The ground smelled of burning corpses and wilted flowers as Hesi trudged through the growing onyx sea at her feet. Spears and curved blades sang in the air, hungry for her blood, but she only reached out, swung her dagger, and soon, a demon slammed bodily on the polished stone floor. Her gaze never wavered from the single door she had in mind.

The High King's quarters.

She turned a corner and came across another demonic platoon. Each hefted a curved blade which sparkled against the sunlight bursting through spaces unblocked by fruit-bearing trees and flowering bushes. Three or four or five demons. Whatever.

With bared teeth, she lunged. Sparks painted the midday sky orange as her dagger slammed into the first blade shooting for her. The Mayaware behind it matched her hiss, onyx frills wide and fangs dripping with poison. She grunted and pushed its weight back, jabbing a heel against its knee. Like a rag doll, the demon flailed backward, its limbs more interested in keeping itself upright than fighting her.

She swung, nicking the falling demon in the chest. Her blade cut deep into the gut of the shadow's owner creeping from behind. Flesh squelched when she freed her weapon. Inky smoke replaced the amber gradients, rising to heaven in wispy plumes.

She spun, meeting another blade. With a yell, she drove it back against the wall, stabbed back to deal with another presence behind her, and slashed forward again. Dark blood spewed from the gaping hole in the demon's throat, painting the wall with splashes of ink. Her fingers hooked the demon's gold collar. She planted her foot on the ground and pivoted on a heel.

The demon's body sailed in the air, knocking three reinforcements pouring from the same corner she trickled in. Something cracked. Snapped. A head rolled on the ground next to her feet as she engaged the last demon standing. She didn't care whose it was.

Time blurred as her blade slashed and sliced, bringing down anyone who dared block her path towards the High King. Judging by how they congealed like a colony of ants, she must be in the right place.

A flash of silver. She turned too late. Darpeh.

Beige and sienna leaped into the air. A weight knocked against her shoulder, driving her back a few steps off. What—

Metal clanged, the sound reverberating throughout the hollow stone chambers. Sandals scraped the stone floor clean. A shadow fell over Hesi, and when it turned, the figure carried a playful smile. "Go," Uzare said. A curved blade glinted from her hands, and she kept it poised forward, driving the first wave of reinforcements back. "Isueri and I will handle this."

Hesi's chest heaved from the breaths she realized she never took. She staggered up and touched two fingers to her chest then to her lips and to her forehead. Never to be felt. Never to be spoken of. Never to be forgotten. It was a misplaced gesture, but should anyone die here today, it was the least she could give them.

Uzare screamed, dashing onward to trade blows with the Mayaware soldiers. The fire in her eyes now spread to her moves. Hesi grinned. She'd brought up a tigress. She tore off the chaos and thundered towards her goal. Mezo gave her a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and the price she paid for it was too steep. She wouldn't waste it.

An orchard of columns loomed ahead when she steered off the roofed walkways. She pumped her legs and quickened her race. The desert's heat beat down on her back, sending waterfalls of sweat down her spine. Her hair clumped and plastered itself against her neck, arms, and face.

Her feet skittered to a stop when she neared a line of demons blocking the only doorway present in this hidden sanctum. Behind them, an immense pool filled with clear water sparkled against the sun. The lilies growing on the surface bore pale pink and purple flowers—a kind of beauty that didn't belong in hell.

"The snake emerges from the den when its eyes are smoked out." Festophis' jaw stretched out an impossible width as his slitted eyes landed on her. "I had good faith in you, my little flower. Foolishness on my part."

She lowered her blade and let it catch a ray of sunlight. Let them know what she held. "Move aside," was all she said.

The generals, four of them, dropped into a stance and hissed, forked tongues and curved fangs sliding out. Their bodies swelled half their sizes. Onyx crawled across sienna, devouring flesh and spitting it as rock-hard scales. She didn't fight the grin pulling at her own lips—the same manic grin she displayed when she was excitable. There they were—protecting the only thing that guaranteed their reign for ages to come. And they would fall.

They sprang forward as an answer, four against a woman with a blade formed like a thorn. And a thorn it would be. It would be the most painful one they would rip out of their bones.

She ran and took Festophis' swing. Unlike the curved blades ordinary soldiers bore, the generals boasted long swords with serrated edges meant to shake the enemy's weapon loose. She gritted her teeth as she forced Festophis back, the muscles in her arms contracting with the effort.

"Brave and clever attempt, my little flower." Festophis snarled. "But not enough."

A shadow loomed behind her, bearing a similar sword. While she struggled against Festophis's blade, it flew down. A brief slice in the wind. A distinct hiss of pain. The shadow shifted, and a blur of onyx thudded by her feet. She withdrew her force against Festophis' sword, letting him fall forward. She crouched, sliced a quick and shallow cut across his knee, and grappled with the fallen demon. Her hands dragged the body up by the golden collar and slashed her blade across his neck.

Ink and smoke. It painted her skin and the blue sky all the same.

The first general flopped to the ground, void of life. "Hesi!" A voice called from the top of the columns. She knew who it was with no need to turn. Asrate. The shadows painting the polished stone floor shifted, showing one, two...four, six figures slinking into the courtyard. They bore various weapons, and they pointed their blades towards the file of demons guarding the High King's inner palace.

"About time," Hesi greeted, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. Demon blood stained everything. "Where is Uzare and Isueri?"

Asrate's blade clinked when she tightened her grip. "They'll be fine," she replied. "Leave this to us. Go where you need to."

"Why are you helping me?" Hesi blurted as the generals shoved their fallen comrade aside and whizzed towards the brides.

Asrate whipped her bow from her shoulder, loaded an arrow, and shot. It hit true, sending a general back. They didn't use huurshe blades. An injury like that would be nothing. "Consider this as payment," the bride answered. "And as thanks."

Hesi nodded at her, extending it to the brides who fanned out behind the High King's bet. Then, she dashed towards the nearest corner and rounded it. The generals screamed at each other to stop her, but the brides charged and attacked them instead.

"Festophis is mine!" Tagara's voice floated above the courtyard, and as Hesi cleared it and reached the inner sanctum, metals clashing against its kind swallowed up everything else.

She clenched her jaw. The brides could only do so much with their current skills and weapons. She has to hurry.

Her soles skidded across the dim hallway, her eyes scanning for a door or a courtyard. Anything. A bright green sheen caught her attention. Her breath hitched. She strode towards it, the sounds of battle and the brides' distant screams of defiance fading in her ears. She paused before a set of twin doors hewn out of pure emerald. Beyond this door was the end of her problems and the fulfillment of her goals. Her fingers wrapped around the metal handles cast in gold. Then, she pulled them open.

A flash of black and gold spewed forth. She leaped back and slashed, her silver blade arcing in the air. It bit through skin and scales. The High King's claws skittered across the stone floor as he stumbled away. Slitted eyes trained on her blade. He knew what it was.

She brandished it, earning another hiss from the High King. With a yell, she lunged forward and met his fangs. His frills opened wide, blood-red eyes gleaming like rubies in the night. A snake-like tail whipped from behind, aiming to take her from the side. An overused trick. She pushed him back with all her might, leaping up to avoid the tail from whipping her shins. She planted her foot, shifted her hold on the knife, and stabbed down, hitting the tail's tip before it retreated to the body.

The King's pained howl pierced the air. She burst forward, tightened her fingers around the hilt, and threw the blade. Silver streaked the air before disappearing into a wall of onyx scales. Claws screeched against stone in erratic waves as the King attempted to dislodge the thorn stuck to his chest. She closed the distance and wrapped her fingers around the dagger.

Demonic eyes flicked towards her face. To the High King, she must appear like hell incarnate, with black blood from Mayaware soldiers running down her hair and face and staining her white gossamer dress. The last traces of star-speckled puru shone in her dark irises. She bared her teeth. What was the subject of her nightmares a few months ago was nothing to her now. They were the same—monsters.

With great effort, she pulled the blade out. The High King shrieked like a struck snake, his forked tongue shooting out of thin lips. Before he dissolved completely, she sliced his head. Blood splashed across the floor, its warm, black rivulets coating her toes and filling her nose with the smell of burning rubber.

This was for every human soul taken by the system they built and imposed, for Pai and Unsu—victims of demonic hunger and unyielding thirst, and for Kharta and everyone who didn't achieve revenge.

Most of all, this was for Mezo, who, despite being born a demon, became the most human. Because even without a heart, he gave her something she never thought to receive—warmth and friendship. Love.

So, she grabbed the High King's head by the neck and lugged it through the direction she came from. The light from the courtyard stung her eyes as she emerged into open space. The brides saw her first, their attacks gaining more fervor as they pushed the generals to a tighter defense. Then, all fighting ceased when they noticed what lay in her hands.

Mayaware soldiers clambered into the scene with readied weapons. All stopped when they saw her striding into the courtyard's center. No one dared step near her blade still dripping with their king's blood and the woman wielding it.

Hesi kept her chin high and her gaze straight as she led a parade on her own. Without a word, she threw the Demon King's head into the air, watching it climb and rush down before slamming into the cobblestones with enough force to crack it.

And on, they looked. The brides lowered their weapons and stepped back from the generals who regarded Hesi with the only emotion they knew—fear. Slowly, everyone realized what she did.

She brought the beginning of the end, the reckoning millions only uttered in the darkest and most silent nights and wished upon graves. A girl of the desert. A force everywhere and nowhere. They saw everything.

What they didn't see was a girl bearing the blood of the only men she loved on her hands and the anger no amount of Mayaware blood could erase. They didn't see her with her heart shattering and her skin burning with the passion she wouldn't bask in again. The tears of regret, the sound of her shards hitting the floor and bursting upon impact—they saw nothing.

Because the day the Mayaware's reign ended was when Hesi Renen ceased to be human.