Castle Araji’s wall had been overrun. Dissected corpses of the fallen guardsmen swarmed the breach, and with every minute that passed, the veil of dust grew a little thinner. Lin knew it wouldn’t be long before she was found. Even with the power of her mother’s blood, she wasn’t so optimistic to think she could fight her way through such numbers in her condition. A loud curse drew the attention of the fiends- the perfect chance to escape, but as Lin crept behind a scattering of debris, the names of the two missing soldiers echoed in her mind. Aoki and Arai. I can’t leave them if they’re still alive. I’m a heroine, Lin told herself, a heroine. It’s the only title I have. Her sword trembled in her hand. It was getting harder to breathe.

The guardsmen were easily heard before they were seen. The loud chik of their crossbow strings and the dull thwack of the bolts meeting their targets were closer than Lin had imagined. She began to scale a large broken-off section of the wall to reach them, though the climb was slow and by no means painless. An agonising throb accompanied every heartbeat from the stumps upon her left hand. The little breath that still passed through her chest was a shallow pant. It took all her effort to pull herself over the rocky precipice.

The realisation that the guardsmen couldn’t be saved came at the same moment as she found them. They were two against too many. Fiends sprung at them, one after the other, each of them leaving their mark on the soldiers’ skin before being put down by bolt or blade. After every one of the creatures killed, three more were already rushing to replace them. Lin descended the broken wall with speed despite being fully aware of the action's futility.

“Aoki!” called one of the two guardsmen. She must have been Arai. A light crossbow had been discarded at her feet alongside the fiends it had put to death. In a desperate bid to reach her comrade, Arai charged shoulder-first into the swarm. She became tangled amidst her enemies and slashed at them to break free, but by the time she could move again, Aoki had already been overwhelmed. As if somehow disconnected from the scene, Lin watched his death in its entirety, never once making an effort to intervene. She stood frozen in silence as his body was torn and repurposed by the spawn of Xia’an. Cleaved into several parts, he began to move again mere moments later, revived by the spiteful life force of the fiends. They sought Arai. She fell away from the crowd, searching her surroundings for some route of escape with eyes that couldn’t quite seem to comprehend the desolation that the demon had brought upon Araji. It was only when Arai discovered Lin standing at the base of the broken wall that the girl’s horrified trance was broken.

“What are you- why?” Arai stuttered, but her question was clear enough. Why didn't you help? Lin had no answer, standing idly as the fiends closed the distance between them and their quarry. Finally she spoke, though her words had never felt more empty.

“I’m here to save you,” she said shakily. “That’s why I’m here.” Lin still hadn’t taken a single step forward when a calloused hand wrapped itself over her mouth. She reacted instantly, driving her elbow into her attacker’s gut and preparing a thrust with her sword. Her immediate hostility vanished when she turned to face him. There stood Daimyō Kanmaru Tome, doubled over in pain. Cursing silently, he snatched her wrist and dragged her behind a low pile of rubble.

Lin yanked herself free of his grip, “I’m not going to hide! I’ll save them, all of them!” Ignoring her, he seized her once more. Slow, breathless words parted his lips, “You cannot even save yourself.” He stole a glance over the rubble, then ducked back into cover. “Look with your own eyes, Miss Ko. I want you to understand the fate I’ve kept you from.” Her chest swelling with a cocktail of frustration and fear, Lin clenched her jaw and reluctantly obeyed. She lay herself upon the bed of broken stone, edging forward until the battleground ahead came into sight.

Guardsman Arai had already fallen beneath the swarming fiends. She flailed aimlessly amongst their growing ranks, but with every attack they delivered, her movements weakened a little more. That, however, was not the sight Daimyō Tome had intended for her to see.

The crowd fell away at the demon’s approach. Seeing it more closely, its appearance was clearly different to when she had pursued it from Solace to Yangwa- yet she could not tell exactly how. It seemed larger, stronger, yet its defined muscular body was small and sleek. It seemed more monstrous, more fearsome, and with a careful eye, Lin finally understood why. The beast's true form was hidden in plain sight, but none who had set eyes on the demon had ever chosen to see it.

From the back of its warped humanoid body spread several translucent membranes that extended into eight ethereal limbs. The four at its centre were large and each ended in three stump-like paws, two sprouted from its rear as hind legs. Moonlight passed through them, highlighting a network of visible blood vessels. The remaining two poked from its shoulders, shoving aside any fiends that were too slow to clear its path. The demon’s body almost resembled that of a butterfly, but it could never have belonged to the natural world.

Arai squirmed in the dust. It was obvious to any that watched that she would never rise again, yet she continued to kick her legs as if driven by some instinctual urge to continue fighting. Lin felt something press against her arm, and when she looked, she saw Lord Tome. A flintlock rifle was in his hand.

“Take it,” he whispered with great care. “I had a bad fall when our visitor made its entrance. My arm needs a rest.” Lin then saw something she hadn’t taken notice of before. From his forearm to above his elbow, the skin of the Daimyō’s left arm had taken a dark shade. Purple-grey blotches surrounded a pronounced bony lump that must have been every bit as painful as it looked. “Hurry now. There are too many of them to fight. We can still escape back to the towers, but the only way you’ll be able to save Guardsman Arai is with a bullet through her head. Believe me when I say that I wish there was another way.”

Tome pushed the weapon into her hands along with a small ammunition pouch from his waist. The rifle was different to those she’d seen carried by any other soldier of the Sen army, and as the Daimyō demonstrated, could be loaded at its breech rather than its muzzle. Burnished silver fittings and white engravings decorated the sand-smoothed stock.

“I can’t shoot your soldier, Lord Daimyō. I don’t even know how.”

“For this one time, you won’t need to. I’ll aim the shot, and I’ll even silence it for you. All you need to do is pull that trigger.”

Lin rested the base of the rifle upon the bed of debris. She sighted the demon ahead of her. It loomed quietly over Arai, observing as she thrashed against an army of imagined enemies. As Lin drew breath and moved her finger into the trigger guard, Tome pressed two fingers against the side of its barrel.

“Shoot, and save her,” he whispered. The demon raised one of its barely-visible forelegs and began to lower its savagely pointed end over the guardsman’s chest. “Save her!”

Lin squeezed the trigger. There was a click as the flint mechanism fired, but no explosion sounded from the barrel. Arai suddenly lay still.

“Thank you,” Tome spoke softly. “We should leave now. They’re not going to reach Daimyō Araji.” He retreated from the rubble mound stealthily. Lin didn’t move at all. She continued to stare as the Solace Demon pierced Arai’s abdomen, scraping out her innards with its monstrous claw. The soldier’s eyes were unmoving, and that was Lin’s sole relief.

The Daimyō’s voice echoed loudly into the night as he barked orders to the civilians to bar their gates and stay inside their homes. Led by his hand, Lin followed closely behind. The two hurried along the dirt path to the castle towers where Rie awaited.

“How did you stop the rifle from making any noise?” she called after him.

“A touch of applied energy,” Tome replied. “It’s the same for any magic, isn’t it? Excluding the Mandates, at least.”

“I guess. It’s just that… for how long it takes to learn a magical ability, it seems a little…”

“I know what you’re getting at. Even if there aren’t many situations it suits, it’s more useful than you can imagine.”

“Really?” Lin replied dully. “Do you want your gun back?”

Tome gave her an amused glance. “My arm hasn’t healed in the short time we’ve been walking, surprisingly. Keep it. You can make more use out of it than I.” Using its leather strap, Lin slung the weapon across her back.

“What do you-” Lin started to say, stopped by the growing thickness in her lungs. The stabbing pain only worsened as she ran. “What's your plan? The demon is too strong to fight with the soldiers you have left. You've seen the fiends swarming our escape.”

“I've seen them swarming one escape. I doubt they've found the secret tunnel.”

“Secret tunnel?” Lin echoed.

“It leads through the mountain to the northwest. Quickest and safest way to reach Haimichi, the prefecture's capital.”

Lin cleared her throat. It hurt more than she thought it would. “Not so secret anymore.”

“There’s every chance that Castle Araji won’t be standing anymore after tonight. Getting Lady Araji to safety is our greatest priority.”

“And her people?” Lin asked. She would’ve said more had her airways allowed it, but her lungs had finally given in. Her breath was a shallow rasp as she struggled to inhale, and it was a thick gurgle with every exhale. Clutching her chest, she collapsed onto one knee. Her head felt hot and swollen. Tome appeared at her side, alarmed and loaded with questions. She shied away from his touch, desperate to draw even a single breath.

“I need you to let me help you,” he said at last. “Trust in me, and I can save you.” Lin’s head was spinning, but she managed a nod of acknowledgement. Tome closed his eyes for a moment, then gently prodded her ribcage. It gave slightly. Lin choked in pain. “A broken rib. Maybe more. They must have pierced one of your lungs, blood will be pooling in your chest. I’m going to have to drain it- remove your coat and anything underneath.”

Setting Tome’s rifle aside, Lin untied her obi and shrugged the fur-lined coat from her shoulders. As she began to lift her white undershirt, she hesitated.

“Are you going to let your fear of embarrassment end your life, Miss Ko? Shame isn’t going to save you,” Tome said softly. Reluctantly, Lin agreed.

The night was so cold against her naked skin, and Tome’s hand was no warmer. Lin had to grit her teeth as he carefully probed her ribs, moving upward from her midriff and stopping a few inches short of her breasts. There he pressed together his thumb and forefinger against the skin.

“The rib seems to have broken off and sunk inward here. This’ll hurt, and it’ll hurt a lot, but it might just save your life. You might want to look away.”

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Lin wanted to listen to the Daimyō’s advice, but her eyes wouldn’t stray from his intruding hand. His fingers pushed slightly harder before parting. The skin was pulled under their force and split at its centre. The tear grew deeper, parting even the muscle that lay beneath. Lin finally looked away. She would’ve cried out, had she only the breath to do so.

Shivers couldn’t keep winter’s chill at bay. Her knees were numb from kneeling upon the frozen earth. When Tome lowered her shirt and helped her from the ground, she felt so tired that she could barely bring herself to stand. A dark puddle dyed the dirt red at her feet.

“I’ve drained all that I can, but blood will still be pooling in your chest. There’s nothing I can do about that here and you cannot fight anymore, not in that state,” Tome explained. He looked quickly back along the dirt path from where they had come and saw the approaching chaos that had spilled into Castle Araji’s streets. His hand moved to the hilt of his sword. “Find Rie. Protect her. She’ll be modest about it, but in spite of her condition, she’s quite gifted in healing. She can keep you stable until this is over. If I fail and the castle falls to this darkness, I want you to escort the Daimyō out through the mountain tunnel to the safety of Haimichi. Her guards will protect the both of you.”

“I don’t know where-” Lin gasped, struggling to regain her breath.

“Rie does. Just tell her, and she’ll lead you.”

“And what about you? Am I supposed to just leave you here?”

“Nobody’s leaving me anywhere. I stay of my own accord.” Tome drew his sword, a long, finely crafted weapon engraved with the sole character of his family name. “Araji and her people are my charge. None will protect them in my stead.”

If Lin’s protests were heard, they were wholly ignored. Tome’s grip tightened, and his pace quickened in the direction of the Xia’an monstrosities. Provoked by his presence, they rallied and rushed along the pathway like a hideous squirming wave. The Daimyō broke through their ranks with the speed and strength of a typhoon, cleaving apart all those unfortunate to find themselves in his wake. The opening made by his charge closed while he cut deeper into the swarm, hounded by frenzied fiends. Lin could do nothing but watch from where she stood as Tome disappeared among them. She wiped her eyes and turned to make for Rie’s tower, though she didn’t move any further, for a nightmare held her gaze.

Sio’s demon had found her. The path stretched out ahead of her to the courtyard below the towers, so close, and yet too far to reach. It was upon one of the white walls of clay that the demon was perched, its grotesque appendages digging into each side. She was pinned in place by its ravenous stare- by those red-riddled orbs that watched, that measured, and seemed to see her as nothing more than warm meat.

Lin pointed her sword at the demon in defiance. “You sick, inhuman freak. Just what is your obsession with me? Why would you hunt me halfway across a continent?”

The demon didn’t answer, but neither did it move to attack, and instead only continued to pant. Its breath sounded horridly coarse and laboured.

Despite the hundred scenarios racing through her mind, Lin held her motionless stance. Every imagined escape ended in a sudden grisly end. If she took a stand and fought, there was little chance of harming such a monstrosity, and almost none of emerging victorious. There’s still another option. It was a better choice than to be unwound like a ball of string, she knew, though hesitated to entertain the thought. Once the idea had been conceived, however, it persisted, and grim images intruded upon her mind. Seki Shinohara’s bloodied visage flashed before her eyes, and with her hand still holding the sword that had opened his throat, she felt herself overcome with despair. I can’t do it. Even though a darker fate awaited, Lin was still too afraid to die. She had to seize any chance at victory she could, and to do that, she needed to be the first to strike- if only she could manage to do so without her condition holding her back.

“It’s been half a year since you tore your way through my home in Solace. Half a year since you flooded the streets of Yangwa with its people’s blood. Have you come to finish what you began there?” Lin asked. She wore a nervous grin. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

The demon didn’t instantly rise to her challenge. It continued to watch quietly from its tall perch, examining her, until finally it descended to the ground. Circling her like a hound searching for an opening, it grew so close that the abhorrent stench emanating from its jagged maw almost brought Lin to the brink of unconsciousness. Grating, guttural sounds passed through those vile jaws from deep within its chest.

“Uuhruu… uhriii… uuhn.”

Her body trembled under every sickening syllable. Lin knew she could wait no longer. She struck out with her sword, chasing the demon when it evaded and maintaining a maelstrom of sharpened steel ahead of her. Any lapse in her attacks would be seized upon before she could recognise the mistake. Her foe shifted slightly further away each time she swung, but Lin didn’t let up on her pursuit. She outstretched her fingers and fueled them with an energy that made her hairs stand on end and her bloody stumps buzz painfully. Then, lifting her hand upwards, she sent a spectral fist hurtling into the demon’s jaw. It lurched unsteadily, and that was all Lin needed to deliver her next strike. She danced between its forelegs as they grasped for her and turned on her heel. Using one of its oversized limbs as a stepping stone, she leapt into the air and thrust her sword into one of the creature’s leering eyes. The low, bellowing roar that followed shook her very being. Only then did she begin to understand the true strength of the demon that had terrorised Yangwa. Long stretches of the clay walls surrounding them were demolished in a single thrashing motion. The debris kicked up by its rage flew with such speed and force that they shredded the homes of the castle dwellers like a volley of meteors. The demon turned on her, pinning her underneath a three-clawed leg. A vengeful fire burned within its remaining eye. Whatever retribution her enemy had planned, Lin refused to grant it. She gripped it as it gripped her, stealing as much of the creature’s energy as she could manage.

“You’ve given me exactly what I need, dumbass!” Lin roared, pointing the remainder of her index finger at its hideous face. Great thorny tendrils erupted from beneath them, lifting the monster by several times its own height. It lashed and flailed until it had freed itself before unleashing its wrath on everything that lay within reach. Try as it might to find her, however, Lin had already gone.

The stairs leading to the upper floors of Rie’s tower were terribly steep and narrow, and climbing them had never felt more perilous. An orchestra of screeches and snapping wood signalled the demon's entrance to the lower levels. Slipping now would bring her straight back into the clutches of the horror she had barely managed to escape. Her mind was focused on one sole objective now: fleeing Araji Castle. The Solace Demon couldn't be beaten. Impossibly powerful and possessing cruel otherworldly abilities, it seemed unthinkable that they had numbered in their thousands centuries ago during the waking nightmare of the Senma period. How humanity had overcome such a vast dread plague was a question to which Lin doubted she would ever find an answer.

Rie’s small voice echoed from the top of the stairwell, “Is that you, Lin? Your breathing sounds terrible.” Her soft face poked out from behind the wooden railing.

Lin had no time or patience left for small talk. “We’re leaving. The tunnel beneath the mountain- how do we get there?”

“How do you know about-?”

“Where- is it?” Lin shouted, trying her best to suppress her choking.

“There’s a small staircase on the floor below, hidden behind a false panel. Would you please explain what exactly is going on out there?” Rie asked. Her voice trembled.

“There’s nothing left out there worth thinking about,” Lin answered as she continued to climb the stairs. Reaching over the banister, she gingerly took the Daimyō’s hand. “Is anyone else up there? Where are your guards?”

“Kishibe- the man keeping me company before- I think he must be dead. He and some of the others were watching the chaos from the balcony. I didn’t hear anything else, but something had to have attacked them. They yelled at one another at first, then began to cry in… fear, or… pain. Whatever troubled them was so awful that they threw themselves over the edge.” The girl was visibly shaken, her pale eyes glistened with the beginnings of tears. Lin couldn’t afford a breakdown. Not now.

“I’m sorry, Rie, I really am, but you need to focus on my voice alone. Neither you or I can fight them, so we have to leave. That’s all we can do.”

“Is Kanmaru safe? What is-?”

“Tome isn’t here,” Lin replied sharply, although she deeply wished that he was. “He told me to escort you to Haimichi. Escape is the only path we can take, Rie. Do you understand?” The girl bowed her head slightly. Whether it was a nod of confirmation or an unconscious gesture mattered not, Lin took the sign for what it was and led her firmly by the hand down the first few steps of the stairwell. A mighty tremor rocked the very foundations of the tower and the two came very close to descending the stairs as human boulders. The demon was growing closer.

“What was that? What's happening out there? Tell me, Lin!” Rie pleaded.

“That was the very reason as to why you should be moving instead of asking questions,” Lin replied. It was an answer steeped in guilt, but also one of necessity. She peered down the centre of the stairwell as they walked and saw a battered, torn tapestry amid a floor of wooden splinters. With any hope, that destructive rage meant their pursuer was unsure of their exact position, and that they were safe, at least for now.

The false panel lay across a narrow bridge that was suspended over a great hall. Caught in the rampage of the demon, braziers had spilled their flaming contents onto the floor below, now burning in a rapidly spreading eager blaze. The rising smoke caught in her throat.

Rie halted at the bridge's centre, “There's a fire. I can smell it Lin, I can taste the smoke, there's a fire! We need to gather the servants from their rooms. We cannot just leave them!”

“We can. We will. There are two ways off of this bridge- run back now and you'll choke to death, that's if you don't find yourself in the jaws of the same demon that killed everybody else. Or, you can come with me just as Tome wanted, and you can see the end of this horrible nightmare.”

“I don’t want to go,” Rie sobbed.

“It’s the only choice we have.”

“There’s nothing out there worth thinking about anymore. That’s what you said. They’re dead, aren’t they? Everyone’s…” she trailed off. Tears had finally begun streaming down her face. “I should be with them. I can’t go on without them.”

“Then stay,” Lin replied. “Those fires are burning hotter by the minute. Even if their fumes don't kill you, they’ll soon consume everything in this tower. Is that what you want? Then throw yourself into that fire along with the last of what your precious Kanmaru fought to protect.”

With Lin’s words, Rie’s composure broke, and she began to sob. “How can you say that?”

Lin didn’t answer. She gripped the girl’s arm tightly. Rie released a cry of pain, but Lin paid her complaints no notice. This is what it takes. If cruelty is necessary to save a life, then I’ll just have to accept it. This is my duty. I’m a heroine. I’m a saviour. She repeated those words in her head until she could almost believe they were true.

I’m a heroine, she told herself when she reached the false panel. Under Rie’s instruction, she found its hidden catch and slid it open.

I’m a saviour, she told herself as they descended the suffocatingly tight staircase. Small electrical lights illuminated their way. A cool draft blew gently from below, bringing with it a thick, musty odour. It became harder to breathe when they entered the underground passage. Lin fought hard to keep herself upright and away from the walls or the insulated power lines running along the low-hanging ceiling. Everything in that dim tunnel was either crusty or dismally damp.

“The Emperor told me that Wunei Jie himself captured this castle, that he was the one to build the boulder field. Did he really overlook something like this?”

“He didn’t,” Rie answered curtly. “Han soldiers collapsed the tunnel. It was rebuilt.”

“Really.” The reply was dull and stunted, and it was the last spoken word between the two until what felt like an hour later, when they had passed beneath the mountain and emerged through a latch-locked door into a shallow forested valley. At its sparse centre spread a large village wreathed in a misty haze. Further east stretched a burning orange glow beneath the blue-black sky that signalled the breaking of dawn. The crisp morning of a new day had fallen on the Land of Scorching Earth.

Any hope granted by the beauty of the rising sun quickly dissipated when Lin glanced back. Foul, ominous plumes of black smoke rose over the mountain’s peak, joining with the sporadic clouds in the sky.

Everything is the same. Things have always been this way. My legacy as Sio’s saviour has been nothing but a string of death and despair. I tried, and that wasn’t nearly enough.

The wilds awaited them to the northwest. Even the briefest stop at the forested village could doom it to a fate most terrible. Lin turned her attention back to the small girl beside her. Rie’s face was blank, her reddened cheeks already beginning to dry. She flinched when Lin reached to take her hand.

“What I said to you on that bridge… it was for your sake. You understand that, don’t you?”

Rie didn’t raise her sightless gaze from the ground. “Please, don’t talk to me anymore, Lin. At least not until we arrive at Haimichi.”

The reality of their situation was a difficult one, and it was one that Lin could scarcely believe even standing in the thick of it. If any certainty existed however, it was that she would never risk leading such depravity into the havens of humanity again. The city of Haimichi wouldn’t suffer for her mistakes. She unfastened the white wooden mask from her waist and gazed at the muted features that mirrored her own. Its careful carvings were washed out by the pale yellow of the morning.

“Until then,” she murmured, and taking Rie’s hand, withdrew into the distant dawn.