To the right, stretching to the horizon, was a line of red and yellow, a wildfire held in place. To the left, storm clouds were rolling over their horizon, black, smoky, and unknowable.

Two demons came out in front. The first could only be Octavius. He was shorter than Ruyi expected, a tiny, mean-looking little man. The second came in demon form, a massive beast of a serpent, green-eyed and ink-scaled, so big his slithering, winding shadow reached almost to where they stood. It marked out a dark path for Octavius to follow.

Octavius stopped twenty strides out, and from there he and Drusila considered each other. Ruyi had expected Octavius to look gloating or savage or angry. He did look angry, but not bloodlust angry. Ruyi was shocked that she recognized the kind of anger in his face; she'd felt the same way when Marcus tried to hurt Jin. There was no glee in it.

"Imagine my surprise," said Octavius, thick-voiced, "when I came home to my territory to find crows picking dry the bones of my tribesmen. My family. You slaughtered them in their thousands - you broke your oath, a lowly trick! The worst of Hell's creatures would not deign to act as you. Have you no honor? No heart?"

At her silence, his face reddened. "Damn you! Speak!"

Drusila did, calmly. "You are a menace to the realm. Let us not pretend you have not been seizing Frigus land for decades. Let us not pretend the slaughtering does not go both ways. For decades it has gone against my people —yet the moment you feel what you inflict, you start playing the victim? At last your ambitions overstretched your capacities, Octavius. You opened yourself up. You've only yourself to blame. If not I, then Decimus. If not Decimus, then Gaius."

He opened his mouth to retort, but she cut him off. "And you, of all folk, dare speak to me of morals? Don't make me laugh. Our first duty is to our tribe. I acted to ensure the future of mine."

"Oh yes," snarled Octavius, “What a pretty little justification. Well, I name you oathbreaker!"

To that, Drusila shrugged.

Then the shadow behind Octavius shrank. The other warlord, Lucius, human-formed, he was shockingly young with one stark white scar running down his face, but his strong bones still made him very handsome. One of his eyes was red, the other pale blue. They seemed to move independently of each other — as though the blue one was blind.

“This talk of morals bores me," he said. His voice was utterly emotionless. "Shall we fight, or not?"

Octavius clenched his fists. "Drusila! I offer you this chance and this chance only. Set down your weaponry, and your tribe may yet be spared. The Frigus tribe shall become slaves of the Infernus. It is a better fate than you deserve."

"Better dead than kneeling," spat Drusila.

"Then you have done this to yourself." As they turned to face their armies, the praetorianus braced as one.

Octavius put up a fist. "Charge!" he screamed.

Ruyi readied for the fight once, but there were so many coming so fast she didn't even know who to look at - who was she meant to fight?!

Then they collided. There were so many of them, spewing so many strikes, that the sheer momentum of their charge buckled the line. Sabina and Drusila took the center, and they took the brunt of the blows. For a moment, they vanished under a dark tide. Then Sabina emerged, shouting and blasting shocks of brilliant white, blindingly bright, and Drusila unleashed a howling avalanche of essence which sent the attackers stumbling back, falling over themselves.

Darius, Aelia, Fausta, and the rest of the warriors held the sides of the gorge. The strongest— Sabina, Ruyi, and Drusila—took the front.

Drusila was a monster. She was just one person, but she beat back eight or nine of them at once. She single-handedly clogged up the middle, and Ruyi felt a sudden hope.

Only twenty or so demons could fit down the narrow track, and there were so many of them they bowled over one another. Their strikes would ricochet off each other's backs or go wide, jostled by the clumps surging behind, beside. They were packed too close. They had become one heavy, slow-moving monster, breathing fire and darkness, and Ruyi lashed blow after blow at its sides. It almost didn't matter what she was hitting.

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She fought as desperately as she ever had. She gave it everything. In that moment, so close to her friends, she was viscerally reminded of them; she was choked with panic. She fought the way a drowning man claws for the surface.

She saw Aelia go down first, crying out, a blur of movements to her left. Ruyi screamed, tried wading her way through, but there were just too many - and there, to her right, Sabina hissed as blood spurted from her arm. Then a spiked tail ripped into Sabina's face, and she went flying sideways. Ruyi screamed and lunged after her. She heard Drusila yelling, "Hold, damn you, stay hold!" but she didn't care. She saw Sabina on the ground, clutching at her face, trying to build back up to her feet, as blow after blow came down on her, driving her to her knees. The thing that had struck her— that giant snake Lucius—was coiling back around. Its spear-like tail whipped for Sabina’s throat.

Ruyi put herself in the way.

She took it in the back and saw it come out the left side of her belly, a huge black diamond coated red with her blood. She stared at it in shock for a moment.

Then the pain struck, so blinding, so jagged sharp, that she choked out a sob. It ripped out of her, and a second pain struck. Then she found herself blinking on the floor. Sabina was over her, covering for her. It took her a moment to realize what happened. It hurt so much going out that she'd blacked out. Just for a second. She limped to her feet, coughing blood.

The line was broken down the middle. The darkness was circling. She wouldn't let it happen. She tried stepping into Winter’s Wrath, but each time a blast would throw her off her feet, or a claw would slap her down, or the hole in her gut would spike so white-hot her head went dead for a second. There was so much blood. Where was everyone? She couldn't see Darius. She couldn't see Drusila. Aelia had gone under so long ago… everything hurt so much… she didn't understand what was happening, but she knew she could fix this. She just had to try harder —she had to—

Something huge laced her leg, looped her waist, and before she could turn, it had her coiled thrice in its dark embrace.

Lucius bared his great fangs at her, dripping tar. She slapped at him, thrashed at him, but there was no strength left in her limbs; they moved awkwardly, as though underwater.

Then the squeezing started, and she screamed. She was going to burst, she was sure of it. She bucked harder, but there was no getting free.

Her friends were still out there. She would get free, she had to. She screamed at her body to move, loud as she could, and then she was just screaming. She couldn't seem to stop. She couldn't seem to feel her legs either. She could only watch as the serpent's jaw unhinged, one great black maw blotting out her sight, clamped down.

A sleek blur knocked it out of place, leaving bloody claw marks up the side of its face, sending it reeling, and the bind loosened for a sliver of a second. Ruyi squirmed her way out and tumbled to the ground. She limped up on three legs, gasping, whirling around, but the world kept wobbling underneath her. Where was that snake? She had to—

She gasped. Its focus wasn't on her anymore. It had a snow fox in its clutches. Darius struggled as it coiled around him, but he was even weaker than she was, and with each curl, she heard a chorus of sickening cracks; her heart sank. Still, Darius bucked as the jaw unhinged.

Ruyi lunged for him. She could get there - she would get there. She could do anything if she wanted it, she knew that, and in that moment, there was nothing she wanted more in all the world. Why wasn't she moving? She didn't understand. Her legs flopped listlessly; they weren't listening to her; it just didn’t make sense. This wasn’t meant to happen.

The jaws clamped down. Darius howled. His bucking became desperate; he wasn't fighting anymore; he moved like an animal in incredible pain, in its death throes. He howled again, and there was one last crunch.

When Lucius opened his mouth, Ruyi could see the holes he drilled, through the chest, into the heart, where he'd put that tar poison straight into Darius's heart.

Then she was crying so much she couldn't see clearly through the tears. She couldn't get to him; she couldn't get to anyone. She blinked and her vision resolved a little. She saw dark shapes falling on Drusila; she was the last one left standing. And when Ruyi saw her go still, heard the agony in her scream, she nearly gave up. Drusila had always been so stoic, so firm. She hadn't thought Drusila could make that kind of sound; it didn't seem right.

She cast about, looking for someone, anyone. She saw Fausta—her head sat on the ground, her mouth slightly open. Her body lay a stride away, gushing. Then Ruyi saw Sabina, prone on the ground. Her head was oddly caved, and something strange was leaking out of her ears, but she seemed to be still breathing. Ruyi swore she was still breathing. It was happening again — why did it keep happening? Everyone was leaving her.

She managed to drag herself over, to throw herself over Sabina. She promised herself she wasn't going to move, no matter what they did to her. Maybe she was wrong; maybe they weren't leaving her; maybe she was going where they were going, too. The thought was weirdly relieving; she smiled a little through the tears. Finally, after so many years, she didn't have to hurt anymore.

She kept waiting. But no one came to take her.

Everything had gone silent.

Turning was a painful effort.

Eight demon forms, big as statues, stood before the ocean of black. Each of them was as big as Lucius, or Drusilla. Each of them gave off the same aura.

These were not mere demon kings and queens. These creatures were the closest things to gods that could still walk the earth. Ruyi felt in them a resonance; the same power in her was in them, only more, matured.

She only recognized the demon at the front.

It was the Lord of Demons.