Fraughted with tension, the night passed minute by minute over what felt like the course of an eternity. I was staring into the darkness, searching for any darker parts of it, when something miraculous occurred. A ray of red light appeared in the distance; the suns were rising. Even with them in sight, I fully expected the Ortisfel to launch one last assault but it never came.

The suns were soon overhead, illuminating Yurielius and the stinking pile of Tertium not far from it. Drained, I reached out to Elmidath through our link. “So, we’re alive.”

“Yep. For once we’ve actually been given a pleasant surprise.”

“Now what?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to get some sleep.”

That sounded pretty good right now. I trudged back toward Yurielius’s ever expanding form and sought out a comfortable spot beneath its branches. Before I lay down to sleep, it occurred to me that the Ortisfel might still attack during the day. It was unlikely, but I should probably prepare just in case. To that end, I called Yuriel down again.

The swarm of leaves descended, larger than I remembered. “What is it now?”

“Keep watch for a while and wake us up if you see anyone. Preferably without somehow killing us.”

“Is that it?”

From her tone she didn’t find my sarcasm particularly amusing, not that I much cared. “For now. I assume you can manage that much between whatever it is you do all day.”

For all I knew, Yuriel spent almost all her time lazing around. Whatever the case, the animated leaves left without further comment which I took to mean that she was going to do as I asked. With my last task completed, I curled up against the rough bark and closed my eyes. Blessedly sleep found me quickly.

When I next woke, I did so in a panic, fumbling for my sword before springing clumsily to my feet and crashing right into a wall of branches. Only then did I realize it wasn’t the sound of an alarm or enemy action that had woken me, it was the movement of Yurielius.

My first thought was that Yuriel had betrayed us somehow and I’d been sealed in here to die, but I was quickly disabused of that notion when the branches parted to let me through. With them out of the way, I now had a clear view of the immensity that had formed around me while I slept. It was only early noon and yet

it had grown such that I couldn’t perceive its full extent, even though I’d fallen asleep near what had once been its outermost reaches.

Not wanting to experience this alone, I spoke to Elmidath through our connection. “Are you seeing this?”

It was a few seconds before she replied, sounding half-asleep. “Seeing what?”

“Take a look around you.”

“What exactly am I looking at?”

“Yurielius, doesn’t it seem a lot bigger than before?”

Another pause followed. “Wow, you’re right. What the hell happened while we were asleep?”

“I was wondering the same thing. Where are you?”

A brief foray through the clustered vegetation later, I found her amongst the tangled branches. She brushed a leaf from her hair and regarded her surroundings with an annoyed expression. “Somehow this place only continues to get worse. Still, we might be able to leave sooner than we thought.”

“Maybe. It really depends what’s actually going on here.”

I called Yuriel and she appeared shortly afterward. “No one approached, so I didn’t wake you.”

“Great, but that’s not what I want to ask about. What happened? Why has Yurielius grown so much?”

“These things happen. Perhaps it was the will of Soarister made manifest.”

I didn’t buy that for a second. “Uh-huh, and it just so happened to occur all at once? That doesn’t seem strange to you? And if he could’ve just done this, why didn’t he do it earlier?”

“It’s not for us to question his will.”

“No, it very much is. Questioning people’s will is practically my speciality.”

I glanced at Elmidath and she nodded in confirmation. “He’s really quite annoying.”

Not quite the follow-up I wanted, but hey I’d take it. I turned back to Yuriel. “You must have some idea what prompted this, even if it was Soarister’s doing.”

The leaves hovered there, slowly swirling in place. “If I had to guess, I would say Yurielius’s growth is due to an, um, abundance of energy to feed off.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Elmidath raised an eyebrow. “You mean from the Ortisfel’s encroachment?”

There was a certain sense to that, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t it. Particularly given how hesitant Yuriel was to explain the source.

And yet the leaf girl nodded. “That’s probably it.”

“Don’t give me that crap. If Soarister’s creations could do that, why would he care about the Ortisfel in the first place? What’s the real reason?”

“I told you; it must be feeding off something.”

Something like what? I went through a few options in my head, such as some undiscovered source of power within the ruined tower or something hidden beneath the ground, until I arrived at the far more likely option. The mass grave, close by and likely already covered by Yurielius’s expansion, had to be the source of its growth.

It had devoured the bodies of the very people who’d come to protect it, and that was after having killed them. If this was anything like how Soarister usually operated, then it was no wonder the demons considered him something of an abomination. I was on the verge of confronting Yuriel about it, when I realized there was no point. She hadn’t cared about killing them, why would she care about what happened to their bodies?

“Can Yurielius protect itself now? It certainly seems big enough.”

“I believe so, why?”

“Because we’re leaving.”

Elmidath blinked. “What?”

“There’s nothing left for us to do here, best that we get out of the way and let Soarister handle things from here.”

“Really? You don’t want to see this through?”

I shook my head. “Not when it means being around Soarister and his servants. At this point I’d rather travel with the ogres again, at least they were honest and forthright.”

“Well, alright. If you’re sure, then I don’t mind us leaving.”

“I am.”

We left Yuriel behind, who didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned one way or the other, and emerged from the maze of greenery that I had come to dread. “You were right, you know.”

“You’ll have to be more specific, what was I right about this time?”

“Soarister. If Yuriel is any representation of him, then he’s much worse than I thought.”

“Well duh, but what brought about this revelation? The mass poisoning earlier?”

“That, and using the bodies to fuel Yurielius’s growth. That alone might have been somewhat understandable given the circumstances, but when they’re the ones who killed most of them and they’re clearly not sorry about any of it? It’s just too much to accept.”

“Ah, I hadn’t quite put that together. Now that you mention it though, it seems obvious. Well, it’s good that we’re free of them now.”

“Free to do what though? We’re still a long way from actually stopping the Ortisfel.”

Elmidath smirked. “What happened to leaving it to Soarister to deal with them?”

“I’m happy to leave him and his servants to do their own part. At worst they can provide a useful distraction.”

“A distraction while we do what exactly?”

“I was hoping you could come up with that part. Is there anything else we can do?”

“I don’t think so. We kind of went through all our very limited options earlier. The only demon lords that are near enough to care already helped us and so did Soarister. I think the only option left would be the humans, but there’s just no way we could make that work. Even if we somehow convinced them to talk to us without them killing us on sight, we’d still never get them to leave the walls of their city.”

That sounded about right, and I assumed Elmidath was a lot more familiar with the humans than I was. Which was funny given that she was a demon and I was, at least until recently, human.

“Is that it then? Are we just doomed?”

“I suppose we could technically ask the Ortisfel themselves to help us, but somehow that seems more than a little risky.”

“Yeah, I think we can rule that one out. Anything else you can think of? Are there really no other groups we could ask?”

Elmidath took a few moments to think as we walked. “I assume there must be more ogres out there somewhere, though we’d probably be better off asking the Ortisfel instead. Other than that, there might be someone other creatures from the human’s world we could ask.”

“Like what?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, I don’t really know anything about them or where they might be found.”

It wasn’t too promising, but it was better than nothing. “I guess we can start there. Do you know anyone who does know more about them?”

“I suppose one of the older demons would at least know more than I would, particularly if they were part of the actual invasion.”

“Okay, where can we find someone like that then?”

“Unfortunately, we’ve either killed, or at least been involved in the deaths of all the ones I know that live locally.”

“What about further out then? Anything we could reasonably travel to?”

With a pensive look on her face, Elmidath frowned in concentration. “My mother is probably our best bet for someone that’s old enough and will have any interest in helping us. Not that I really know her. She’s in the capital though, which is about ten days from here.”

“That’s pretty far, we’d be gone almost a month then. I don’t think we can leave things as they are for that long.”

“It’s a risk, there’s no denying that, but I think it might be worth it. How much more can we really accomplish?”

“I suppose, though what about your former subjects? Are we just going to abandon them?”

“They’re not stupid, they’ll work something out. We can hardly protect them now, so not much will really change.”

It was quite a commitment, but I didn’t have any better ideas. This was starting to feel a lot like the discussion that led up to us allying with Soarister, which made me anxious about how this would turn out. Would we just be making the same mistake again? Shaking my head, I decided I couldn’t afford to think like that. We’d never get anywhere if I was afraid to take any risks. This time would be different, I’d make sure of that.

“Let’s go then. We still have some daylight left.”

Elmidath smiled at me. “That’s the spirit. And hey, on the plus side, we’ll be leaving Soarister and the Ortisfel behind. That has to count for something.”

That would certainly be a relief, though I wasn’t sure how much better demon society would treat us. Especially since in the capital we’d be nobodies surrounded by far more powerful people.

“Have you ever been to the capital before?”

“Not since I was a small child, I don’t really remember much about it.”

“Looks like we’ll both get to experience it for the first time then, more or less. I suppose that’s sort of like an adventure, or at least much more so than the other stuff we’ve been doing.”

“I’m sure it’ll be nice. Y’know, so long as we don’t screw anything up.” She grinned. “But what are the chances of that happening?”

“Roughly a hundred percent?”

“But not exactly a hundred percent? I’ll take those odds.”