~~~Queen Duchess Stein of Steamhelm~~~

Everything was blurry, shapes moving and rippling as I looked around me, confused. Where was I?

There was a hall. The walls stretched black, infinite, like I would fall if I pressed into it.

At the far end, a few feet or a thousand miles away, a door. It gleamed in my vision, sharp where everything else was unfocused. I took a step, and it was right there, within reach.

The doorknob was wrong, and right, and a perfect fit for my hand. I twisted it, opening the door, and fell as it dissolved in my hands.

I fell, shadows above and below and all around me as I drifted down, sensation curling across my cheek that felt like wind, but wasn't exactly right. What was happening? I didn't want to fall.

With that thought, the ground materialized under me, and I stood, unaffected by the fall. The darkness stretched out again, an endless void.

It felt familiar, I've been here before. Taking a few easy steps forward, walking through the expanse, brushing aside the shadows easily. They were harmless.

It veered, either the void or me, off into a corner. I followed it, my heart tugging me towards a person, a memory.

He was here.

He was here. He was right there, I could find him, I could save him, I just had to-

I could see him, just a little away, smiling at me. Soft eyes, encouraging, a few strands of hair falling into his eyes, hands reaching up to brush them away with a laugh, comforting and kind and perfect, confident and easygoing. No pain, no betrayal, he was alive, and okay, and I could bring him back with me, everything would be okay, I just had to get to him, get to my brother.

I began to run, but no matter how fast I ran, he never got closer, fading into the distance, never getting farther but never closer. His edges blurred, flickering. He couldn't go, I wouldn't let him. Pushing a new burst of energy, determination. I wouldn't lose him.

Then he was, coming closer. I could save him! Just a little more, I reached my hand out to grab his, and–

He vanished.

I stumbled to a stop, falling to my knees from the sudden ending of my momentum. The ground was rough and scraped my skin, tingles of pain shooting up my legs.

Everything sharpened. I looked up, wiping at my face to remove nonexistent tears.

It was a room, with no doors or windows anywhere. The walls looked like some sort of stone, charred beyond recognition and stained by- was that blood? Some of it was still fresh, crimson blood sliding down the walls and pooling on the floor in metallic puddles.

I took a nice, big step away from it, grimacing. Ew.

Something swirled in the corner of my eye. I spun around, a clump of unnatural shadows now visible in the far corner of the room. I backed up, warily watching it. These shadows weren't like the other ones- other ones?- it was very much dangerous.

It coalesced into a shape, humanoid but darker, more jagged. Glowing red eyes glared at me, shadowy features twisting into a sadistic smirk, darker, bloodstained horns curling out of the dark approximation of hair. The demon.

I backed up further, glaring right back at him. Then he- did something.

The shadows curling around him stretched, crawling up the walls and floor, sharp and jagged and I knew, somewhere deep in my mind, that they could cut, and it would be fatal.

A cold ball of fear settled in my stomach, taking root and branching out into the rest of me, molten terror pulsing through my blood as the demon darkened, bright red the color of freshly spilled blood curling into his form along with the dark, dark, bottomless black. It advanced towards me, and I scrambled back, hitting the wall and feeling cold liquid (don't be blood, don't be blood, for sun's sake please don't be blood) soaking into my nightshirt.

He laughed, a smug cackle that shivered through the air, gaining teeth and claws and digging into my ears and mind insidiously, and if I wasn't pressed into the wall in an attempt to get away from the demon I would have clawed at the sides of my head to try and scratch the sound out.

The demon advanced, face splitting open in a grotesque, manic grin, sharp fang-like teeth jutting out as it enlarged into an inhuman, stretched out, demonic shape, claws growing out and horns and spikes and it was utterly, entirely a monster, and it was coming right for me.

I inhaled to scream, but it grabbed me, claws sinking easily into my skin and deeper like a hot knife through butter, and the air went out of me in a gasp as it burned, burned, burned.

That got another hissed laugh out of it, and it swung me around, slamming my head into the wall with a sharp crack as my skull hit stone.

Somehow still clear headed despite the pain now throbbing in my head from the blow (something wasn't right something wasn't right something wasn't right), I struggled futilely, only making the demon respond by squeezing me tighter in its grip, claws slicing deeper and immobilizing me with the fresh waves of pain. It shook me, laughing as I struggled to inhale through the pain and disorientation, before spinning around and shoving me roughly into something very sharp and big.

Now I really couldn't breathe. The spike (where had a spike come from?????) impaled me right through my chest, suspending me in the air, out of reach of the ground.

I stared at the demon in horror, blood dripping out of my various injuries from the demon's claws and oozing out around the spike. I coughed, blood dripping out of my mouth and down my chin as I choked, my lungs torn open by the spike.

The demon laughed, shadows rippling and shrinking back into a more humanoid form, albeit still with the horns and claws. Dizzily, I noticed that there wasn't any blood on his claws or on his horns anymore. I wonder where it went.

Leaning in close, the demon hissed, the shrieks and wails echoing behind it making me try to shrink back, somehow forgetting about the giant metal spike in my chest that prevented me from doing such a thing.

It took me another few moments to realize the demon was actually talking, and a few more for my pain-blurred mind to make out the words.

"You are going to lose everything you hold dear"

Very much wished I could go back to not hearing it, no thank you-

"Your empire will be reduced to ash and no one will remember it. You will be forgotten by all except as the queen who let its empire fall"

The words ripped holes right through me, emotional wounds to match the physical ones it had already dealt out.

"Unless."

He leaned in closer, eyes glowing even brighter with the vicious glee in his tone.

"You join me."

A flicker of stubbornness lit in me. Screw this demon, thinking he could intimidate me. Coughing, I gathered some of the blood still pooling out of my mouth from my injuries and spat, spraying the demon's face and chest with speckled blood and spit as I glared at him, a sneer twisting my face. "Never, you- you frog faced son of a-"

My words were cut off by a clawed hand around my throat, cutting off my precious air supply and squeezing, I could practically feel my neck fracturing and threatening to break under the pressure as I wheezed, struggling for air.

The blood I had spit at the demon blackened, charring before my eyes and dissolving into ash that fell off the demon's shadowy figure and drifted to the ground.

"I will allow that once. And once only."

I swallowed nervously, still glaring at the demon. He smirked at me. I wanted to smack the smugness right out of his expression, except I couldn't feel my arms anymore from the blood loss.

Something that looked terrifyingly close to an idea sparked inside the demon's crimson eyes. He stepped closer to me, the acrid smell of sulfur and death filling the space between us.

"What if I told you I could help with your little...project?"

With my...

My shock had to be clear on my face. Even dazed from pain and blood loss and fear, I still understood what he was implying.

I didn't ask how he knew about my most secret undertaking, so secret I was the only person to ever know of it. He was a demon, he had his ways.

If he could do that- if he could bring them back...

But it was a demon, I couldn't trust a demon. He wanted to destroy the entire world, for goodness sake!

I wavered, hesitant. The demon snickered, smugness oozing from his shadows.

"Join me, and you will reign as the queen of death, with your loved ones by your side, safe and sound."

Safe from the demon and its evil... the people I loved, back with me and safe, protected...

His smirk changed, a self-satisfied smile curling across the shadows he had claimed as a face.

"Don't worry, you get time to think about it. The next time I appear to you, I expect your response."

He backed up, mockingly bowing at me, red eyes gleaming as his shadows surged up, swirling around him and dissipating as he left.

Everything burned for one awful, agonizing second, and then-

I shot up in my bed, gasping, a scream on the edge of my throat before I shoved it back down. I frantically patted myself over, chest heaving with my panicked breaths as I felt smooth, unbroken skin and painless organs, all my injuries from the demon completely gone.

A dream. It was all a dream, a nightmare.

My door creaked, and I twisted, my heart leaping into my throat as I stared at the door, before it slipped all the way open and my child stepped in, concern drifting over their face.

I forced my breathing to slow, pressing a facade of calmness onto my face. "What are you doing up, Yumi? It's late."

It could be past sunrise for all I knew with the windows still shut, but my body told me it was still late, heaviness weighing down my limbs with the need for true sleep.

"Are you alright? You look...stressed," Yumiko said, still hovering by the door. The Crown Prince of Steamhelm, my heir and child. Their red eye blinked at me, a dull burgundy as opposed to the demon's unnatural crimson, one of the few effects from being a genetically grown person.

I refused to deal with pregnancy or men to get an heir, and so I just grew a child in my lab and raised them myself. Yumiko was a perfectly normal human, with just a few physical appearances that didn't match normal people, but they were perfect the way they were.

"I'm okay." It was a lie, but I knew how to pretend at emotions I didn't truly feel. It was the basis of diplomacy, after all. Yumiko blinked at me, before settling back, smiling at me softly.

"Okay! I was just checking, something didn't feel right to me," they said, relief clear in their body language. I smiled at them again.

"Go back to sleep, everything is okay," I soothed. They nodded, waving cutely at me before leaving, shutting the door behind them.

The calmness evaporated as soon as the lock clicked, and I stared blankly at my wall, refusing to process what had just happened in my subconscious.

The demon had been in my mind, in my dreams. Was anywhere safe?

And now I had to think about the temptation it had offered me, not just safety for me and my people, but also my project.

I laid back down, pulling the soft blankets back over me, but sleep didn't come for the rest of the night.

I suspected it wouldn't, not for a long time.