After I’d dropped Quiraxa from a reasonable height and before I could see my castle nestled amongst the mountains, I could see smoke. Not a great, billowing cloud of my city burning, not an orange glow pushing back the night sky.

Trails of pale woodsmoke, curling up almost innocently above the castle walls. But they weren’t where chimneys should be.

“Trouble!” I shouted back to Seyari.

“Go!” she returned from somewhere behind me. “I’ll catch up.”

Pouring magic into my wings, they flared behind me and I felt the thickening, roaring air stretching my cheeks. And then my ears popped, a half-heard bang echoing into now-complete silence.

The air was thicker than ever, but I couldn’t hear a thing as Astrye came into view. I barely had time to register what looked like an army massing around the castle, spells and arrows flying. They looked like ants.

I overshot the castle before I could slow down, banked and turned back. When I looked, the battle below was coming to a stumbling halt as a thousand eyes turned to look up at me. Once a pristine white, the field around my castle was muddy and brown in the morning sun. I saw banners from the Church and also from some noble house I vaguely recognized.

Echoes of the boom my flight had made were still lingering when a wall of arrows was launched toward the castle. Before they could reach, I conjured a wall of crimson fire and wind. Before I turned my head back, something searingly hot wrapped around my leg.

Reflexively, I slashed down at it, and it shattered into motes of light at the edge of my vision. Only for another to get one of my lower arms, and another the other leg. Literal chains of holy light. I slashed at those, only for four more to wrap around me.

Shit! I threw out my magic in a haze of flame and swirling heat. The chains dimmed, some shattered, but more and more piled on and I realized they were pulling me toward the ground. My armor sizzled and cracked as the chains seared through it. But when they hit my skin, they didn’t quite burn.

Someone must have been planning for that moment of distraction; someone must have been planning for a powerful demon. Below me was a clearing covered in glowing gold spellwork etched deep into the snow. Every point was a chain, and every chain I broke in my struggle spawned anew. Worse, I could feel them pulling at my mana, trying to suck the magic out of me.

There was a shout, some command I didn’t hear the words of, and I saw out of the corner of my eye as spells wreathed a primitive-looking battering ram. Faster than a demon could push it, it launched toward the castle’s gates.

A mere moment before it hit, and before I hit the ground, a red blur slammed into the ram with a crack I felt in my bones. And then I hit the snow, knees first. By the wall, there was a rumble; the earth shook, and cries went up on both sides.

I couldn’t even turn to look.

All around me, the heat shimmered in the air. And I could feel it like I could feel the chains digging into my flesh. Holy magic—damn good thing it didn’t affect me like it used to.

I tried to struggle to my feet; I could barely move, but just a little more and—

“I should take no pleasure, but your struggles are unfortunately amusing. And useless.”

Some beautiful part of me, probably trained in by all the lovely deceptive people I have in my life, made me stop just before a single chain gave. Not now. Do it now and they’ll have an answer.

Instead, I raised my head, the only part of me unchained. In front of me was a surprisingly young-looking woman in high priest’s robes. Her complexion was somewhere between Ordian and Edathan, with the not-quite-black hair much of the Empire had.

“Why?” I choked the word out. All I needed was an opening—even without aura sight, I could feel how much of this spell was her work.

The high priest looked me up and down, and her sneer faltered. “What blasphemy is this?”

I threw out a guess. “Should I be ash right now?”

“Answer me, demon! And I will grant you a swift death you do not deserve!”

For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to say. My unusual resistance or not, she could still maybe kill me. Not to mention that, outside this magic demon-killing circle, I could hear a battle raging.

The chains tightened.

“You asked…” I paused to take a deep breath, made difficult by the too-warm chains. “You asked what blasphemy this is. Doesn’t Dhias decide—”

“You have no right to say that name!” she cut me off, taking a step toward me.

Just a little closer. Even with the chains pulling my magic, I wasn’t losing too terribly much. Either my resistance applied, or this spell wasn’t so hot after all.

“Your god, then”—and mine too, or one of—“decides, right? Maybe I’m an exception.”

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“You cannot have…” she trailed off. “No, this must be some trick. Some flaw in the spell.”

Another step. Almost there.

“Is it? I’ve not—” I cut off as the chains squeezed and pulled down, fully immobilizing me. “I’ve not… made what I am a secret. I’m only… as much of a monster as you force me to be.”

“Force you?”

The seemingly earnest question caught me off guard. All I could see was the churned earth under me, but the high priest’s shadow was at the edge. My wrath roiled; how dare she!

“You think I’m not gonna protect my family and friends?” I snapped. “Do you… think my word means nothing? Of course you do, right?” The words burned as I forced them out of half-collapsed lungs.

“You… You!” A thinner chain slammed around my mouth like a gag and my fangs bit into it. “I can see now why you’re so dangerous. Your act is the most earnest I have seen, I will grant you that compliment. Perhaps you have even fooled these people into thinking you care. But you will not fool me.”

She leaned down as she said her piece—I saw her shadow move over me. Fast as I could, I sprung up.

Crack!

Horns hit chin, and the chains around me snapped with a sound like shattering glass. The high priest stumbled over backwards, blood trailing from her mouth. Shouts from outside the circle had just started, readied magic was just flying my way, when I was on her.

All the high priest registered was shock before one claw swipe took out her throat. The next took her head and I spun, my tail sending a wave of fire outwards as I brought my axe into my hand.

More than a few bolts of holy light bombarded me, cracking my armor even as it patched itself.

“You monster!” someone shouted.

I shouldn’t have responded. But I did.

“You tried to execute me!” I gestured toward the speaker with my axe. They were lost in the crowd, but it didn’t matter. For a moment, all was still—even the people trying to pull back their burned comrades. “You’re fighting, killing the people I swore to protect right now under a justification you fucking fabricated! What am I supposed to do, apologize to the headsman?

“Oh, I’m sorry ma’am, I’m sure if we just talk it out you’ll stop trying to kill me for no damn reason other than what I am.” Flames bloomed out from between my fangs. “You think I haven’t fucking tried that?”

A few more spells were sent my way. Some hit, most I batted aside as I walked to the edge of the circle, bloody claws dripping to sizzle on fading, broken spellwork. No one dared to get any closer, so I chanced a look back at the castle. Where I’d punched the wall was a pile of loose rubble, and the fighting on it looked fierce.

Seyari was like a tornado of flaming wind, and bolts of Nelys’s lightning crackled in the storm. The castle was holding, for now. Already, shouts were drawing more attention back onto me.

Good.

Pulling forth the wind magic I shared with my wife, I magnified my voice to boom out over as much of the battlefield as I could. “Listen up! I know most of you are just following orders: ‘go to Astrye and kill the demon that’s holding the city hostage.’ Maybe it was ‘take revenge for High Priest Grants who died trying to murder two people.’”

I took a deep breath and thought about what I wanted to say next. “So I’ll give you all the benefit of the doubt. That you all believed the lies you were told about me. So…” I launched myself skyward in an eruption of crimson fire and faced the opposing forces. Furious, confused, hurt, angry. The wind carried my voice, level and firm as I could make it:

“Stop fighting. Leave now. Or else.”

As much as I could, I stole their anger and fury away, but they were trained and I couldn’t risk taking all of it so quickly. My words lingered into an eerie silence for one heartbeat, then two, and my heart sank when a war cry arose from the attackers. Most of them anyway—those not from the Church faltered.

This time, they had no grand ritual. Pulse racing, I dove down into the fray.

***

When Seyari watched Renna get dragged down by the chains, fury blossomed in her heart. She knew that ritual—the Church was here, and they were prepared.

But her love fought it, and she wasn’t burned. Seyari knew enough about the spell, knew enough from Renna’s aura and the power she’d gained to know the chains wouldn’t hold her. Still, as the castle approached, she angled to divebomb, coasting up into the clouds and using aura sight to see.

Renna’s aura was strong and steady, but there was a gathering storm in front of the castle gates. Dipping one wing and using a burst of wind magic, she pivoted target, wreathed herself in more power than she’d ever had access to, and dove toward the ground.

What she saw was a dressed-up log on wheels covered in several spells. She hit it feet-first and the sound of it splitting sent a shiver down her spine. Those pushing the thing were knocked back, tumbling through mud and snow.

And then a section of the castle’s wall came down. The same section Renna had punched…

Without wasting time, Sey climbed up the wet rubble. Behind her, half the Church forces had turned, gathering around Renna. The other half were either recovering from her entrance and rushing the breach.

At the top of the wall, she ran into a familiar figure in armor, sword unsheathed.

“Seyari!” Kartania shouted. At the former paladin’s shout, an arrow from the castle went wide over Sey’s wing and someone swore.

“Give me a bow,” Seyari replied. “Renna can handle herself.”

Kartania paused for a moment, glancing Renna’s way. “She’d want that. Fine—I trust you.” She turned. “Someone get her a bow!”

Not two seconds later, someone tossed one her way: an old hunting bow, too short to punch through any real armor. Unless you had wind magic and enough power to blow down a forest. Seyari kicked off into the sky, drew an arrow of magic along the bowstring, and let it fly.

The first shot struck someone through the eye. The next the shoulder, and then the forces clashed. From behind Kartania, Nelys appeared, darting between the Church forces, stabbing and shocking. Somewhere along the intact wall, Brazz shouted orders.

Seyari kicked up a maelstrom, sending arrows coming into the gap careening off in all directions. Half the spells that made it through fizzled, or were knocked off course, holy magic clashing against holy magic.

She shouldn’t just make a full wall of wind and blow the attackers back. The attackers had more firepower, and more time. Now more than ever, Seyari felt inhuman.

Wounds she took closed in seconds, and she was just faster. Right as she dropped the bow and dove into the melee, Renna’s voice boomed out across the battlefield. Up here, by the breach in the wall, it wasn’t enough to stop the fighting, but Sey heard her words loud and clear.

“Stop fighting. Leave now. Or else.”

Cathartic as the slaughter was, Sey fervently hoped to hear an order to stand down. For Renna’s sake, if nothing else. To prove that the Church wouldn’t need to be their foe, and that her wife’s idealism would prevail.

But Kartania’s presence already spoke volumes. Renna’s sister had left to champion that cause, to cause change from the inside. If she was here, after a decade of struggle toward this end, she must have been summarily dismissed.

So when Renna’s offer was met with vitriol and a renewed assault, audible through the maelstrom, Seyari fought on with a heavy heart.