Resent stood in the center of the arena, significantly taller than in past dreams, he appeared to be in early adulthood. Drenched in dark blood from head to toe, he was clad in ebony-and-gold ornate armor that bared lean arms corded with muscle, and wore fingerless gauntlets that still had bits of flesh clinging to the spiked knuckles. He was surrounded by numerous butchered demons dressed in tattered bright hues of yellow and white. In front of him, crawling away, was the sole survivor, a lithe female with golden hair that cascaded down her back.

“What’s wrong, Devika? With your incessant boasting, even I was almost convinced you could rise to the occasion.” Resent kicked her hard in the ribs, and then using the nebulae, lifted her into the air by her slender neck. Unlike Misery’s battle from the previous dream, other than a few scattered cries for the prince to end it, there was a tense silence among the spectating demons. Resent glanced up to the throne where his father sat.

King Strife had shut his eyes and was pressing his fingers against them, as if to blot out the scandal brewing below him.

Resent snarled, dispersing the nebulae and dropping Devika to the ground.

“Astonishing!” a voice announced from high above the arena. “Prince Resent has decimated a hundred soldiers, and humbled the great city of Vicearia’s most prominent conqueror. Clearly, he has the makings of a peerless king.”

“Pleased with yourself, whoreson?” Devika spat. “The only reason you are capable of anything is because you have been privileged with the nebulae. Were it not for that, my forces and I would have torn you apart.”

“Oh? Is my birthright to blame for the loss of your wits? Not your own bitterness?” Resent drawled, yanking her closer so that their faces were inches apart. He spoke in a tone so low that not even the sharpest-eared spectator would hear. “Allowing you to warm my bed for a time was merely my way of fulfilling a curiosity. That your ambitions of escaping your father’s thrall made you aspire to anything more is no fault of mine.”

Devika’s upturned blue eyes shone with mild amusement. “Speaking from personal shortcomings, Prince?”

Resent’s angular jaw tightened as he ran his fingers through Devika’s silky hair with a lover’s tenderness, then seized it in an iron grip near the base of her skull. “How often I would wake to find you combing this mane of yours. Lacking a demon’s regeneration, it must have taken a great deal of time and caution for it to reach such an impressive length.”

“Stop,” she mumbled as fear born of vanity began to replace her defiance. “Please, stop. Apologies for my impertinence.”

“Your words are as hollow as my affection for you. If you are truly sorry...” Resent paused, contemplating an appropriately humiliating punishment, then flashed his teeth in a feral smile. “Lick my boots.”

“What?”

Resent pointed down to his sabatons that ended in short, tapered points. “You see how blood-covered they are? It all belongs to you and your soldiers due to your ill-conceived challenge to me. Now, clean up your mess.”

Devika’s elegantly thin brows narrowed. Any fear driven out of her by the demeaning suggestion. “Absolutely not, you degenerate.”

“Well, if nothing else, I can respect that about you,” Resent said, and then in a single tug, ripped most of her hair out at the roots as she screamed. The crowd howled with laughter as he strutted around, using the nebulae to launch it up to them in bloody clumps. Devika’s face revealed no sadness or shame. Only simmering rage as she glared at the prince with such pure hate that if he were any less conceited, he would have executed her on the spot as a precaution.

Later, as the tournament continued, Resent joined the king at the pair of thrones that overlooked the arena. Even seated, it was clear he was now both broader and taller than his father, if only slightly. “Did you see? How utterly I dominated them?”

Strife’s gaze remained on the battle below, his elbow resting on the arm of his throne, leaning his chin on his fist. “You take pride in that? Slaughtering nameless warriors and needlessly persecuting High Lord Semiazas’ daughter? And to what end? To assuage your bruised ego? Were we not in Dreadmus, your actions today could have ignited a war.”

“I would have welcomed one. It is long past time the Vicearians learned their place. They grow far too pompous for being led by one of them.”

“And because of what he formerly was, you imagine yourself a better leader than Semiazas?”

“Naturally.”

Strife snickered. “Do not let the flattery deceive you, boy. You do not have the ‘makings of a peerless king,’ or even a decent one. Your life has been spent training and having your inane narcissism stoked by easy victories in this arena. You have led no one, nowhere. Continue on this path and all you will ever prove to be is a vacuous tyrant.”

Resent rose from his throne. “It is remarkable, father. Most days you willfully neglect my existence, yet in the rare instances that you do not, you wag your condescending tongue, as if lecturing a simpleton. I grow oh, so weary of it all.”

Resent tried to strike his father across the face, but without the king moving an inch, black nebulae, flecked with gray, caught the punch, snaking up the prince’s arm and ending in a barbed tendril, ready to burrow through his ear canal with a thought.

Strife turned his head with a predatory slowness, violet eyes radiating such an eagerness for violence that Resent lurched back. “My foolish son, I realize you are little more than the product of this brutish society of ours, leaning into the basest instincts of our species, but I urge you to oppose your nature and think. If this ends here, I will excuse it. However, attack once more, forcing me to leave my seat, and I will award you the death such hubris deserves.”

Strife’s nebulae dissipated, and he relaxed on his throne, returning his attention to the battle. He was indifferent to all the hostile posturing and glowering Resent did in the next minutes. Only when the prince stormed away did the king even spare a glance in his direction.

#

Rodrigo jolted awake to voices hollering over each other from outside the car. Though that was nothing new lately, this racket was coming from nearby. He looked in the backseat and saw Raquel still resting. He decided against waking her. Even if whatever was happening wasn’t as dire as it sounded, better she was hidden here than in harm’s way.

He quickly left the car and found himself in the midst of a snowstorm. In the hours he had slept, at least half a foot had piled up and it was coming down heavier than ever. As he slipped on his leather gloves and pulled his scarf higher up his shivering face, he was regretting not buying a hat in the mall.

In the distance, he saw several shapes. He recognized most of the silhouettes as his friends, but one stood taller and broader than the rest. The figure appeared to have three curved horns growing out of its forehead, the center horn longer than the other two. Balanced on its shoulder, glinting against a black pauldron in the moonlight, was the crimson blade of a scythe.

Without explanation, Resent took control and ran wildly toward the scene. The demon wearing the tri-horned crown, spun the scythe with a single hand, smacking the onrushing Resent away using the blunt end of the pearl white snath.

Resent slid back, shrugging the glancing blow off and swallowing his fury as he scanned around them. His eyesight must have been sharp enough to see clearly through the blizzard, because he asked, “You came alone?”

“Why would I not?” With a full forest green beard and shoulder-length hair tied back into a short ponytail, in human years, Misery looked close to a decade older than he had in Resent’s previous memory dream. His distinctive white eyes, devoid of pupils, were as Rodrigo remembered them, but under his left was something that would be out of place on any demon. A scar. One long enough that it nearly stretched down to his beard. “Since the beginning, I have had knowledge of your whereabouts and your new limitations. In my estimation, you are the one woefully unprepared.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“What are you prattling on about?” Resent demanded through gritted teeth.

Misery tossed the scythe he was carrying to Adena. She snatched it out of the air effortlessly by the bone-like snath and walked over to his side. Jett and Carlito watched in terrified silence.

“You certainly took long enough. Still, well done, my Blight,” Misery said. And suddenly, Verin’s shock from hours earlier at a Blight working with Resent made sense. Not just any Blight, either, but the Blight of Dreadmus, Hell’s capital. It had been a warning sign, exclamation mark and all. One Rodrigo had overlooked, because he didn’t want to believe that Adena’s story, or the sorrow on her face while telling it, were fabricated to elicit sympathy.

“Oh, no. Who could have possibly foreseen this betrayal?” Resent drawled, raising a hand to cover his mouth in mock-horror. “Wait a moment. That’s right. I did.” He was trying to appear nonchalant, but with each word, the anger in his tone became plainer. No matter how suspicious of Adena he had been early on, whether he admitted it or not, the prince had come to trust her, and it showed.

“I’m no traitor,” Adena said. “That implies we were ever allies. I strung you along from the start, and your lack of awareness of how Hell’s evolved in your absence made it all too easy.”

Resent opened his mouth to reply, when his attention flicked to something hanging loosely from Misery’s other hand. It was a burlap sack with dark stains spread all over it.

Misery followed his gaze. “Ah, how could I forget? I came bearing a second gift.” He undid the sack’s knot and fished out a severed head by its graying hair, holding it still so Resent could get a good look. It was the head of an old man, his lower jaw slack. It took Rodrigo a few seconds to identify it as the elderly demon who had brought him the urn. Mainly, because since then, his eyes had been gouged out, his ears sliced off, and his face was covered in dry, dark blood. “As you well know, true loyalty is a rarity in a demon. You should be proud to hear that regardless of the unrelenting pain inflicted upon him, Heinrik was loyal to you to his end.”

Then he chucked the head into the snow at Resent’s boots. Initially, the prince did nothing but stare down at his former servant’s head, clenching his fists so tightly his nails were tearing through the gloves. Soon after, Resent lost all self-control, hurtling himself at Misery, consumed by grief and fifteen years of festering hatred.

Adena stepped in his path, holding the scythe with both hands, the blade close to the ground. She moved in on Resent, slicing at a frenetic pace. He was managing to dodge, but the difference in speed between the two wasn’t as large as Rodrigo expected. As Resent ducked under the arc of the blade, getting within striking distance, the scythe in Adena’s hands seemingly disintegrated into flames. It re-materialized instantly, withdrawing solely to her hand that had been farther down the snath, and slicing across the bridge of Resent’s nose.

“What just happened? Did she even move?” Rodrigo asked.

Resent offered no answer. He kicked at Adena’s shin, but she used the curved blade to hook the back of his foot and drop him to the ground.

Adena stood over Resent with her lips curled into a thin, bloodless smile as she pointed her scythe down at him. “Enough games. You can either come back to Hell with us on your feet, dignity somewhat intact, or I can drag you back after I’ve dismembered you. Go ahead. Give me a reason to choose the latter.”

Resent flashed Adena a murderous glare, and she was back on the hunt. As he rolled aside, the scythe’s blade missed him by a hair, ripping through the snow and into the ground beneath it in a shower of sparks.

“We have to help him!” Carlito yelled from the sidelines.

“Interfere and I kill you,” Misery said distractedly, showing little interest in him and Jett as he watched Resent spring to his feet.

Carlito’s throat bobbed, but he seemed oddly unafraid otherwise. Rodrigo wasn’t sure whether the kid had developed balls of steel from trauma after trauma, or was failing to understand what it meant to be king of Hell’s more frightening-looking monstrosities.

Either way, it was a good thing Jett put a hand on his shoulder. “Carlito, don’t do anything Geo would. Resent can handle this much.”

He must have noticed the same thing Rodrigo had. Adena’s attacks were slowing down. That scythe looked to have some heft to it and the constant barrage was tiring her out. The magic of the scythe disappearing and reappearing at will meant nothing if her hands couldn’t move fast enough to grasp it.

Other than a few minor wounds, Resent was still fresh. Generating orbs made from the nebulae on every finger, he said, “You put up a decent fight, for a human. But you chose your master poorly.”

Rodrigo couldn’t figure Adena out. Most signs, including her, somehow, colder than usual expression, painted her as an enemy. And yet, she had chosen to fight Resent close up, instead of at range where her chances would have been far better. Just like she had chosen not to use her scythe with the lethal efficiency he knew she was capable of. But more than anything, it was her pale, bloodshot eyes that kept glancing off to where Misery stood behind her.

“Stop!” Rodrigo yelled, breaking Resent’s concentration.

“This is hardly the time for your sentimental nonsense.”

“Just look her in the eye. She’s trying to tell us something.”

“Enough! She chose her side and now she dies with the consequences.”

The prince was far too blinded by rage to be rational, so Rodrigo did the only thing he could and started trying to wrest control from him.

“You stupid child,” Resent growled. “You’d throw away our lives based on a look?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’m grateful for the opening,” Adena said, the frigid air making her breath come out in clouds as she looked upon Resent’s strained face. She raised her scythe high and began heating the blade. As it exuded thick smoke from a small spike on the back, Rodrigo was beginning to think that, like with her sob story, she had played him again.

Then Adena whirled. Before Misery could evade, she slashed and a wave of scarlet fire sprang from the blade. The demon king yanked the black great sword free from the sheath under his cape, trying to shield himself from the attack, but the pressure sent him spiraling back.

“Just die,” Adena hissed as Misery’s armored body was set ablaze, and he disappeared from view. The fire grew larger, entirely unaffected by the storm. No one could take their eyes off the inferno Adena had created. The flames roared as they grew even more intense, darkening to a red so deep they looked black, and the surrounding air became hard to breathe.

“What are you doing?” Carlito screamed, half-choking on the rising wisps of smoke.

Adena fell to a knee, panting from exertion. Seconds later, the flames burst in all directions, igniting some cars in the parking lot and leaving a steaming crater in the ground. The fire had melted the snow, the concrete, and anything else in its immediate vicinity.

“Holy shit,” Jett said as he hurried over to the empty hole, then lurched back from the heat of the windblown embers. “Dude straight up exploded.”

“Why didn’t you inform me of this?” Resent demanded, sounding eager for an excuse to continue where they left off.

“None of this was part of the plan,” Adena said, her voice hoarse as she struggled to her feet. In the next second, the blade of her scythe was at Carlito’s neck. “It’s all her fault.”

Rodrigo took over before Resent could move a muscle. His sword whined as he drew it from its scabbard and placed the tip at Adena’s back, ready and willing to stab her through the heart. “Explain. Fast.”

Adena took a long breath before glancing over her shoulder at him. “Carlito’s been possessed by a demon named Jezebeth. It’s the reason he passed out during our encounter with Sonneillon. And she’s the one who let Misery know we were here.”

“He looks the same, though,” Jett said, paying close attention to Carlito’s eyes. They were the light green they had always been.

“That means nothing,” Resent said. “A demon more experienced in possession than myself could hide all traces of their presence.”

“Don’t listen to her, bro. She’s a psycho. She killed Leila!” Carlito spat.

Rodrigo had been aware of Leila’s absence, but between Adena and Misery, he had been reacting to this train wreck in stages. Now he glanced around, his heart hammering through every inch of his body as he prodded Adena with his blade. “What did you do to her?”

“You can take it off now,” Adena said coolly.

As if out of thin air, Leila manifested a few feet away from them, a pistol in her shaky right hand, pointed at...Carlito. In her left, the golden mask with bared fangs Adena had worn to disguise herself as Flint through the illusions it created.

“What?” Carlito squeaked in a voice that wasn’t his own. “Your father’s mask? But you killed her! The ashes—”

“Were easy to produce with all the bodies around here,” Adena said. “Conveying what she needed to know without you picking up on it was the challenge.”

Rodrigo pulled his sword away from Adena, having no choice but to accept the sickening truth of the situation. “How do we get her out of him?”

Resent was quiet for what felt like an eternity. “Death.”