It was a promise, a few words that rolled off Salia’s tongue as a matter of course – and Mireille accepted it with a smile.

“We will make a difference.” Slowly, she reached out one of her clawed hands to Salia.

Contact, she accepted as she placed a hand on a nail. For a moment they agreed, and though the fire inside her burned only half as strong as it had when they first met, the hatred settled deep inside her. The fire no longer needed to burn. It had died down to embers, ready to flare up again when it was time.

The certainty brought strength with it. A power that tingled under her skin and made her otherwise slender body seem strangely strong. Nothing about her changed and yet she thought she could punch holes in fortresses with her bare hands.

“I will no longer lurk in your thoughts.” Consciously, Mireille withdrew her claw. “The spear will tell you what to do ... and then you will be a superhero.”

Salia had no clue what a superhero was supposed to be, but she knew what a hero was. And for Mireille, she would probably fill that image once Couvia had fallen and the first people begged for forgiveness.

“I will go to the surface,” she stated at the thought. Of course she would. To fix the world, she needed to set foot on the land once more. “But first I must-“

“Take the spear,” the siren finished her sentence. “All you have to do is call it.”

“Does it have a name, then?”

“I think you’ve heard it many times. Though not in a good context.”

For a moment, Salia stared at the white cloth on the face of the creature opposite her as thoughts danced. A thousand things were negatively tainted, but only one thing possessed the power to strike fear into any demon. Held as a mass grave, no one knew the ancestry of the name that stared menacingly at them whenever they closed their eyes at night.

“Aywotoc.” It escaped her as a whisper. A word they had always run away from and that would now give them a future. So Salia reached a hand out into the nothingness in front of her and asked once more for her miracle. “Aywotoc!”

Murmurs settled in her ears. Her heart thundered against her throat and the certainty that she wasn’t going on a journey alone was reinforced when the spear appeared from the shallows of the sea to nestle against her hand. Instantly, she clutched it tightly with both hands and pressed it to her chest.

Simultaneously, images flooded her skull. Scenes of long-forgotten days showing her how to wield the power of the sea. Memories that burned into her bones and made her a warrior she wasn’t and yet needed to be. For a moment, she was immortal.

She was a superhero.

The salvation of her people, who would determine and rule a new world, to allow no more trouble.

Salia couldn’t help but arch her back and swell her chest. Alongside all the negative feelings that had accompanied her, radiance seemed to spread. Warmth and tingling, the need to turn to someone and talk about it until you were loved.

Praises from parents she no longer had. Loving words from demons – no, from humans – who were no longer there.

Lips pressed together, she kept her eyes firmly on Mireille. She was still a child. A little girl trapped in the body of a gigantic siren who had held on to her own hope all these years. She would praise Salia one day. Surely. And for her, Salia would create peace.

A world where they could be happy, just as Vix had imagined. The perfect environment where no one had to be afraid anymore.

“Take me to the coast near Couvia. Take me to the place where I should have died, Aywotoc.” She needed no goodbyes, no last words for Mireille, who would wait for her even without them. Instead, Salia dared to take the first step forward.

The spear tugged at her arms for a moment before she let it carry her. Magically aimed at her target, it chased away, intent on letting the stream glide through Salia’s hair like a light breeze. The sea guided her gently. It led her with kindness, as if it wanted to wash her soul clean one last time before it was too late.

And only when the breeze stopped and her head broke the surface of the water did all these things end.

Oxygen filled her wet lungs, making Salia cough and choke until bile burned her throat. Gasping for air was completely foreign during those seconds and yet was nothing more than an old memory she dug out and used. Still, the breaths only slowly calmed and while the spear kept her weight above water, Salia brushed the white hair from her face.

The sun was already low in the sky and the warmth it spread was slowly suffocating in the surging cold of the falling evening. The sea was breaking waves in isolated places, lapping against the shore, and the breezes settled icily on Salia’s skin. Every piece of cloth Vix had given her stuck to her body, and the weight that suddenly clung to her was much more uncomfortable than the rag she had once worn.

It wasn’t until she was on land that she felt the extra heavy extensively. Gently rubbing over her skin, her muscles remained motionless and, for a moment, exhaustion was all she knew. To rest in this place, to forget the struggle and grief for a single heartbeat, seemed tempting. But Couvia was less than two days away – by cart – and the sooner she arrived, the earlier all this would end.

Groaning, she scrambled to her feet. The spear remained in the sea. It would come when she called it and until then she would be nothing more than a simple demon on her way home to a land that would kill her.

The grains of sand crunched under her soles as she pushed forward. The first steps were so loud that she thought they could be heard for miles. The rest convinced her otherwise. She knew the sound, and she knew how quiet it actually was.

But it was only when meadow got under her feet that the world became a little quieter. It brought with it enough room to allow her shoulders to tremble and notice the flaws in her own appearance. She was wet, tired, and the rumbling that loosened in her guts was a reminder that she had hardly eaten anything in all this time.

A hand on her belly stopped the motions but didn’t fill the emptiness that made her steps sway and drag. From the cages, she had seen no place capable of feeding her on the way away from Couvia, yet to wander for two days without food would kill her. Her body was too frail to endure. The ribs of her chest had been sticking out clearly for months and her arms could be trapped, up to her shoulder, between her thumb and middle finger.

With those lanky arms, she would lead Aywotoc. She would need every bit of strength her body could give and for that, she had to arrive at the kingdom at least halfway fit.

Half in thought, she lowered her head. Her steps just stopped at the first tree on the open dirt path and the shadow enveloped her gloomily. Her throat was parched. Every breath rattled. Below the water, it had all seemed easy, but back on land, the effort was greater than she remembered.

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Leaning her shoulder against the tree trunk, Salia took a breath. Pinpricks coursed through her guts, making hunger troublesome and her vision dim. Though the sun had almost disappeared behind the end of the world and the air clung to her in a chill, though her shoulders shook, heat bubbled beneath her skin. Heat that tracked no emotion but was simply there, as if the disease of cowards was spreading.

A sickness that wanted to urge her to turn around and go back. Or maybe just a flu that seemed completely moronic in the face of her ideas.

Whatever it was, it held her to that tree trunk and made her close her eyes. Rest lurked in the blackness of her senses, pressing against her. Something other than unplanned exhaustion that she couldn’t control.

Frogs croaked in the background, forming an orchestra with distant chirps of birds intoning their last melodies. The sound of wheels clattering over the path, recalling long journeys she had never taken – and making Salia falter in the very next breath.

Immediately, she snapped her eyes open and glanced down the path. There was emptiness in front of her, but behind her, at a corner that distantly followed the sea, a cart turned up. Horse hooves dragged dully along the path and the wooden wheels creaked whenever they rolled over a stone. A fat man had taken the seat, an old hat pulled dirty low on his face.

If she overpowered him, she would get to Couvia faster. Then she would save energy and perhaps find something to eat. All she had to do was wait, jump on the cart, and throw him off.

But the wheels slowed down and when the sturdy horse came to a halt beside her, the heart raced so fast in Salia’s chest that she couldn’t bring herself to move.

“Hey, gal, ya’re a demon, ain’t ya?” He tapped the brim of his hat twice. “The horns are splendid, but we don’t live in a time where you flash that to everyone.” He waved it off briefly. “You need a hat?”

He neither attacked her nor seemed to want to run away screaming. Still, Salia kept her eyes on him as she shook her head. A reaction that only made him shrug his shoulders before he pushed the hat off his face, revealing round, weather-beaten features. “Where ya goin’?”

“Couvia,” Salia returned curtly.

“Ah, the walls of unlimited dickheads.” Unnerved, he pulled his nose back and spat on the ground. “Ya know they’re drowning you?”

“They tried that once.” By now, she was leaning back against the trunk. “Shouldn’t you try to get away as quickly as possible? I’m dangerous.”

“Ya?” He choked on his own laugh before coughing and rubbing his eyes. “Gal, from the looks of ya, the wind is wiping the windows clean with ya.”

“An injury from me can be contagious.”

“Old wives’ tales, I tell you. Nothing but old wives’ tales.”

His raised, bushy grey eyebrows made Salia wrinkle her nose. This man didn’t believe in the idiocy being spread in Couvia, and he didn’t give a damn about her form either. He was unlike the people she knew and yet nothing more than one of them.

At least, that was when he gestured to the seat beside him with a nod and put on a crooked, gap-toothed smile. “Would ya like me to drive ya to the gallows?”

“You’d give me a lift?”

“On my way to the shit down there, might as well bring back a souvenir.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s only for two days, but I’ve got food for twenty. Maybe we’ll get some meat on those bones if we try to fill ya up, oh great demon.”

His joke didn’t go down well with her, but it was an offer that was hard to refuse with a thundering stomach and weak legs. Added to that, he didn’t convey the image of a classic Couvian. He came from another kingdom and the fact he didn’t fear her or immediately throw stones was enough to make her at least not want him dead straight away.

Even as her thoughts weighed the offer, he reached into the cart behind him and pulled out an apple. Red and shiny and tasty, the likes of which Salia hadn’t seen in ages. The growl in her stomach demanded something, and ultimately, she was no longer a weak child who didn’t know how to fight back. She had gained powers. The spear would come to her aid if necessary.

So she accepted the offer. Her skinny fingers reached for the apple and then for the offered hand, which helped her to climb up. The wood pressed firmly against her bottom and the apple cracked as she bit into it.

For the first time, she tasted the sweetness of this fruit. All the things she could never have had before.

And when she was handed a thin blanket shortly afterwards, life seemed a little better than it had been in the run-down slums of the demons. It seemed like everything was just getting better.

“Ya’re all wet,” the man began barely later. “Did ya take swimming lessons in case they try to drown ya?”

“Sort of.”

“With clothes on?”

“It gives me strength.”

“True, true!” He slapped his thigh. “We should rest soon. It won’t be long before it’s black as night and this horse demands its beauty sleep.” He snorted. “And yet it’s really ugly.”

“Does it matter?” Brows raised, and the blanket wrapped tightly around her torso, Salia glanced at the stranger.

“Nah!” He laughed. “It’s a good horse. But ugly it is too.”

She had no understanding of what a nice horse should look like or what was wrong with this one. It had an overbite, the teeth were peeking out a bit and were clearly yellowed. It walked a little inwards and its ears were tiny in proportion to its head, but it was definitely a horse with a shaggy mane.

Just a horse.

Slowly, Salia’s fingertips inched their way to her horns. She was probably ugly too, if this horse already was. In Couvia, she had seen many people and most of them had looked great. They were plumper than Salia, not as awfully pale, their bodies were nicely shaped and not just a skinny line that was easily overlooked. Some of them had shiny hair, and although Salia had often dipped her own in mud, knowing that it was supposed to be good for something, her white strands were straw-like.

And she had horns. Curved, black horns like the ones you sometimes saw on rams. All of which probably made her ugly. Just like the horse.

Her musings carried her into the night, where the sun had disappeared and the croaking of the frogs became more monotonous. The cart stopped at the side of the road, where a few trees gathered and offered to tie the horse to. The goods the man dragged with him included four blankets, food and a kettle, which he dug out with difficulty to set up.

By the time the fire crackled under it and they had both found a comfortable position nearby, while potatoes and other vegetables bubbled, the air had cooled.

“I hope ya can eat well, child.” Groaning, he dug three wooden spoons and a fork out of his utensils. “The pot has to be cleared or there’ll be a mess when I have to load it up again.”

Meaningfully, he handed her one spoon, and Salis gave it a nod. They would eat directly from the kettle. The simplest option.

As she dipped the wood into the bubbling mass, she heard herself swallow. This kettle contained the first hot meal in six years. And when she put the first spoonful in her mouth and felt the comforting warmth in her stomach a little later, a whole cauldron didn’t seem enough to satisfy her hunger.

There was something peaceful about the silence that spread during the meal. Unlike the dull pressure that water brought, it was real serenity that lurked here. The darkness cradled her in safety. No one was on her heels and for a moment the change of this world was no longer in her hands either.

Vix’s idea of travelling was suddenly terribly real. With this man not running from her, she could see the world and perhaps know the place from which he had come. One of the other kingdoms that dealt with their demons much more peacefully than Couvia did.

It was a fantasy that eventually pushed food to the back of her mind and allowed fatigue to take over. Caught up in the bare idea of how beautiful something could be, how she could shake it all off for a moment as the glow within her rested tentatively, consumed her. It dragged her into sweet dreams in which she could rest. Blackness rocked her gently in its arms and pressed her tightly against it until clanking in the background brought a gentle melody.

It was reminiscent of the rustling of the chains she had worn. A placid rustle that she listened to and yet made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“Wake up...” A voice in the background reached out to her. The distant call, however, beaded off.

“You must wake up, Salia.” The insistence became clearer, tearing at her calmness, which Salia tried to cling to with everything she had.

“Wake up!”

Her eyes snapped open and the burning of her vision drove tears to her lower lids. Simultaneously, she recognised the old man, whose hands held an iron chain tightly. He had moved closer and if she hadn’t known better, he would have been just a man with a chain.

But the heavy rings, a visibly perfect fit around her wrists and neck, sent adrenaline coursing through her bones.

Instantly she jumped to her feet, gaining two steps of distance, and regarded the pleading look of the man she had almost, in false naivety, mistaken for a friend.

“Why?” She still had to ask, her voice quivering at the top of her lungs.

“Because ya will be a lot better off,” he replied. “If I take ya to my homeland and sell ya there, ya’ll live a fine life as an exotic creature.” He tightened his chains. “Look at ya, will ya? Skinny and hungry. That’s no life. But ya are real pretty and the rich will gladly take in someone like ya. A relaxed life as a trophy babe ... that’s something.”

Maybe it was. A life of peace.

But it wasn’t an option.

She wasn’t a pet; she wasn’t a toy.

“I am a human being...” she realised all at once. Exactly what Vix had explained to her. She was nothing more than a slightly out-of-shape human.

“Tis what ya are,” he affirmed. “But not in the way expected. Better off up there...”

And maybe she really would be.