Our mutual staring lasted only for a moment.
"Answer me, Demon!" The Hero called out, her sword pointed at me. "I will make your death a quick one."
I rose to my full height, making me a head taller than the girl. "Demon? Did your brains leak out of your ears? Do you have the faintest idea who you dare speak this way to? I am not just any Demon."
The Hero paused and took a tentative step forward. Her blade was still leveled at me. It didn't glow like a [Hero's Sword] should.
"You are scum. A parasite on the world. A-"
"I am the Demon Queen." I cut off the woman's blathering. "And your head is far too high. Perhaps I should have cut it off last time we met."
The Hero's step faltered. She looked at me. Really looked at me. "That's not possible," she finally muttered. "I turned that bitch to dust. You look similar, but-" She shook her head. "Don't think you can get into my head, Demon!"
I suppressed the urge to sigh. "Ash. I believe that was what your companion called you, was it not?"
Some of the color left her face. "How did you know that? Are you in my mind?!"
"No," I said. "If I were, I fear I may never leave. I would get lost in its infinite void."
Ash searched my face, and for some reason, recognition finally dawned. "You…you really are her. Lysanthia, you fiend, what did you do to me?"
Her voice broke on the last word. The fear had left, and only anger remained.
"I did nothing to you, fool." My limbs still ached, but I could move them for another fight. My gaze dropped to her sword. It hung lifeless at her side.
"You do not have your powers either, do you?" I asked. "Your [System]?"
Ash hesitated at that. "Either?" She whispered. "That means I can cut you down!"
I was starting to get a headache. Another time I might have charged at her, but curiosity had always been a sharper hunger. Why was she here? I turned, sat back down, and let my feet dangle in the cool river.
"You would show your back to me?" Ash called after me. "You mock me eve-"
"Just come over already," I said. "You died, didn't you? That's why you're here. Except I took the brunt of the backlash, so you should have lived. Were you that weak that you died anyway?"
"I was not." A low, barely controlled voice answered.
I paused. "Then someone else killed you."
There was nothing but silence at that. After a heartbeat, there were footsteps. Those footsteps branched off from the path directly behind me, came to my right, and stopped just off to my side.
"What do you know? Where are we?"
"Hmm…." My legs trailed idly through the water. "Who was it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Which one of them killed you? I am curious."
I felt the whisper of steel against my throat. I did not turn, did not do anything but kick up the water with my legs. Nobody who could become a Hero in the first place would cut down someone not fighting back. That was the trapping of their Role, after all.
"Orvyn," Ash finally said.
"And which one was that?"
The steel dug against my throat. There might have been an insignificant trickle of blood.
"The Saint." The words sounded like they had been dragged out of her. "She did."
"Now that makes perfect sense," I mused. "I could see how a Saint might turn their blade against the Hero." I turned my head, regarding Ash again.
She was glaring down at me, brows knit tight, lips pressed into a thin line. "I think I see now. They found out you would live, wouldn't they?"
The glare twisted. The blade moved away from my throat. Ash grunted and sheathed it back into its scabbard. "Yes."
She stood there a moment longer than she needed to. Her jaw worked. I expected her to say something, but she didn't. Twice, I saw her hand drift toward her sword, only to fall back to her side. Then she was pulling off her armored greaves. I watched her sit down by the riverbed, her own legs sinking into the waters next to me.
She stared at the water for a time, and when she spoke, there was no anger. "She was crying when she did it," Ash said quietly. "She told me she was sorry."
There was something in the Hero's voice I hadn't heard before, something I had no name for. I didn't say anything and did not know why she was telling me this in the first place. For once, I did not cut her on my wit.
"Now answer me," she muttered, staring straight ahead. "What do you know, and where the hell are we?"
I did not appreciate her tone. Then again, we had made something of an informal accord.
"We are roughly one thousand years in the future. Nine hundred and eighty-four, to be precise," I said absently. I hadn't noticed before, but the river wasn't actually empty.
Tiny fish swam in the waters, occasionally brushing past my skin. They tickled, which was curious. The beasts that grew in Demonic Waters would not have simply tickled.
Ash didn't respond. The silence stretched so long I nearly turned to check if she had simply died from the shock.
"A thousand years," she finally repeated. The words came out flat and empty.
"Nine hundred and eighty-four."
"Elowen wanted to open a bakery," Ash said.
The words sounded heavy in a way I didn't know words could. I wouldn't have cared before, and perhaps still didn't. Now, however, without my role bearing down on me, I at least considered them.
"They are all long dead," I said.
"I know." Her shoulders tightened again. Some of the fire returned to her gaze as she met my own. "And you did this. You expect me to believe you cast a spell that sent us almost a thousand years into the future."
I shot her a glare, my brows narrowing on instinct. "Child, I am -was- the Demon Queen. A spell of that magnitude might be above your means. It was well within mine."
Ash held my gaze for a long moment, then slowly nodded. "Let's say I do believe this madness, and that I am not simply in the middle of a long dream I will soon wake from." She tilted her head. "You used my power to do it, did you not? Something to do with those damn runes."
My jaw tightened-that much was true. Without the Hero's Requiem, without a Hero's connection to a large portion of the Pantheon-many of whom controlled Fate and Roles-the spell would have been impossible. That did not mean I was going to say as much.
"I needed the Gods' powers. You are little more than a vessel," I said.
Ash's face twisted. "Fine, I've heard your answer." She didn't reach for her sword this time. Instead, she turned to face me fully.
"You killed Ronan," Ash said, and her face twisted again. "He was the bravest man I ever knew, and you cut him down like he was nothing."
"He charged at me," I said. "I gave him a quick death in recompense, which is better than most would get. Aren't honorable deaths what Warriors care about?"
Ash's hands balled into fists at her sides. For a moment, I thought she might strike me with them. That, at least, would have been more interesting than whatever this was.
"Countless more," she continued. "Villages…whole cities. Children who never-" She stopped herself and drew a breath. "For that, you deserve death."
"Perhaps," I said. "And yet, here we both are, with neither of us in much position to deliver it unto the other, I suspect."
"I will try all the same," the Hero said calmly.
It was hard not to laugh. I stifled it, the laughter turning into an amused snort instead.
"You think that's funny?" There was true rage behind the words. Truly the voice of a Hero, even in the pitch of a woman.
"I do. It has been a thousand years. All of the people you are so furious over would have long since died already. Their descendants are likely just as dead by now."
"You cut their lives short," the Hero hissed. "You and your damned horde."
"And what lovely lives they no doubt were," I said dryly. "In opposition, our demon lives were worth so much less. The horde you slaughtered with such relish, if you recall."
"You dare compare the two?" Ash roared. "No demon is equal to a member of any other race."
"Obviously not. But they're worth something."
"What?"
There was silence for a heartbeat. Something shifted on the Hero's face, something I did not understand and could not name. I raised an eyebrow. "What part confuses you?"
I cursed the God who designed the Role of Hero and did not ensure they needed at least a base level of intelligence.
"You said a demon's life is worth less," Ash said hesitantly. "You are their Queen."
"I was. And you were the Hero," I said. The girl winced at that, and I ignored it. "And obviously so. Demons have less free will than members of other races. That is the curse of their Role in this world."
She blinked at me. There was nothing-no understanding at all. Her ignorance burned something within me. "You truly do not know, do you? The Classes-what they actually are, what they do to those who bear them."
"Classes?" Ash frowned. "What do you mean? The Hero, the Demon Queen-the titles the world gives?"
"Gives?" I snarled. "That makes them sound like gifts. Do you call a chain a gift, girl? And do not blame the world. It is not nearly so cruel."
"What are you sa-"
Thud. Thud.
The sound was slow and methodical, so ponderous it could only be one thing: footsteps. We both turned, and behind us was a creature even I, in my many long years, had never seen before.
It looked like a Great Elk, twice the height of the Cerberus, with a rack of antlers that scraped the lower branches of the canopy above it. Its coat shimmered where the fading light caught it-a pale gold, almost white. A Divine Beast.
Humans considered them a thing of beauty. It was perhaps the only wisdom they had.
"How could this be…." Ash breathed. "Who would dare taint one so? Who could?"
This one had four sets of eyes spaced along its skull, each pair a different size, the smallest no bigger than my fingers. All of them found us at once. Its antlers branched into patterns, and from every point, something dark and thick dripped onto the grass. The body itself was wrong-scaled where it should have been furred and ribbed like a serpent's belly.
Demonic Corruption on a Divine Beast? This creature shouldn't exist. It hadn't existed. It couldn't exist.
Its front hoof struck the earth once. Twice. The ground shook beneath me on the second strike. Then it lowered its head and came for us.
We scattered in opposite directions, and the beast chose me-of course it did. Even diminished, a Demon's mana signature was a provocation to anything Divine. I ran.
Water kicked up around my legs as I crossed the shallows. On the far bank I turned, feet slipping in the mud, and got my first clear look at the thing in full stride. The Cerberus had been fast. This was faster. It caught me in three strides.
The impact hit between my shoulders. A sound came out of me that I did not choose to make. The [Darkness Binding] held, but the force was still there. My feet left the ground. For one dizzying moment there was nothing beneath me, and then the earth came.
I hit grass, then dirt, sliding until I managed to flip onto my front and dig my fingers in. I lay there for half a breath. Then the rage found me, and I bared my teeth.
I looked up. The Elk was charging again. It hadn't even slowed down.
"Left!"
Ash's voice, from somewhere behind me.
Every instinct I possessed told me not to obey a command from anyone, let alone her. Yet my body was already moving as I threw myself to the side. The Elk's antlers cut the air where my chest had been.
I hit the ground on my shoulder, rolled, and found my feet again.
The Hero was already moving. She'd circled wide to the beast's flank while it was focused on me. Her sword was drawn, and her eyes were steady. She looked nothing like the bleeding wreck I had made of her in my throne room.
"It favors its right side," Ash called out, not looking at me. Her eyes tracked the beast as it slowed and turned. "When it lowers its head, it commits and can't adjust."
"I noticed!" I hadn't, actually, but I would die before admitting as much-die before I accepted help from a Hero.
The Elk charged again, at Ash this time. She sidestepped, but the arc of its antlers caught her shoulder. She spun but didn't go flying like I had.
"I need it distracted from the front," she cried out.
"You want me to stand in front of that thing without [Spells] and [Skills]?"
"I'm asking you to not die for ten seconds. Can you do that?!"
Standing in front of this thing for any length of time sounded like the precise way to achieve exactly that. The beast had turned away from me, its many eyes fixed on Ash.
I could run. Right now, while it was focused on her, I could disappear into the trees and be gone. Without her powers, the Hero would die here, and I had seen enough dead Heroes.
My legs didn't obey.
I was no longer Queen, but I still had my pride. That was the reason. A distant part of me wondered if perhaps I was just trying to justify a decision I had already made.
"You wretched, blighted mutt!" I roared, letting my mana flare outward in a wave. The mana carried my demonic signature. It was a fraction of what I once commanded, but to a Divine Beast, even a corrupted one, it would be enough. "You dare turn your back on me?"
The Elk's head snapped toward me. All of its eyes stared.
I, Lysanthia, for the second time today, did something I never had before: I did something stupid for the sake of another. I called what mana I could into my legs and my arms. It answered more sluggishly than it should have.
The Elk charged. I watched the head drop, watched the weight shift right-just as she'd said. I threw myself left.
My hand found an antler. My fingers locked around the sharp point, and then my feet were gone, ripped from the earth as the beast's momentum swallowed mine whole.
I was dragged. My shoulder wrenched. The world became a blur of green and brown and antler. The beast bucked, my grip broke, and I was airborne. In that spinning half-second, I saw her.
Ash stood behind the Elk. She'd planted her feet wide, both hands on the hilt. Her blade was already drawn back over her right shoulder, her whole body coiled behind the strike. The blade glowed with crimson aura, dimmer than I remembered but still almost blinding.
She thrust.
The blade sank into the Elk's flank, and for one moment, the steel seemed to catch on something before punching through.
The beast howled. The sound echoed even as it carried. Dark blood spurted from the wound. Ash didn't pull the blade free immediately-she twisted it.
I hit the ground hard. My vision swam, then slowly focused on the Elk.
Thud.
The great beast fell on its side and continued spasming. Blood welled from a wound near one of its hindlegs, where there was some kind of marking, a glyph that glowed red.
Ash took a few deep breaths and watched the beast spasm. It let out piteous sounds as it did, softer than the ones the Cerberus had made. It didn't sound like something possessed of demonic corruption.
Ash moved to the beast's head. Her steps were slow. For the second time today, she had an expression on her face I could not name.
She knelt and placed one hand on its neck, just behind the jaw. The beast watched her back. She held its gaze, then drove her sword down. She stayed like that for seconds longer than she had to.
No, I had been wrong. I did recognize that expression now. It was one I had seen before. It was how Zera had looked when she'd killed her lover, Malcis, after the void's corruption had taken him.
Ash rose, turned, and walked towards me. She held out her hand.
I clicked my tongue and swatted it aside as I rose with my own strength. "What did you do?" I asked. "One strike on a beast like that makes no sense without your powers, even with aura."
Ash looked torn. I almost didn't think she would answer.
"Divine Beasts channel their energy through a single nexus point. In a Great Elk, it's here-" She tapped just above her own hip. "If you hit it cleanly, the energy has nowhere to go, and the body fails." She paused. "I didn't know if it would still work on something this corrupted. I guessed."
"You guessed," I repeated.
"I guessed."
How arrogant that was, to bet both of our lives on something as feeble as a guess. A Hero's arrogance. Though I had done the same with the Cerberus creature, had I not?
Still, this was new information. Divine Beasts had been a scourge during the Great Demon War. Each could kill a score on its own, and they'd had a weakness like that? Not only that, but this fool girl had shared it with me?
"Why?" I demanded, and my words sounded like a growl.
"Hmm?" Ash blinked, as if the question didn't make sense to her.
"You were-" She stopped and tried again. "A Hero doesn't get to choose who needs saving."
That wasn't the question I had asked, and yet the answer infuriated me all the more for it. "You are no Hero," I snapped. "Your Role is at an end."
"It is, I suppose," she said, and her eyes looked oddly heavy. She took a deep breath. "But I'd like to think that doesn't mean my heroism has to end as well."
We stared at each other. There was a growl -not from my stomach, but from hers. She blushed and looked away.
For the first time, I wondered if perhaps reincarnating had been the wrong choice after all.