapsed forward, or at least she thought so, as the world spun around her and every cell of her body screamed in agony. Rhea had never felt this way before, in such all-consuming pain. She barely felt anything when she hit the ground.

I’m going to die.

This time she’d underestimated the High Priestess, and now she would pay for it with her life. Her last thought, before the pain overwhelmed her and she fell into nothingness, was a memory of running through fields of orange flowers behind her family home, Dorahn and Kylia right behind her. The sun shone brightly in the sky, and a gentle breeze from the mountains ran through her hair as it streamed behind her.

I’m sorry, she thought. I guess I’m not coming home, after all.