Seyari spotted the demon first. We were near the top of the pass, the trees around us short and the snow deep. They’d seen us before we saw them. Up on a ridge ahead of us, a blur of motion was the only sign we got before they dipped out of view, doubtlessly headed south. A scout?

“Zarenna—” Seyari started.

“On it,” I replied before she could finish.

A quick few steps, a leap, and a rush of my magic and I took flight after the fleeing scout. They were fast, really fast: an orange-red blur I could only see from behind. But they had to navigate terrain, while I could fly. Still, they were fast—I’d have stood no chance catching up if I had to run.

The other demon was smaller than I was, but I had a suspicion they were a wrath demon all the same. Short spikes of black bone ran up their tail and spine, clustering around two sets of shoulder blades. Horns curved up from the sides of their head, and their feet were more claw than foot, perhaps why they were so fast. Their appearance leaned feminine as well, with a figure that was slim for a wrath demon and shoulder-length, blood red hair. She wore fitted leathers around her torso, just enough to cover everything.

I descended on her like a hawk toward a mouse. Even if my magic could torch her from above, I wasn’t about to let a chance for information—even a slim one—slip through my claws.

For a split second, I saw the other demon’s four-eyed face over her shoulder as I crashed down. I also saw something mu more important: a binding collar around her neck. She whirled away, claws slashing.

Too slow.

I caught her through the side. My past few fights had taught me well enough to know that a few crushed ribs and huge gashes wouldn’t be much of a deterrent for one of my kind. She leapt up and tried to dash away again, her aura flaring in a sudden burst of speed.

Barely, my claws closed around her tail, and I whipped her overhead and into the nearby snow like an oversized doll. With her impact softened, she wasn’t so much as stunned, and I barely caught one of her wrists with my own as she tried once again to slip away.

Immediately, three other hands slashed at my grasping limb, claws tearing into me. In response, I crushed my grip down until I felt bones snapping and threw the other demon to the ground under me.

“Talk,” I ordered with a growl. “You know what I am.”

Underneath me, four eyes narrowed: two blue and two red, sclera filled with the same inky blackness all demons shared. Unlike my usual opponents, this one had enough limbs to grapple with mine. Lucky for me, I was both bigger and stronger.

The other demon knew it, too. In desperation, her magic turned hot and erupted into fire. Pushing back with my own, I snuffed the blaze like a candle, leaving both of us locked in a struggle on the steaming, rocky ground.

“Who sent you? What are your orders?” I hissed.

Her struggles slowed. “I…” their binding collar glowed. “can’t. Won’t tell you.”

“Do you want to die?” I hissed. Can I even break this binding without killing her? Mereneth was bound when I first met her, and Lilly hadn’t come and undone hers—but I don’t know why.

Her struggles stopped. Four eyes looked into my two, one set almost angrier than the other. I sensed a deep fury within the demon, and the more I looked, the more something seemed familiar about her. Seizing my chance, I pinned her harder, wrenching her four arms so I could hold all their wrists with only two hands. My other hands menaced above her, claws open.

“I… don’t know,” they responded eventually. Now that she was calmer, her voice scratched at the back of my mind like a barely-forgotten memory.

“You don’t know what?” I hissed.

“I don’t know if I want to die. But I can’t.”

For a moment, I was struck speechless.

Then, the demon continued, her voice a pained hiss. “But I won’t tell you anything. I don’t know if I can… I won’t.”

Will a contract break the binding? My instincts didn’t quite tell me. I had a feeling the idea was risky.

Even if I did contract them, what would I do? And why would I? A vague familiarity and an idea of mercy to someone who is suffering? I felt more of their wrists snap as I tensed my hands in fury.

Not at her, but at this damned world that allowed things like this to happen.

“Who sent you? Orders. Anything.” At this point, I was stalling. Killing her now would be easy, but I just didn’t want to.

“No,” they spat.

“Your name?” I tried.

Their eyes widened. “I… don’t have one.” They started to writhe under me again, futilely attempting to break free as our tails wrestled, the spikes on hers digging deep gouges into mine and my back both.

“Anything?” At this point my hands were shaking. I knew I could do it, should do it, but every time I tried to summon up the will to kill them, my eyes would find their collar, which was glowing almost angrily.

They don’t want this, right? Could they? Could I? Should they? Should I?

“…durians.” Her voice was almost a whisper.

“What?” I asked before I could stop myself. Some of my blood was dripping onto her, sizzling into her skin and clothes alike.

“I hate durians,” she repeated softly.

I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. I recognized her voice. No. No it can’t be.

“Lorelei?” I asked, my voice shaking more than my arms.

She narrowed her eyes—all of them—and looked away. No way.

I felt sick. Under me was the result of my single greatest mistake. Of a broken promise, and a dream cut short.

I can’t kill her.

The realization made my head swim.

I can’t kill her. She probably knows this. Mordwell or whoever sent her might know this! Lorelei knew that what I wanted was peace and atonement—camaraderie and understanding. She’d heard it from me when I was at my lowest.

And here she was. Or part of her. Hurt. Enslaved.

I can’t kill her.

Whoever she serves knows my weakness. They know that I try to save even my enemies. And they are going to use it against me.

And I still can’t kill her.

Only her. Only Lorelei. Any other demon, any other regret or mistake or piece of my past coming back… I could deal with those—have dealt with those. My parents would understand if I had to. Abby already did. Any of my friends would.

My sister would force my damn claws if it needed to be done!

Anyone but Lorelei.

My hands loosened and Lorelei slipped out. She stood, and I looked up at her, my face pleading. “A contract,” I sputtered. “Please, I can help you.”

Lorelei’s face contorted even as her collar glowed. She didn’t shed a tear, but her breath hitched as she turned to dash away.

A fraction of a moment later, I found myself holding onto her wrist again, broken bones grinding in my grip. If Lorelei felt it, she gave no indication.

She tried to pull away, but I let her pull me to my feet again. Like old times, I towered over her, though she’d gained some height since. I didn’t know what parts of any others were in there, but she acted like a single whole, and that whole was too uncanny to be anyone other than Lorelei.

No one else would bring up durians. I hadn’t been able to find one in months, and this far south I never would.

Two of Lorelei’s eyes looked at my hand around her wrist, and the red pair glared up at me.

“I’m not leaving you,” I said sternly. I didn’t know if I meant it; my head felt fit to burst.

Anger turned to fear. We both knew what a broken contract would do. I reached for her collar and she flinched away.

“Would you rather die? Become something you hate?” I muttered at her, too focused to shout.

“I already have,” Lorelei replied.

A moment later, my claws touched her collar and the world went red.

***

Seyari watched Zarenna fly off with a strange combination of excitement, anxiety, and envy. Like a crimson cannonball, her partner arced through the sky in the direction of the demon.

Is she… faster than I was? Seyari wondered idly.

A hand shook her shoulder. “Don’t tell me you got the idea to daydream from her. We need to set up for an ambush,” Kartania said grimly.

Seyari shook her head and focused back on the trail. Now that she didn’t have her head in the clouds, she could hear the rapid thumping and crunching of approaching footfalls. Fewer this time than the horde, which could be very, very bad.

The area they had to work with was open: a hillside covered in knee-deep snow and dotted with scraggly trees about two Zarenna’s tall. The road drove through a wide, flat spot in the hillside. Everyone had taken defensive positions, behind rocks or trees or in the shadow of the rolling hillside as it curved away toward the incoming group.

The newcomer, Brynna looked to be a bruiser of sorts, with a pair of spiked metal knuckles. She and Taava were together behind a boulder near the half-angel on the downslope of the hill. If Seyari hadn’t seen her aura and made a guess at weak fire magic, she’d have wondered how the lupael’s hands didn’t freeze off.

Joisse stepped over near Seyari, while Kartania and Nelys took positions behind trees just uphill from the road. The wrath demon had tossed her coat aside and transformed. She glanced red eyes Seyari’s way and shot a fanged smile at her. After a moment’s hesitation, Seyari ran a hand down the spikes on Joisse’s head. They seemed a little more organized than a few weeks ago.

Zarenna’s way ahead on getting used to this whole “parent” thing. Also love, finish that demon off and get the fuck back over here! We’re about to need you.

No sooner had she thought that, then the first of the demons emerged around a corner in the road ahead. A greater demon. They barely looked humanoid: a distorted figure of spikes and black, bony plates with a few too many uneven limbs. Head down, they charged straight toward the group.

Kartania slid fluidly to intercept, and Seyari felt her heart catch at the sight of a pure human standing in front of a charging wrath demon.

But she didn’t get the chance to dwell on it. The wrath demon wasn’t alone. A flare of magic and a burning taste in the air was all the warning Seyari had before the world around them erupted into fire. Her wind only barely beat back the demonic flames, and she hadn’t even seen their source. Brynna and Taava lived only by the boulder they hid behind, which meant the fire had come from uphill.

With a quick nod, Joisse took off across the road and up the hill toward the unknown caster, leaving Seyari to cover Taava and Brynna.

“Get out of my head!” Nelys screamed from off in the whirling crimson maelstrom. Bolts of their lightning shot out to one side.

Another one. That’s three enemies at least! On the roiling wind, and through her aura sight muddied by the fire spell, Seyari could see another demonic aura rapidly approaching from just downhill of the road. Make that four.

Out in front, a monstrous roar of pain echoed, distorted in the wind. A wall of ice, tall as a two-story building dripped blood from its many spikes.

If something tried to get into Nelys’s head…

Seyari jumped away from the pair most susceptible to demonic magic. She was just in time, as Brynna made to grab the half angel even and Taava started stiffly toward her, eyes wide, furious, and flickering with a purple glow. The big lupael woman was fast, and Seyari only just dodged the grapple. Unfortunately, the nimble Taava fell under, catching Seyari’s hair on the way down.

Swiping back, she cut herself free and rolled to her feet, only to come face-to-face with the fourth demon she’d sensed approaching. The sword wielding demonic man wore an armor of silver coins melted into tortured flesh. His blade flashed forward toward Seyari’s heart, and she only barely brought her newly-sharpened sword up to deflect.

The strength of his hit nearly knocked the blade out of her hand, her arm buzzing numb up to the shoulder. A quick glance showed she was surrounded: Brynna and Taava under an enchantment from an unseen demon, their eyes glowing purple, and a demon of avarice bearing down on the three-quarters angel.

For a heart-stopping moment, Seyari wondered where the other demon who tried to burn them alive was. Joisse’s roar and a cry of pain answered that question.

Joisse is taking one. Kartania another. Nelys searching for the one that enchanted Taava and Brynna.

That just left Seyari and the avarice demon to face off alone, by her count.

Unfortunately, she’d counted wrong.

Seemingly materializing out of the whipping wind, the envy demon appeared from behind a nearby tree, looking like a gray, skeletal, withered old man. His magic slammed into her mind just as the avarice demon attacked. Seyari threw a wave of holy magic toward both demons as her mind threatened to buckle, careful not to hurt her enchanted friends, and she moved to parry the avarice demon.

Taava grabbed her arm, and Brynna hit her undefended knee hard enough that Seyari heard the joint pop. She stumbled at the critical moment, watching the sword swing pivot mid-motion from her heart to her arm.

Searing pain exploded from behind her eyes, and Seyari lost all feeling in her sword hand. When she sent a pulse of her holy magic down the limb, trying to heal the damage, she realized…

It was just gone.

Below just above the wrist, her right arm had been sliced clean through. She slid out of Taava’s grip on her incomplete limb and whirled to knee Brynna away. She saw her hand as the blade slipped between dead fingers; sword and hand together crashed into the snow a few meters away.

Two demons on me, she thought. With her arm bleeding as it was, she had two choices: close the wound and heal what was left of her arm, or try to reattach her hand mid-combat.

Seyari dove for her own severed arm. At the last second, a withering bolt of demonic lightning from the envy demon seared into it. Seyari rolled away, grabbing her sword instead with her one good hand. In front of her, her own severed limb bubbled and burned as it was destroyed.

Seyari screamed.

The torrent of wind intensified, and through it, Nelys stumbled forward into the flat of the road, their eyes alight with fury even as they brought their magic down on the envy demon. Lightning arced forward from Nelys’s hands, and the envy demon jolted. Teeth gritted tightly together, Seyari dove at the stunned demon, barely dancing away from the avarice demon who flanked her.

In her off-hand, she poured enough power into the sword to turn it into a holy lance. With a roar, she drove it through the stunned envy demon. They tried to shift away, the same trick that had doubtlessly fooled Nelys.

But Seyari was trained. She saw the aura shift, the dents in the snow, and, ducking under the avarice demon just as Nelys engaged with him, she swung the meters-long blade of light around. Black blood sprayed out of the empty air, and the envy demon fell into two halves in the snow.

That’s one down! We can win this!

Taking a ragged breath, Seyari stepped back, fending off Brynna’s last swing even as Taava swore colorfully from her position face-first in the snow.

Her own healing magic raced through down to her stump of a limb, finding where it now ended just above where her wrist had been. The flow of blood stopped, the end scabbing over to a smooth nub even as Seyari drove the pommel of her sword into the lupael woman’s shoulder, stumbling her.

Before she could try to snap Brynna out of it, she heard Nelys scream in raw agony. Kicking off from her position just downhill of the road, Seyari darted back to where the two had drifted away in their fight, sparing a glance toward Kartania.

The monstrous wrath demon Zarenna’s sister was fighting had seemingly increased in size, and was shooting molten spikes at the paladin of Dhias who was using the slope to her advantage. Kartania intercepted each one with a shield of ice, and while Seyari could see Kartania tiring, the demon she fought was fully engaged, and sported many large gashes.

The avarice demon intercepted her as Seyari darted out from behind a tree and back onto the road. She blocked another strike from the avarice demon, feinted, and rolled away from them with only a small gash on her leg from the demon’s superior speed.

Wherever Joisse was, Seyari couldn’t see. From the sounds of it, and the orange glow of further up the hill, her soon-to-be daughter was still fighting with whatever threw that fire spell. She had to be doing a solid job of it, as Seyari and the others weren’t dead… yet.

In the distance, a massive explosion rumbled the ground. Zarenna?! Seyari didn’t have time to so much as look in her direction. Her target was Nelys—their bloodcurdling scream carried the kind of mortality Seyari was all-too familiar with. Please be alive.

With the avarice demon chasing her, hardly even harried by the blades thrown by a distant Taava, Seyari darted through the steam and ash and snow toward where she had heard Nelys.

Ahead, her friend had fallen to one knee, a nasty gash opening their midsection enough that Seyari could see pulsing organs starting to spill out. They looked down with shocked eyes even as the sneering avarice demon behind Seyari brought the blade up for a killing blow.

No time to form a spell, Seyari whirled and rammed him with her once-dominant shoulder. He stumbled and the attack missed. Almost fumbling the spells for lack of a second hand, Seyari threw a wave of holy light that staggered the avarice demon, blistering and blackening half of his face.

Nelys is contracted with a demon. But… this should be possible.

“This’ll hurt like hell,” Seyari said, her voice hoarser than she intended.

Nelys looked up at her with eyes full of pain and shock.

No time to second guess. She poured a good chunk of her remaining mana forth over Nelys. They screamed again, a hand going from entrails to mouth. The wound was too big, to vicious: even as it started to heal, Nelys started to burn from the opposing magic.

Shit.

Tossing her sword down and simply hoping for enough time, Seyari helped Nelys hold the wound shut, even as their skin started to blister under the holy magic. But the mortal wound started to seal closed.

Then Seyari heard fast, heavy footfalls behind her.

Her sword was on the ground. Her magic was tied in a spell.

She had no chance to defend herself.

Nelys, half delirious and in burning agony, raised the hand covering their mouth and pointed above Seyari. A bolt of uncomfortable heat almost grazed her head, and the steps stumbled, not a meter behind her.

She heard Taava yell, and heard a deeper grunt from Brynna. Behind her, the avarice demon screamed as enchanted knives and heavy metal knuckles stung at it. Seyari only prayed they bought enough time.

And that neither ended up dead next.

Where the FUCK is Zarenna?!

Sweat dripping from her brow even in the freezing cold, Seyari finished healing Nelys. Though an ugly scar remained, they would live. Seyari worried about the damage any further holy magic could cause.

Unfortunately, she had no time to console them, or even help them to their feet. With a grimace, she turned and grabbed her sword out of the bloody snow. Taava dipped barely out of the way of the avarice demon’s swing. Brynna impressed her by using the supernatural speed of the demon to slide under a kick and deliver an unfortunately inconsequential blow.

Behind her, the massive wrath demon roared again in pain.

“Die already!” Kartania shouted, her voice sounding as tired as her body must have been.

Seyari didn’t have a chance to check on Joisse. Instead, she coated her blade in holy light, conserving the last of her magic, and struck out at the avarice demon.

Pay attention to me. I’m a bigger threat.

And I can heal myself if I get hit… Zarenna’s really rubbed off on me.

And she isn’t here!

Whirling with inhuman speed, he blocked Seyari’s strike. But he didn’t think to block her handless arm. Blade of light at the end, she drove it square into his sternum, slicing through bone. He twisted away before it could become a mortal blow, hissing in pain as the wound smoked.

Now, it was the avarice demon surrounded by Seyari and two allies. Potentially four if Nelys could get off the ground. Thankfully, the avarice demon decided to go after the three-quarters angel. Unbalanced, Seyari barely deflected blow after blow as Taava and Brynna harried him. Only the efforts of her allies kept the haggard Seyari from folding like a playing card.

Nelys whimpered behind, drawing in slow breaths as Seyari heard them stand shakily.

“Die!!” Kartania shouted in the distance.

A chill swept through the air, pausing even Seyari’s fight. A titanic, gargling roar cut off into a crunching sound. Thinking quickly, Seyari feigned a look in the paladin’s direction, and the avarice demon attacked. She deflected and drove another blade of her weakening holy magic into his gut, slicing sideways through silver armor and flesh both.

Unlike what he’d done to Nelys, it wasn’t enough to disembowel him. But it also wouldn’t heal. A vulnerability.

“Joisse!” Kartania shouted, and Seyari heard her run off.

Hopefully they’ll both make it.

The silver-coated avarice demon lunged at her with a blow she couldn’t risk blocking. Seyari rolled away and let it clip her side even as her holy magic worked to heal the damage. Her gambit worked, however. Taava ducked in with a low slice, and the demon’s abdomen split open. As Seyari stumbled to her feet, Brynna dove in.

She’s too slow!

More lightning magic from Nelys zipped forward and the demon stumbled, giving Brynna just enough time to dive under and thrust her hand upwards.

Seyari assumed she’d pull her arm straight out, but she reached up inside instead, behind the ribs. The avarice demon swung again, but Taava blocked. The force of the hit sent the kazzel flying, tumbling head over heels before landing in a half-roll that only failed to break bones because the snow was so deep.

Brynna stayed latched onto the wounded avarice demon, her arm in his guts and her eyes burning with manic fury. With a clear shot, Seyari lunged forward, slicing downward with all her remaining magic in a massive blade of holy light. The avarice demon tried to dodge, but was hampered by more magic from Nelys, who fell to their knees behind the three-quarters angel as they succumbed to mana exhaustion.

Seyari’s strike caught the avarice demon, slicing their leg clean through below the knee. As the demon toppled over, Brynna wrenched her arm backward, out from the demon’s abdomen. The avarice demon stared at the lupael woman, his black and gold eyes wide.

Clutched in Brynna’s clawed hand was a human-like heart. She crushed it as the avarice demon watched, and the light faded from his eyes.

Another one down. That’s the envy and avarice demons down—and probably the big wrath one, too.

With Joisse occupying the last remaining enemy demon, Seyari risked a glance to where Zarenna had flown. Kartania and Joisse shouted from further up the hill behind her, and Seyari knew she couldn’t look for long.

She didn’t need to take a long look to know something was terribly wrong. The hill Zarenna had gone to was smoking, and a cloud of ash was drifting their way. A ring of blackened, flattened trees adorned the top like an ashen bald spot.