I found myself pinning Vivian the mercenary down into the hard, icy snow outside the clandestine meeting spot of a group of murderous ex-soldiers. Her crossbow lay in the snow next to us, and the painful hole where an enchanted bolt had fire into me leaked blood that bubbled and melted the snow beside her head.

Vivian’s expression told me all I needed to know: I’d succeeded for now. Honestly, draining her anger slowly had been a chore. She had resistances much, much higher than I’d expected. I’d actually scared myself a little with how well I pulled off the “scary demon” reveal. I supposed that when I was out of patience, I perhaps acted a little more demonic.

Something to keep in mind.

From the looks of things, she hadn’t noticed what I’d done. I probably hadn’t drained enough, but I didn’t dare touch what little Vivian had left.

Truthfully, I’d been more scared than I’d let on. Not wincing when I pulled the crossbow bolt out had been a difficult thing. The projectile was tipped to dig in and tore more flesh going out than it had going in. And it had gone in deep, piercing bone.

A little down and between the ribs and I’d have gotten to find out whether I could take a magicked crossbow bolt the thickness of an index finger straight to my heart. Frighteningly, I had a feeling the answer was “yes.”

Gods above, just what kind of monster am I? In a technical, scholarly sense, of course. I didn’t act like a monster; I didn’t walk in there and kill everyone. I hadn’t even helped. And I wasn’t killing the vigilante I had pinned under me.

My hearing picked up a commotion from inside the house we’d been under, and I transformed back before this situation became an uncountable number of times worse.

Vivian, for her part, recovered quickly once I got off her and retrieved her weapon from the snow.

“Attack me again and I’ll kill you,” I said, keeping my gaze firmly on the mercenary. My demonic pride wanted to check the status of my destroyed tunic and feign disinterest, but I reined it in.

The still-bleeding hole in my chest made a very good argument that I shouldn’t be so impractical.

Vivian didn’t say anything. Nor did she try to run. “I shout ‘demon’ and you lose your façade of humanity.”

A dark part of me wanted to laugh. Don’t be the villain! “Yeah, that’d suck—for tonight. The Gelles Company knows what I am. I believe they have me on file correctly as a ‘wrath demon.’”

Vivian stared, and reloaded her crossbow.

“We’re after the same thing, Vivian. And, quite frankly, I might need someone with me who’ll shoot first and talk later. I have a bad habit of talking first, and then also talking more later.” I started to walk off, toward what I hoped was a suitably dark alley.

Vivian aimed at me.

I turned halfway, put a finger to my chin coquettishly, and smiled sharply, letting go of my human-looking teeth in the dim light. “Kinda like I’m doing right now, actually!”

I may have channeled Lilly in my attempt at intimidation. Whether I liked it or not, the Sovereign of Lust was the only role model of another Sovereign I had, except maybe the previous Wrath whose, uh, lingering force or something had gifted me my title. He or they’d seemed like a swell enough person according to the carvings on Korzon Island.

At the least, my intimidation caught her off-guard. “I can’t just let you go,” Vivian said coldly, moving herself away from the scene of the massacre.

I continued at a sauntering pace away from what was about to become a very loud scene when the bodies were discovered. Vivian followed me, wary.

“Actually, you can,” I pointed down the alley. “It’s really, really easy too.”

Vivian tightened her finger on the trigger. “Who knows what damage you’ll cause.”

“The only damage I’m causing is to the food supply of the inn I’m staying at.” Vivian frowned, but I continued. “And I am paying for it, thank you.”

“What’s your game demon?”

“Cards. I’m pretty bad at cheating, but I’m getting better.”

“Fuck you. Answer me.”

Perhaps toying with her was cruel, but I was beyond done with people incessantly asking what my real goals were. And that was before having a mentally draining, exhausting, morally difficult night. My last thread of my frankly unreasonable amount of measured patience spun apart.

So, like any reasonable wrath demon, I went off on her. Verbally.

“Where the hell do you get off asking me that like I had some ulterior motive? I’ve already told you what I want—literally! I am so damn tired of having to explain myself over and over again to people; to keep insisting that ‘no, I don’t want to rampage indiscriminately.’ I’m done with throwing myself on the sword over and over again just to prove that I can be ‘reasonable.’ That’s not reasonable—that’s insane!

“Do you really think that any sane person would let themselves be nearly killed, then let their assaulter go and ask to work together? Are you trying to get yourself killed? What kind of bullshit hoops do I need to go through to maybe get people to give me a mote of trust?! You probably think I faked that Gelles Company insignia! I know I had to prove it to the head company person just last week, despite a letter from my superiors explaining for me ahead of time.

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“Would you like me to go back on my word of ‘try something and I’ll kill you?’ Do you think that that lie would make me more trustworthy? Do you want me to just lie down here and you can kick me for a while until you decide I’m a ‘good enough’ demon? Do you want to test me by flinging insults and treating me as subhuman just to see if I’ll get the ‘right’ amount of angry?!

“Does it ever occur to anyone that Sovereign of Wrath might mean a Sovereign over Wrath, not fucking controlled by it? Do you maybe think that a wrath demon on the loose is my responsibility because I want to stop them from losing themselves to wrath?”

I huffed and panted, little licks of fire escaping between my clenched teeth. At some point, I’d dropped my transformation, and I had sixteen claw-holes in my palms where I’d clenched my hands into fists. For a moment, despite my command over my fury, I debated just cutting loose.

I didn’t.

I reined it in, and I stared at Vivian, hard.

She stared back, crossbow only slightly lowered while her jaw hung open.

“You can think I’m crazy. Go ahead. Some random demon just offloading years of pent-up issues on some random stranger sure sounds crazy. Maybe I am. But just because I play therapist for my friends doesn’t mean I don’t have my own issues. Maybe just like them I’ve been putting mine off—but why would you care?

“Sorry. No, I’m not sorry—I needed this. Think of me what you will. I’m going to go back to my inn room, eat too much, and cry into my bed until my girlfriend gets back.”

I turned my back to Vivian and walked down the alleyway, shifting back into my human form. My already too-small blouse was ruined, and with the blood and puncture at chest level, I certainly looked the part of someone who’d been assaulted.

***

I got some odd stares on the way back to the inn, but with my head down, my steps steady, and my countenance hard, I didn’t get approached. Good thing, probably. I wasn’t particularly in a mood to talk to anyone.

My confidence lasted until I’d closed the door—perhaps too hard—to the room I shared with Seyari. To my relief she wasn’t asleep, and was instead writing with a quill and ink at the room’s small, slightly off-kilter table.

She looked up when she saw me, and I delighted in the fury she felt toward whoever had hurt me. Suddenly, my eyes were wet.

Seyari dried the ink with a gust of wind and jumped up, catching me in a hug. I embraced her back, all four arms and a tail included. Her warmth was better than my own.

“What happened?” she asked.

“A lot. That merc who was yelling at the guard captain the other day knows about me. Oh, and I saw her kill half a dozen people.” My words may have been muffled by talking into the top of Seyari’s head. Her silver hair was soft, tingling just a touch with magic I was weak to.

Seyari’s lips drew into a thin line. I couldn’t see them—I just knew. “Did you kill her?”

I shook my head, ruffling Sey’s hair. “No. And I think… I think if she hadn’t killed the people she killed, I would’ve.”

Sey was silent for a while, and after another long moment, we broke off the embrace and lay down on the bed next to each other.

“I know I’m going to sound callous, Renna,” Sey started, “but you’ve killed before.”

I stretched, pulling the ruined blouse up and over with my lower arms. I tossed it at the corner of the room before rolling onto my side to face Seyari. She faced the ceiling, arms behind her head, but she gave me a sideways look.

“This was different,” I said simply.

“Different how?” Seyari asked.

“All the other times, I’ve either struck second, or it’s been an impersonal thing. This time, the people around me, the murderers, were… well nice is a stretch, but…”

“Mhmm,” Sey hummed.

“Mhmm? That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it. I don’t have an answer. Sometimes you have to—sometimes it sucks but it’s probably the right thing to do. Or, a right enough thing to do. You already know it never stops hurting.”

“That sounds like an answer to me…” I mumbled. “I thought about what Yevon said, too. Outside the mine when he killed that mage.”

“I wouldn’t put any faith in what Yevon says,” Seyari said bluntly, turning her gaze back to the ceiling above.

I frowned. I caught my tail twitching, so I brought it around and held it on front of me. “Does he remind you of—”

“Yes. The Church of Dhias is full of people like him. People who justify their actions to the point where they see everything in absolutes.” She paused. “I was like that—you remember what I told you.”

I pulled my tail closer to me. “Yeah, I know. I’m not going to be like him, but I did have to think: What would happen to those murderers if I turned them in to the guard? What about their families? Would it be worse for them to be burdened by that legacy, or is it worse not knowing why they died?”

“Think about that and you’ll never sleep at night again,” Seyari replied simply. “What about their victims? Their future victims? Could they change their ways? Is it worth it to try?”

All this made my head hurt. “You sound like me,” I said, a little hurt.

“Do I? You’re a lot more decisive these days, boss. I honestly think you moralize too much, Renna, but I like that about you. I’d always just brushed questions like those aside—assured in the fact I was a rotten person.”

“And now you don’t?” I reached out and took one of Sey’s hands, giving it a squeeze. I didn’t need to say she wasn’t a rotten person to say as much.

“Not as often.” Seyari flipped onto her side to face me. “But what I have to tell you is that as much as you don’t want to end up someone like Yevon, you know you’re in a position to make a decision. And I think you’re a damn good woman to be put in that position. It’s not fair—and it probably isn’t the moral high ground, but you’re going to have to kill in cold blood sometimes. We’re involved in too much dark business not to be.”

I felt the dream of a quaint countryside house being dragged away. I hadn’t ever truly seen it in my future. The idyll was the sort of future you dream about, but never really think will come to pass.

Seyari, however, continued, “Maybe my role is to help with that sort of business. To be there for you when you have to make an awful decision.”

To be there for me. “Hey…” I trailed off, unsure of what to say next. Unsure if I could say what I wanted to say next.

Seyari waited patiently for me, and we stared into each other’s eyes. Not a single, unbroken, mesmerized sort of look, but a searching one—gazes meeting fleetingly as we looked around, trying to go deeper.

Or I was just reading too much into it and Sey saw something on my face. The impish thought helped me find my focus.

“Hey Sey… when we’re all done with this, will you, uh,” I swallowed. “Will you marry me?”

Sey’s roaming eyes stopped. Her gaze met mine, and she broke into a weary smile, punctuated by bright laughter. “I was waiting for one of us to say that, Zarenna. I was going to wait until we met your sister—I’m surprised you beat me to it.”

“You mean?”

“Yes, Zarenna Miller. Yes I want to marry you—gods above how could you think elsewise?”

“Well, we’ve only been together for—”

“For long enough. With all the shit we’ve been through, we’d be idiots to keep waiting.” Seyari reached forward and tousled my hair. “Dork.”

I smiled and pulled her into a hug. “Ice queen.”

“Sovereign of Puns.” Sey traced a finger along my chin.

“You know it!” I beamed.

Sey leaned forward, and just as our lips met my stomach growled audibly. We pulled apart, our eyes drifting below necklines.

“Food later,” Sey said.

“Yeah, later,” I agreed.