Those were men’s voices. No-one she knew. She remembered the lights she saw twinkling at the bottom of the range as she went in—Father’s men, pursuing her…

They caught up.

Dread washed over her. She didn’t have it anymore; it was just too much, all too much, and it was like she’d had some invincible shield she’d always hid behind ripped violently away, and now she had nothing, no great well of anger or determination to draw on. She felt hollowed out. As she saw their shadows lengthening on the cavern floor she felt viscerally just how huge, how cloyingly dark the cave was.

She didn’t want to fight anymore.

She sagged. She was still on her knees, panting, as they caught sight of her. They didn’t come for her instantly. They must’ve thought it too easy, some kind of trap. They started circling out to either side, hemming her in.

She tried one last time to push, to make herself do something. But she couldn’t, and it suddenly struck her why. Everything she’d done was, in one way or another, to impress someone else. She felt the truth of it like an electric shock.

Now everyone she left was gone forever, in another world… if nobody would love her anymore, what was the point? She supposed she could try loving herself, but she didn’t really know how.

She saw the crux of it now, the thing that’d been bothering her all this time. You only really felt the urge to defend something if you loved it. She realized she’d always been in love with herself, but only now did she see there was a difference between that and loving herself.

It was a little late to start now, wasn’t it?

Strange how these thoughts kept coming to her now of all times, as the four men drew their swords. She felt no sense of urgency at all, as though this were happening to someone else. Like she was seeing it through a window, and she could choose to look away.

She looked up and met the first swordsman’s eyes. He had pretty brown eyes. An ugly face but pretty eyes.

She almost asked him to please make it quick. Or maybe carry a message back to Father. She wanted Father to know, at least, that she was sorry, that she didn’t mean it.

Then imagined how small and weak she’d look to the swordsman. How pathetic she’d seem, and it was unbearable. The thought gave her what she needed.

She lunged. Her howl wasn’t angry this time, just despairing.

***

Hours later, a figure stumbled out of the Desolate Mountains. A small figure, bleeding so much they wore a coat of their own crusted blood, a coat which seeped more blood still. She cradled a broken arm. One eye was almost swollen shut. There was a dullness to the other, a deadness.

She blinked.

The sky wasn’t gray anymore. It was red. The land stretched out before her, one black-purple plain vanishing into the horizon, and she could see all the places where the blood sky melded with the coal ground. There were no trees. There were hardly any hills except gentle sloping ones. There were hardly any tall grasses, either—but there was short grass everywhere, a carpet of amethyst fuzz.

And there were demons. Larval ones, strange grotesque shapes and so weak she could hardly sense their auras, milling about like cows, grazing on the fuzz. Some attacked one another, wailing. Most just fed.

Her ears had grown used to the wind but the plains were all quiet. She stared at them for a moment, standing there.

It was hard to say when she passed out on her feet. It could’ve been three breaths in, or four, or five. Then she was falling.

***

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Ruyi had been here before.

It was a nightmare but with none of the sharpness of terror. Just pain settling over her like a dense mist, blurring her thoughts. And through it all she heard a warbled chanting in a language she didn’t know. It sounded gentle and she liked the ways the sounds sloped up and down. It was something to hold onto while the pain tried to wash her away.

Something touched her. Like wind brushing up against her skin, just barely, and where it brushed a warmth spread. The warmth spread like tree roots, lingering beneath her skin. They were there for hours. When they left, receding bit by bit, they took the pain with them. She felt hot, hotter than she could stand.

She jerked awake.

There was a man there, lean, fine-featured, half-naked, with snaking tattoos rippling up his body, tattoos which seemed to curl more as he moved. His eyes were red.

He touched her forehead with a chalked middle finger. It burned where his skin met hers. She tried to jerk away from him but she found she couldn’t move. She was bound! Where was she? She had to—she—

Oh…

The haze was red and hot, too hot to think in. There was the chanting again.

Something cold touched her skin, but she found she couldn’t open her eyes to see what it was. It felt like a brush, or a fingertip, drawing loops up and down her arm, then her belly, then her face.

Cold roots took to her. And with them came essence gushing into her, piercing cold essence that flushed out the hotness of the pain. She rattled in breath after breath, in and out.

“Rest,” he told her. “Let go. You’re in good hands.”

That spiked panic so harsh in her she jerked up again. Where was she? What was she thinking?! What was he doing to her? She had to—

Oh…

***

She woke.

For a few seconds she blinked. Gray tarp. Leather, it looked like, but not any cow she knew; it was too fine. It kind of looked like the skin of those mountain trolls.

Groaning, she propped herself up.

She lay on hard mats. Soft white lines stretched up and down her skin. She blinked, sniffing—the room smelled of ash and smoke and certain pungent flowers, ones she’d smelled before but couldn’t name. The grounds ran with chalk, like a summoning circle.

Her throat was so dry it was painful. It hurt to swallow.

“Here.”

The half-naked man was still there, so far to one side he was almost behind her. He was a hair shorter than she was, so pretty she could’ve mistaken him for a woman, if not for the neck down. Shrieking, she scrambled off the woolen mats. He was offering her a cup of crimson liquid. He looked like a bored prince.

“What did you do to me?!”

The man leveled a brow at her. “What does it look like? I’ve healed you,” he said, as though it were obvious. No, not a man—his eyes were red.

Who was this demon?! She tried thinking back to the last thing she remembered; for a second her brain was blank, then it came to her. Seeing the demonlands. Then she must’ve blacked out, and this man must’ve found her. She saw the chalk-lines on her arms and reddened.

“You touched me! While I was sleeping!”

“Of course I did. I’m a healer. I drew soul lines to tether you to Hell, that I may better heal you by calling on a spirit. Do you know how close you were to death? Had we not found you you would’ve bled out. And rather than show gratitude you accuse me of some foul misdeed.” The man snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. You are far too fleshy for my taste.”

She was reeling.

“So?” His cocked eyebrow went even higher. He gave the cup a little swirl. “Will you drink or not? I’m not the thirsty one.”

He thrust it at her and she accepted it entirely by reflex, because he was looking at her like she’d be stupid not to accept it. And now it was in her hand she’d look stupid not drinking it, wouldn’t she?

She looked at the cup, then up at him. She had so many questions— who was he? Where was she? What’d happened? How long had it been? But somehow the one that came out of her mouth was, “Did you just call me fat?”

The look he gave her want to shrink into a speck of dust—like he was saying really? with his eyes. Then he sighed.

“You are flabby for a demon, yes. But you’ve been fatting yourself on human meals, living your lazy human lifestyle. What do you expect? Drink, you silly human-demon.”

She looked at him, then at the cup, and then, after a long pause, she drank. It tasted surprisingly sweet and it was thick on her tongue. Three gulps in and it felt like the fog was lifting in her head.

“Now, how does that feel?” said the man.

“…Good…” she breathed, flushing.

“Stand for me. Do you feel any pain?”

“No… I feel okay…”

“Give me your hand.”

She did, and then wondered why she’d done it. He said it like Father might have, with such authority—maybe that was it. He checked her wrist with two fingers. She felt a shock of essence there.

“Hmm,” he said. “You’ll be fine. Give it a few hours and you’ll be fully healed.”

“…Why are you doing this?”

“Out of the goodness of my heart.”

“What?”

He glanced dryly up at her. “Kidding. I was ordered to.” He was gathering his chalks, his vials, and some other strangely shaped glowing metal oddities into a huge satchel with dozens of pouches.

“Uh,” she said, watching him go. She had so many questions she wasn’t sure where to start. “Where are you going?”

“Titus and Varius thought it’d be a bright idea to have a dick-jousting contest in the middle of camp, and I’m off to make sure they come out of this with most of their organs. Warriors, honestly.”

“But I still have so many questions!”

“And my sister will answer them shortly. Goodbye.”

“But—“

He ducked out of the tent.

“…Sister?”

“That would be me.”

The tent flap opened up, and a girl stepped through. Ruyi saw at once they must be siblings—the eyes, the ears were the same. Her face must’ve been like his, once, before whatever incident happened to her.

It was Livia, the envoy of Drusila.