Moving through the tightly packed demons required her to spend far more time looking at them, and their strange reflections on the ground, than searching for Atasimon. She called out for the goddess a few times, only to quickly give that up as a fool’s errand. If Atasimon was still able to see, then she’d surely spot Derzina standing amongst the demons, none of which seemed able to stand.

Amongst the ranks of her silent enemies, she was all too aware of Meztraxia dragging his feet behind her in an effort to keep up. She understood why he refused to give up, given that his only other choice was to meekly accept oblivion, but she had nothing further to say to the foul creature nor any desire to waste another thought on him.

Strangely, Derzina found that the further she got from the heart the higher above it she rose, despite the ground appearing perfectly flat. Looking back at the visibly lower demons that simultaneously appeared to be level with her made her head ache, and she resolved to avoid looking at them. Being here was strange enough without letting something like that warp her senses and burden her mind.

Once she left the demons behind, she found that only emptiness lay beyond. Here, other than herself, only the darkness above was reflected and it seemed as if she walked atop a sea of pure black. The illusion took hold in her mind to such an extent that she expected it to swallow her up at any moment. Yet she kept walking; what else was there to do? If she was going to die here, she may as well do it while searching for her lost goddess.

And what a place this was to be lost in, it seemed to go on forever with no sign of a horizon or any landmarks other than the heart itself. Had this place always been here? Or had the heart created it? And now that Derzina thought about it, how had the heart come to be here at all? Whatever had moved it must have been some manner of magic, which it was supposed to absorb. Tiring of her search, Derzina stopped to rest and search for some answers from the only other person here who could offer them.

She sat and waited until the struggling Demon Lord caught up. “Do you have any idea how the heart got here? I thought it was supposed to absorb magic, how could magic have moved it here?”

“That is precisely it’s function,” Meztraxia said, easing his battered body to the ground using only his legs. “Or at least, it was. That wizard of yours altered it somehow, perhaps she even became part of it.”

“As you were?”

“No, I still retained my will and body. She must have bonded with it far more than I ever did, as I can see no trace of her remains.”

“How ever did you come into possession of the heart in the first place?” Derzina asked. “Mortisflor offered little in the way of information when I was a guest in her vile city.”

“Oh? How fortunate that you had the pleasure of meeting the mad god. I trust her company was far more interesting than that of your infuriating little godling.”

“Our meeting brought little pleasure to anyone involved and I have no wish to discuss it. How did you acquire the heart?”

“I’m afraid it’s not a story that I’m particularly fond of sharing,” Meztraxia said, curling his lip. “It doesn’t paint me in the most favourable light.”

“I assure you that my opinion of you could not possibly worsen.”

“A pity. After being bested, I have developed a certain grudging respect for you. Even a sort of admiration.” Before Derzina could berate him and insist he get to the point, Meztraxia continued. “It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say I acquired the heart at all, it was more the other way around. You see, in my own time as the mad god’s guest somehow my charming personality incurred her ire and she had me thrown into the King’s River.”

He paused, putting his finger to his lips as he remembered. “I believe she said I was to be an offering to the Demon King, something about returning one of his ungrateful children to his embrace. Amidst that accursed blood I was broken and remade; it was there that the heart found me.”

“Then you know nothing of who created it? I met with the wizard who claimed to have made it, but he would tell me nothing of its purpose.”

The more Derzina learnt of the heart, the more she doubted it could have been the work of a lone wizard. If it were, then he must surely command power beyond comprehension, and that was hardly the impression she’d gotten from the befuddled old man.

“I had thought it a gift, given to me by the fallen Demon King that I might destroy his enemies. It was only recently that I came to doubt that, and now I no longer believe it at all. Isn’t the death of faith a terribly amusing thing to behold?” Despite his words, Meztraxia sounded more haunted than amused. Not that Derzina had the slightest pity to spare for him, his reasons did nothing to shift her opinion of him.

“I find nothing about you, or what you’ve done, the least bit humorous.” Starting to wish she’d never bothered to speak to him, Derzina shook her head. “Do you know anything about the heart that might be of use?”

“I’m not sure I know anything of use anymore,” Meztraxia said. When Derzina glared at him, he added, “I don’t know terribly much about it, beyond that it was alive.”

“Alive? How do you know that?”

It was a strange claim to make, nothing about what she’d seen of it struck her as it being alive. Even now, it seemed like nothing more than an inanimate object. Albeit one of incredible power.

“It whispered to me. Sometimes when I was awake, but mostly when I was asleep. It was always there in my dreams, a great purple inevitability.”

“What did it whisper of?” Derzina asked, intrigued as to what the heart could possibly have to say.

“Most of what it said concerned my eventual victory, though it appears it either missed the mark or deliberately deceived me. Other than those false promises, it occasionally spoke of a woman named Imistala and her return. Though given what happened with me, I’m not sure I’d put any stock in that talk either.”

Imistala? Erstanos called her a founder and said he named the heart after her, but beyond that he had hinted at no deeper connection. Had he known and chosen to mislead her? Assuming he had created the heart, or at least understood it, then he must have deceived her. But to what end? What was the significance of Imistala, who he’d said was their founder? Much as she wished to ask Meztraxia about it, she was sure he knew nothing more of it than she did.

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“I see,” she said, “then it appears I have nothing further to gain from speaking with you.”

Leaving the Demon Lord behind once more, she strode off in search of Atasimon. The wayward goddess had to be around here somewhere, assuming she still existed at all, and hadn’t been swallowed up by the heart. Much as Derzina wished to deny it, she was finding it harder to believe that Atasimon could still be found. The goddess would surely have returned to her by now, were she still capable of it.

Staring up at the great abyss overhead as she walked, Derzina slowed. She could feel what little strength remained to her draining away and she knew she was dying. Something had been bothering her since not long after she was joined with Atasimon, a sense that she was no longer as she once was; no longer a mortal.

Whatever she had become, it seemed she could not survive without the goddess. It was possible it was just the effects of the heart, but she doubted it. Some part of her had figured it out quite some time ago, she had ceased to live in the ordinary sense and now all she had left was to die. Even if Brtetsia were to bring Derzina back to her own world, only death awaited her there.

Confronted with dying on her back in this dark, empty place, Derzina considered killing Meztraxia. His death at her hands would make for a fitting end to her life, yet looking back at the cripple she couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the idea. They were both corpses now, they just hadn’t finished dying yet.

If that was the case, Derzina decided, then she would rather die on her own terms than wait to wither away. The heart must have consumed Atasimon and Araveena, so it seemed only fitting that Derzina join them. She turned back and headed for the heart, no longer bothering to avert her eyes from it.

“What are you doing?” Meztraxia demanded.

“Going to my death. Feel free to stay here and wither away. It’s only matter of time, no matter what you believe.”

As she passed him, she heard the Demon Lord dragging himself along after her and paid it no mind. Though she had no wish to die with him, her concerns would soon be immaterial.

Now that she was moving toward the heart, Derzina found her passage far easier. The ground still remained flat beneath her feet, yet it felt as if she were drawn toward the purple lights. Comatose demons posed no trouble this time, as she glided through them without obstacle. If she still held any doubts about the heart’s power, feeling it draw her toward it would have erased them.

After a much faster journey back, Derzina stood before the heart. The complex interplay of the lights was beautiful, made all the more so by their reflections from the mirrored ground. Any fear that she felt towards it had vanished the moment she’d decided her fate. Now she was free to appreciate the purple lights dancing in the dark as they drifted further apart until Derzina was amongst the swirling display.

To her surprise there was no sense of heat or any sensation that proved the heart was there at all. Portions of it passed right through her flesh and she didn’t feel a thing. It almost seemed like nothing more than an illusion, yet she knew that could not be true. There had to be something else at work here. Whatever it was, it must be linked to why she was the only one who’d been left behind in Brtet.

If the heart’s greatest desire, assuming it had any desire at all, was to absorb magic, then perhaps that was the reason. Perhaps Derzina was the only one in all the city that possessed no magic, it would make sense given that her god was dead and she was just a corpse. Being spared the effects of the heart would normally have been a blessing, but now all it meant was that she was denied the death she was chosen.

After coming all this way and after all this toil, her reward was to die here; cold and alone. At least within the heart, she could have been with the two goddesses that had so defined her life. Instead, she was doomed to die alongside her mortal enemies. Sitting beside the heart, which seemed content to ignore her, Derzina reflected on the unfairness of it all. This was to be her reward for her service? She hadn’t expected songs to be sung of her, or any such nonsense, but she’d at least expected a better death.

Dying in their last battle against Meztraxia would have been far better. There would have been real nobility in dying to protect a city that wasn’t her own. Instead she was granted a death that was anything but noble. No longer seeing any beauty in the light, Derzina stared up at the void and waited for the end.

As time passed, she found she was mistaken. Derzina thought she’d been resolved to die, yet the longer she waited, the more untrue that proved to be. For all the courage and resolve she’d shown up to this point, she was afraid. The thought of her impending death, and she could feel that it was approaching, filled her with a sickly, paralysing fear that stole the strength from her limbs. Combined with the waning of life in her body, it rendered the simple act of getting to her feet an arduous task. With much struggle, and several false starts, she stood.

A minuscule victory compared to Meztraxia’s defeat, yet in the moment it felt the more difficult of the two tasks. She’d only defeated the Demon Lord with a great deal of help, and there was no help for her here. Without anywhere else to go, and each step taking a monumental effort, Derzina walked deeper into the heart. Everything else around her vanished, obscured by the purple light, and still she continued.

She had no reason to believe there was anything of use to be found within, it was only a faint hope that propelled her forward. It was a fragile little thing, born of fear in this dark, empty place. Yet within her it shone brighter than any sun, banishing even the darkest of her despair and compelling her to live. Blinded by the purple light surrounding her, Derzina heard a voice. Not that of Atasimon, as she hoped, but one she’d never heard before.

Even as the first syllable was uttered, Derzina felt her terror grow. For the voice was not born of ordinary sounds as a mortal’s was, nor did it resemble the elevated tones of a god. As the words came into being around Derzina, it put her in mind of many wordless screams twisted into language. Yet even that comparison did it little justice, the agonised howls of the dying were music next to the voice that emanated from the heart.

“Lost little thing,” it screeched, “why do you struggle so?”

Overawed and on the brink of death, it took several of Derzina’s few remaining moments to answer. “I want to live.” Speaking in a polite or sophisticated manner was beyond her means and her interest now, though it seemed unlikely the being surrounding her would care much one way or the other.

“Then coming here was a curious choice.”

She couldn’t tell if they were threatening her or amused by her actions, it was impossible to derive any nuance from the awful cacophony that erupted around her whenever the heart spoke.

“I came here to seek Atasimon, the goddess you devoured.”

“A necessary sacrifice. Your world has abused magic for too long, it is past time it was stripped away and put to better use.”

Though she would have imagined it to be impossible, the voice grew more terrible with each word it spoke, with each syllable it wove. Even to her failing body, it seemed to burn as it entered her ears and she clutched her hands over them as her whole body trembled.

“I have no wish to destroy you or drive you mad, little visitor,” the voice said, now growing gentler by the moment until it spoke with Araveena’s voice. The lights retreated to reveal the wizard; her eyes blank beneath her hood while her arms were missing entirely.

“Whatever you wish, I will die without Atasimon.”

“You’re quite the broken little thing, aren’t you,” the puppet who was once Araveena said, lips contorting into a smile. “In honour of your visit, I will give you back your goddess. What little remains of her”

A thin snake of purple light crept into Derzina’s eye and beyond, into the confines of her skull. There was an instant of incredible agony and Derzina felt the familiar presence of Atasimon bloom within her mind.

“You may have her a little longer,” the shell of a wizard concluded, as Atasimon returned in full and Derzina was pulled back to the world she called home.