I spent 40 minutes getting into the castle, passing through three security checkpoints and undergoing a full body search. My staff was confiscated, but they assured me it was "temporary and purely precautionary." The guards seemed nice, probably because someone important had just yelled at them for breaking a guest's skull on a forest road. They offered me water and one even apologized for the search as they were patting me down.
I was led through hallways with portraits of dead royals and up a staircase, and into a sitting room. A servant brought me tea in a cup so thin that I could see through it. I sat on the edge of a chair, sweating in it. Victoria arrived twenty minutes later. She swept through the door in a deep-blue gown, with her hair pinned up. A smile appeared on her face when she saw me.
"Ayla." She took a seat opposite me. "I'm glad to see your face. Has everything been satisfactory? Are my people treating you well?"
"Everyone's been great." I took a sip of tea. Yuck. It was horrible.
“The archivist speaks highly of your work ethic." Victoria smiled again. "Have you made progress?"
"A lot, actually." I placed the cup down and leaned forward, making my most serious face. "The research has been eye-opening. I've learned things about the tower and the guardians that I never expected."
"Such as?"
Here we go. I took a deep breath. I thought of every Lifetime original movie I had ever fallen asleep to.
"The demon queen isn't what we think she is, Your Majesty." I let my voice go soft a little shaky. "The texts I found in the restricted section paint a very different picture. She didn't choose to be a guardian. She was forced into it... taken from her family as a child, sold to the tower by parents who couldn't afford to feed her. She grew up alone on Floor 100 with no one to talk to, no education, no love. The rage everyone sees isn't evil... it's pain. She's lashing out because she's never known anything else."
Victoria's expression didn't change, I continued.
“The texts describe how her family tried to get her back. Her mother walked to the tower gates every day for ten years, begging to see her daughter. But the Covenant wouldn't let her through. She died on the road outside the tower, waiting." I stopped to emphasize my point. "The demon queen doesn't even know her mother died trying to reach her." I was pulling this entirely from a movie called "A Mother's Chains" that I'd watched with Lily one time. She had cried.
"All she ever wanted was to leave that tower and live a quiet life somewhere green and peaceful." I looked down at my hands because making eye contact during the next part would have broken me. "She dreams about a cottage by the sea. She told me that. Through the door, between fights. She said she just wants to see the ocean one time before she dies."
Victoria watched me without reacting. She hadn't moved at all. Her face remained expressionless, like a mask. "That's quite a story," she finally said.
"It's all documented. I can show you the texts."
"I'm sure you could." She uncrossed and then recrossed her ankles. "Tell me, Ayla, what exactly are you suggesting?"
"I'm saying that maybe we should consider an alternative." I made eye contact with her. "These guardians... they're people too. They've suffered enough. The demon queen has been imprisoned in that tower for long enough. At what point does the punishment stop being justice and start being cruelty?"
"You're asking me to spare the demon queen?”
"I'm asking you to consider whether killing her is really the only way forward."
"I see." Victoria stared at me for a long time. Long enough for me to wonder if I'd misjudged if the game's version of her was wrong, if the morally good quest giver underneath all the politics was just another thing that this world had decided not to keep.
Then, she smiled.
"All right," she replied. "Of course."
“Really?” I blinked, thinking that I had misheard her.
"You make a compelling case." She stood, smoothing her dress with fluid movements. "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps mercy is the wiser path." Her smile never wavered.
"That's—really?" I stood there, not knowing what to do with my hands, almost wanting to hug her.
She walked to the door and opened it, indicating that I should follow. "You've given me a great deal to think about. I appreciate your honesty, Ayla. It takes courage to speak up for the voiceless."
"Thank you, Your Majesty, this means —"
"I'll have my advisors review the Covenant texts tonight." She led me down the hallway, her hand gently touching my arm, directing me toward the exit. "We'll speak again soon. In the meantime, please let the demon queen know the good news.”
"Absolutely. Yeah. Of course."
She stopped at the main doors. The guards pulled them open. Daylight flooded in and Victoria stood in the archway, hands clasped, chin raised and with that smile still fixed on her face.
"Take care of yourself, Ayla," she said. "These are exciting times."
The doors closed after me. I was standing on the castle steps in the warm afternoon light, waiting for my relief. But it never came. Instead, I felt a cold sensation that started at the pit of my stomach. She had agreed too quickly. She hadn't pushed back, questioned the story or asked for proof, time or conditions.
Sami's voice was echoing in my head.
I started walking. Then I started running.
I took every shortcut I knew: teleporting past the market square, blinking through alleys, running when my mana needed to recharge. The forest trail became a blur beneath my feet. I reached the treeline in half the usual time and sprinted toward the tower. My lungs burned and the feeling in my stomach got worse with each step.
When I burst through the door, Lily was sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was concentrating on one of her books, and looked up at me, startled. "You're here early." I leaned against the doorframe, panting heavily, making an effort to regain my breath.
“Are you okay?” She narrowed her eyes at me. "Did something happen?"
I pushed off the frame and crossed to her. I sat on the steps and told her about the fan club and the hideout and the members, glossing over the part where Sami founded it and had a statue of Lily in a secret underground lair. I saved that card for when I needed leverage. Instead, I focused on the Covenant's revelation that the royal family had created it and that Victoria was the living anchor who could dissolve the binding on any floor.
"I went to the castle today and talked to Victoria about it. I asked her to consider releasing you."
Lily stared at me. "And?"
"She agreed."
Her eyes grew large. For a moment, she remained still, absorbed, then suddenly she tossed the book across the room. "Oh thank GOD!” Her hands were clasped together excitedly. "Do you know how long I've been staring at that thing? I didn't understand a single page! Not one! I've been flipping back and forth pretending it made sense for THREE DAYS! I got NOTHING, Ayla! Zero! I was going to tell you it was very informative and hope you didn't quiz me!" She was now upright, spinning and leaping. “She's really going to free me? For real?"
"That's what she said."
"Oh my god!” Lily put both her hands over her face and squealed. "Does this mean I get to be human again?"
“I... I don't think so." I shook my head. "The Covenant binds guardians to the tower, but I don't know if removing it changes what you are. You'd be free, but you might still be... you know." I cringed.
"A demon."
"Yeah."
"That sucks." She let her hands fall and shrugged. "Whatever. I can deal. At least I'll be a free demon." She was once more darting around the room. "Ayla, it's been so LONG since I've been outside. Do you see how pale I am? Look at me, I’m translucent! I need to tan!” Now, she was leaning at the window and looking down at the forest canopy below. "I want to actually explore this stupid world. See the kingdom, visit the capital properly, and go to a MARKET. I've been staring at the same four walls for —"
She stopped.
"Uh, Ayla?" She beckoned me over. “Correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't really look like a friendly, welcoming party coming to release monsters from the tower."
I raced across the room, bumping into her. A troop was making its way through the woods. Thousands of soldiers in silver armor moved through the trees in formation. Torches and banners flutter, and the glint of weapons catches the last rays of the afternoon sun. Behind them rolls equipment: catapults, battering rams, and something wrapped in canvas that pulsated faintly purple. At the head of the line, a figure dressed in a deep blue gown was mounted on a white steed.
"No. No, no, no... She lied!" I moved away from the window. "I'm so stupid!” I pressed both of my hands to my head. "Jesus Christ. Sami told me. They ALL told me! They laughed in my face and I still went in there like some MORON thinking I could change her mind because she was nice in a VIDEO GAME —"
"Ayla —"
"I led them here." My voice became hoarse. "If I hadn't gone... if I'd just listened—we'd have had more TIME, Lily. We could've figured something out. We had weeks left and I burned them because I thought I was clever and I'm NOT, I'm not clever, I'm —"
"Hey." Lily's hands were on my arms. "Hey, look at me."
I looked up at her, and my vision started to blur.
"It's okay," she said.
"It's not okay, Lily. There's an army outside your door because of me!"
"Maybe. Or maybe they were coming anyway."
"That doesn't make me feel better."
"It's not supposed to make you feel better, dumbass. It's supposed to make you stop spiraling so we can figure out what to do next." She squeezed my arms once and then let go. "Okay?"
I took a breath. Then another. The panic was still there, churning in my gut, but she was right: falling apart wasn't going to help either of us.
"Okay," I agreed. "Okay, yeah. Let's think."
"I've killed a lot of people, right?” Lily folded her arms and tilted her head upward, but I noticed the tremor in her jaw. “You've told me a thousand times I'm the most powerful being in this world. So I'll blow them up. All of them. Easy. Hellfire Blast has never let me down."
The ridiculousness of the circumstances almost made me laugh. I led these individuals to Lily, and she was there, attempting to console me. Jesus. I could only shake my head in response.
"Okay." Lily took a deep breath and shook off her shoulders. "So I'll blow them up. We've handled worse. Probably. I think.”
“For sure.”
We both looked out the window again. The army had cleared a path through the trees and was spreading across the open ground in front of the tower. There were way more of them than I thought. Fuck.
"Have we, though?" Lily whispered. "Handled worse?"
"Nope. Not even close."
We stood there watching the army advance for a few more seconds, shoulder to shoulder. Neither of us moved. Then Lily took a sharp breath and pressed her hand to her stomach.
"Ugh." She winced. "I think the stress is getting to me. My stomach hurts.”
“Nervous?"
“I don’t know... I feel weird.” She frowned. “Like wrong. My head is —." She blinked and swayed on her feet. "Ayla, something is off."
“What's wrong?”
"I don’t know... I just feel so cold right now?” She looked at her hands and flexed her fingers. Her skin had turned pale. The faint red glow that always hummed beneath her complexion was fading, like a flame in a draft. I took hold of her arm, and it felt icy to the touch.
"Lily, sit down." She had to sit on the steps beneath the throne, or rather her legs gave out and the steps caught her. Her breathing had become shallow, and she kept pressing her hand to her chest.
"Talk to me." I knelt in front of her. "What are you feeling? What's happening?"
"Death." She whispered, staring at a point behind me. “I can feel the tower dying all around me.”
“What are you talking about?”
"I don't know." She was blinking away tears. "I don't know what it is. It just... every few seconds it happens again. Like something is going out. And each time it does I feel less... and more."
It hit me: the floor guardians were connected to the demon queen. In the tower, every boss was connected to her life force. The game had a mechanic where you needed to clear floors to weaken the final boss. But it had never mattered in this world because the guardians could be resurrected. They died and revived and the connection stayed intact. Could they have figured out how to kill all of the guardians permanently?
If that was the case, Victoria wasn't just sending an army to fight Lily. She was killing every guardian in the tower on the way up, draining Lily floor by floor, weakening her with every life she snuffed out, so that by the time the army reached Floor 100, she would be too weak to fight back.
Lily bit her lip, making an effort to maintain her composure. A tear trickled down her cheek, which she quickly wiped away with the back of her hand. "Okay." Her voice trembled, but she steadied it. "Okay, I can still fight. I just need a minute. I just need to catch my breath and then I'll —" She tried to stand and her legs buckled immediately. I caught her and lowered her back to the steps, and she gripped my arms. This time her grip was so weak I could barely feel it.
"Lily, come on." I pushed her hair out of her face. She was freezing cold. "Come on, you can do this. You're the demon queen, remember? Infinite magic, scariest woman in the tower, four abilities unlocked in one night because you're that good —"
"I'm trying." She sniffled. "I'm trying, Ayla, I can’t."
"Of course you can. You just need to focus. Remember Phase Shift? Remember how it felt?"
"I can't feel any of it." She shook her head. "Everything inside me is quiet."
I looked at her. Her cheeks were wet and flushed, tears staining her cheeks. Her swollen, pink lips bore the marks of her biting down to stifle her tears, while her lashes were matted together in dark, wet clusters. She had her chin lifted and her jaw clenched, just like she always did when she was scared and didn't want anyone to know. But her hands trembled in her lap, and her shoulders heaved with breaths that she couldn't finish. She seemed so small sitting on those steps.
The noises were growing louder. The clomp of boots on pavement reverberated up through the floors beneath us. Metal clanking against metal. Voices shouting orders. They were coming. Lily looked up toward the sound. She put one hand on the step and tried to pull herself up, her arms trembling.
"Okay." I stood up and grabbed my staff. “Change of plans. You stay right there." I checked my mana pool, rolled my shoulders, and gave her the most confident grin I could manage. "I'll handle the welcoming committee."
"Ayla, you cannot fight an army by yourself."
"Sure I can." I spun the staff in my hand and placed myself between her and the door to the throne room. "I do crazy stuff all the time."
"This is not the time to be cocky! You're going to get yourself KILLED." Her legs trembled as she tried to stand up. Her hands clawed at the edge of the throne for support. “Are you hearing yourself right now?"
"I'll buy you time. You rest, you recover, and when your power comes back you fry every last one of them."
"And if my power DOESN'T come back?"
"It will."
"You don't KNOW that!"
"I know you." I glanced over my shoulder at her and the grin was still there, even though my hands were sweating so much that I could barely grip the staff. "You're the scariest woman I've ever met in two separate lifetimes. If anyone can handle these losers, it's you."
"Ayla, please." Her voice broke, and her anger drained. What was left was just fear. "Please don't do this. I can't watch you die in front of me. I can't—I already lost you once."
That one went through me like a knife. I almost spun around. I almost lost my smile. I almost went back to her. I almost told her the truth: that I was terrified; that my legs were shaking; that I was only upright because she needed me to be. I didn't turn around. If I looked at her face I would fall apart. She needed me whole.
"Hey." I spoke softly. “I’ve got this. Have I ever let you down?"
"You've let me down like a HUNDRED times, Ayla, you are historically terrible at —"
"Rhetorical question! That was rhetorical!" I took a deep breath. "Chill, I got this. And when this is over I expect a full five-star review and maybe a thank you for once." I winked and she rolled her eyes.
Good. She was still there.
The footsteps were louder now, the sound echoing as they drew closer. The first shadows appeared on the wall of the stairwell, elongated and flickering in the torchlight.
I clenched my staff firmly.
"All right," I said. “Let's go."