Lily woke in a cave that glowed alive with a pale blue light, bathing her battered body in its dim haze. Pain filled her limbs and every corner of her body ached, but she was still alive. That thought was the greatest shock to her, more so than where she was. It was a peculiar feeling in her beleaguered mind—that she wanted the pain, for it reminded her that she was still alive. It was not at all what she ought to be wanting. She reminded herself with some bitter irony that a girl her age ought to be wanting a man to take as a lover.

The savage comfort of the pain was not so much like lover’s kiss as it was from a lover beating on her head like a drum, she noted bitterly, but it was as much as she would get. Perhaps it was to be expected that she fall in love with something. After all, she was still but a young girl. She ought to be enchanted by love, and why not take pain for a lover? It must love her unconditionally to have stayed by her side for so long. Her thoughts swam wildly, delirium clouding her senses and her thoughts. A small giggle slipped out from her lips as she fell into hysterics, her mind giddy and lightheaded. Yet that simple motion brought her lover back to caress her body, although his touch was hardly gentle.

“I’ve truly gone mad.” she whispered, a thin smile stretching across her features. The speech was enough to sent stabs of sweet agony through her chest.

Her heart pounded in her rib cage, each laborious beat making her skull throb in dull agony. Her fingers were numb as they scrabbled on the rough stone, grazing the edges but unable to find much purchase. Too weak to move, she had to stop to catch her breath even after such ineffectual movement. With her head feeling like it was being split with a hammer, she slowly turned to gaze at her surroundings in a dazed manner.

The cave—no, more of a cavern—was far larger than many of the houses in Rat’s Dam, stretching to seemingly encompass the entire sky inside of its maw. It was carved roughly into the grey stone, with thick pillars extending to the roof and rough ledges for stairs as the hollow descended lower into the earth. The ceiling stretched high above her head and gradually sloped into a ragged arch. The carving was rough and irregular, leaving notches and scars in the rock from where chunks had been broken off and giving the walls a hewn look. Scratches covered the rock, seemingly from the claws of an animal, lining up with harsh edges in the stone as proof that the cave had been carved away with brute force.

Lily could not help but tremble slightly at the thought of a beast strong enough to break stone with such ease.

Thin gleaming trails of water trickled down the stone and pooled in the ground, dripping in an irregular beat. Patches of fine, blue moss grew inside the cracks in the wall, shedding a dim, sickly light throughout the cave. It seemed to thrive in the cold, damp air, with the fine hairs bending with the slightest breeze. Their light was mesmerizing, casting countless faint shadows against the dark stone.

The sloane had woken on her back with her arms against her side, a dull ache in her tired limbs. She struggled to sit up, awkwardly shuffling her arms to get leverage underneath her. It was a mistake—a bolt of molten lead shot up her back, turning her vision white momentarily, and she nearly passed out from the pain. Her heart was racing madly, the pain down her back making her muscles clench uncontrollably. She fought to keep her breathing even as she waited for the spasms to abate, slowly letting her arched back relax as her body calmed. In her moment of lightheadedness, she could not help but wonder if she truly had taken pain for a lover, and this was merely its passionate embrace.

“No more please,” Lily whispered unsteadily, trying to clear the hysteria from her mind, “or I won’t be a maiden anymore. Any further and you’ll have to ask for my hand first.” She giggled at her little joke before steadying herself, her head hanging limp from her neck as sweat dripped off her chin.

Unable to move, she could only crane her neck to peer around her. Looking down, she saw a dry green crust covering her stomach, almost like a cast of sorts. The first thing that struck her was confusion, followed by a brief bout of nausea as she was filled with a sudden urge to get the thing off her. When she gingerly touched it with a fingertip, small, powdery flakes fell away, crumbling into a fine dust upon touching the ground. Uncertain of what it was, she carefully tried to peel off the strange plaster. It was stuck fast to her skin, but slowly she managed to loosen it around the edges with her prying until she could finally take off the hard shell.

Underneath, she was shocked to find a massive pink scar in place of her wound. No longer was the flesh charred from her fire and bleeding from poison. Instead, it was healthy and clean, with patchy new skin growing already over the lips of the former wound. Even the poison seemed to have been flushed out of her, the stench of rot gone. When she touched her stomach warily, she winced at how sensitive it was. Still, a little pain was nothing to complain about over death, and she had never been one to complain. Steal, poison, or kill, certainly, but never complain.

That would just be rude.

She did not know who had saved her, or where she was, and if she did not know something, then it was dangerous. She did not know where she was, but she knew that she could not stay here. Where she went, where she stayed, they would have to be on her own terms if she was to survive. That was what she had learned growing up in Rat’s Dam: trust no one but yourself. She was no innocent princess fawning over her sweet prince. If she ever met a prince, she’d likely take his gold and pay him with a knife across the throat before leaving on his horse.

Still, she could go nowhere in her current condition. The pain that she had felt earlier was proof enough that she was not yet healed. With little time enough, the only option was to use magic. But spells needed a fuel to burn, most commonly the magic in one’s own body; without enough there would be backlash strong enough to kill her.

Magic came from life; it was born from it. Any normal man would form a trickle of mahji, of pure magic, born from the decay of his soul. It would collect behind the stomach, waiting to be spooled out in a spell. Lily was no normal man.

She was a cripple, unable to make any mahji of her own.

In this cave, unable to move, she had no way to find her bag nor her magic crystals. Deprived of one fuel, she would have to made use of another. She would have to use vahma—spirit.

To do so was to burn one’s own self—one’s very personality and memories of the past—she was loathe to do so. It could easily kill her if she was not careful, and at best she would be irreversibly scarred, but there was no other choice available.

Lying flat on her back with hands laced on her chest, she closed her eyes and began chanting, reaching inside of herself to tie together the strands of spirit that flowed throughout her body. It was a delicate affair, as intricate as those dances the wealthy did in their ballrooms. Just as the two partners had a strict rhythm to follow and an even stricter balance of searching eyes and wandering hands, this too had a balance. To take too much would kill her as she clawed for more than she had, but to take too little would cause the pact to fail and throw her spirit into a frenzy of backlash. Unfortunately for this young girl, the punishment here was worse than a few whistles, blushes, and stern glares from parents. Instead, she would be graced with internal bleeding, shattering of the spirit, and death.

It would almost be as bad as the dancing.

Carefully chanting to draw together the magic, she drew out a thin rope of spirit from inside her. Blindingly white, ethereal and divine, it was her: her very spirit, her essence. It pulsed and glowed and spun with raw power and life. It was alive.

Its vigor and strength coursed through her mind as she chanted, filled her until she was near the edge of madness. She had power to burn a nation, and she wanted to use it. She wanted to use it.

She wanted to crack open the land; she wanted to spit flame from the skies. It was a madness, a drunken delirium that seized her and threatened to strangle her sanity. She had power. She wanted to use it.

The sloane fought the urge to indulge, fought the urge to leap off the edge. The madness was not gone, but its howling became whispers. Without stopping her chant, she steadied herself.

Now came the difficult part.

Lily shaped the vahma, shaped her own spirit until it spooled out like a length of rope. It coiled and writhed inside her as she directed it towards her navel, its heat pooling in the pit of her stomach. It was just as potent as mahji, if not more. As it connected with her wound, scorching pain burned her mind. They were molten knives, searing flame that made her flesh hotter than a sun. Unwilling and unable to stop, she steeled her resolve and kept chanting, sending more of her spirit to heal the wound. More and more of the white ribbon sank into her flesh, knitting and binding inside of her. Astonishingly, even without her intervention the wound had already begun to heal, likely having to do with the cast that had covered her stomach. All that she needed was to finish the process. Her flesh itched and burned as her spirit regrew the muscle underneath, knitting together fibers and tendons while healing damaged organs. Ever slowly, the heat lessened until it became a gentle warmth, a quiet pulsing. When she finally felt the dull throbbing of the pain fade, she slowly ceased her chanting. Her spirit loosened and unraveled, sinking back into her skin before dispersing into her flesh.

She would survive today.

The price had been too great.

There was an emptiness to her chest now, a confusion and a delirium that came with the onset of madness. She had tasted power, had tasted a hint of the strength inside herself. It was horrifying. It was incredible. She had power. She wanted to use it.

Even as she had that very thought, white-hot images burned their way through her mind. She saw herself as a girl. She saw her sister. She saw family and past and a thousand memories. They were all brilliantly white, glaringly intense. And as she watched, before her very eyes, some began to crumble.

The white dimmed, pulsed faintly before guttering out like a candle in a windstorm. There was no smoke, no ash, nothing to indicate that it had ever been there. It became a crumbling black and eventually blew away into nothingness. And as more and more of her past and future became extinguished, Lily could not help but cry.

And in the end, when the spell claimed it portion of the pact, when the vahma she had used was gone, she could not even tell what she had lost. She could not remember what the tears on her face stood for. She only knew from the emptiness in her chest that the price had been too great.

And she had tasted power.

She wanted to use it.

The sloane beat back the madness into the corner of her mind, but it was there now and forever. She had tasted power. The price had been too great. Unsteadily rising to her feet, Lily spotted her bag and other supplies lying against the wall in a corner of the cave. With practiced movements, she grabbed her knives and pack, strapping them onto herself before exploring the cave.

It was a simple dwelling, with a main room that was worn with evidence of use and a small crevice in the back where the food was kept. Dried meat, enough to last for months, lined the walls on hooks of bone that were stuck in between the mud-filled cracks. The floor was weathered with claw marks following a path through the cave. The stone was a dark grey with spidery cracks running through it, as if it had been dug by claws instead of a pick. Even the stagnant air was filled with a damp, musky scent. Every part of the cave felt like an animal’s den, and she felt her hairs stand on end as her muscles tensed in nervousness. Any creature strong enough to carve into rock without effort would no doubt find her flesh and bone far more accommodating.

Leaving the crude cellar, Lily looked around the cave for a sign of an exit before finding a depression in the stone. Bracing her shoulder against the rock, she pushed and felt the stone give a small fraction but was unable to move it any further. Setting her pack and daggers down, she pushed as hard as she could, feeling the stone inch along the ground until she was forced to stop and gasp for breath. Her arms and legs were tired, unused to the strain, while the boulder had only moved half a hand length. Judging by the effort needed to move it such a small amount, she would have to break it with magic if she wanted to escape.

Searching through her bag, she felt a sinking feeling in her chest as she found that she only had two crystals left. She knew a man in Telavir, but to get there from wherever she was now would take weeks. She would need the magic to survive the Outlands; to use it now would serve no purpose other than to have her run to her death with open arms. She could not afford to use these crystals now, and she resisted the ever-present urge to burn more of her vahma. Instead, she elected to keep herself alive and hide in the cave until whatever belonged there came home.

It was the more logical option, after all. She preferred to meet potential killers on her own terms. At least then, she was promised a knife in her hands and a good look at what was going to rip her in half.

“Aren’t you just a genius,” she muttered as she searched the stone for somewhere to hide. “Something here was strong enough to crack open a hillside and you want to join it for a thrice-damned halfday meal.”

Finding a crevice behind the rock, she hid herself against the wall with daggers in hand, one eye fixed on the makeshift door as the other scanned the room to plan a possible escape. She could tell by the timetable in her bag that it was almost sundown, even without a view of the sky; her savior or captor, whichever it was, would have to come back soon before nightfall. Even the youngest child knew what happened in the Outlands at night.

Only death awaited the foolish, descending in the dark with its uncaring blade. She herself was all too familiar with death’s touch—it had awaited her every night in Rat’s Dam.

“Perhaps I ought to go to confession.” she chortled as a thought came to her. The walls of stone made for poor conversation, so she spoke to herself to avoid insanity. “It’s probably a sin to take death and pain both for lovers, but I can’t help it if they’re both just so attractive.” She gave a little hiccuping laugh as a sudden scene flashed through her mind. Blood on brick and screams of pain. A girl’s voice telling her to run.

“Sweet sister didn’t wait for me before taking death’s hand.” Lily pouted, huffing out a short breath. Her wide eyes sparkled with a trace of madness as she was struck by a sudden thought. “If I join her by death, can we meet again? Would we be more than just sisters?” The notion painted a thin smile on her lips as she considered the wild thought. Almost unbeknownst to her, thin spools of white began to dance on her fingertips. She had tasted power.

The girl’s wild imaginings were interrupted by a scuffling noise outside the cave, clawed feet scraping against the ground. Her muscles tensed in anticipation as she felt her fingers tighten around the hilt of her blade. Most likely she would have to run, but if need be she had prepared to fight as well. A hand on her dagger and a hand in her pouch, she waited, uncertain of what to expect

A muffled thump shook the ground from outside as what sounded like a body hit the ground. There was a deep-throated growl, seemingly in pain or frustration, and suddenly a horrendous screaming sound threatened to draw blood from her ears as the rock split in an instant. Slivers of broken stone showered the inside of the cave, and she instinctively raised an arm to protect her face from the sharp shards that drew cuts across her skin. Like so many knives pelting her, they stung where they sliced skin, leaving a latticework of faint red on her arms and legs. The pain was nothing compared to what she had felt, a mild discomfort hardly worth mentioning. Wiping the blood away from her eyes from when a shard had cut her forehead, she gazed at the figure in the entrance.

The creature was foreign, inhuman. It belonged in children’s stories, not in damned reality. While not quite grotesque in form, it was still was a far cry from beautiful. Its very presence radiated a feral nature, a wild prowess that filled the air around it. The beast boasted a muscular body black with fur, shining with a dull luster. Scales covered its arms, gleaming ridges that ran from wrist to shoulder. Its hunched back was stretched with muscle that bulged underneath stone-studded skin, showing a lean yet muscular figure built for speed and power. The legs were long and thick like those of a hound, and covered in coarse fur instead of the pebbled scales that covered its arms. It moved with a certain grace and elegance that belied its ungainly appearance. With each movement was a display of restrained power and bestial force, giving it a quiet arrogance of the strong.

The creature’s body was that of a hunter’s, swift and lethal. Its legs were made to pounce, with evidence of thick, corded muscles that rippled in barely constrained strength. The fur was short and oily, a light powdered grey with streaks of jet-black hairs running lines down the sides. Wide, splayed feet covered the ground, giving the beast a wide stride.Three shining black claws tipped each of its toes, mirrored by four more curved talons on each hand. They were curved at the tip like a hook, gleaming with an unnatural sheen.

Perhaps the most unnerving was its face. It was shaped like a dull mockery of a human’s, its features savage and sleek. The muzzle was elongated and protruded out from its skull, the sharp canines easily hooking over its lips. A light layer of grey fur bordered the edges of its face, running down to where it met the scales in its neck. The front of its head was hairless, with weathered, rough skin stretched over the bone. Two eyes, one a gleaming blood-red and the other pale yellow, shone unnervingly in the light from the cave. Twin spiraling black horns grew out of its forehead, curving backwards near the tip in a fearsome display.

But most disconcerting were the spiraling black patterns on its face, tattooed into the skin.

She knew those patterns, the Maes. A girl had told her once that they meant she was blessed by the gods, but now the sloane knew the truth. They were proof of magical skill, of magical heritage. But it was impossible for this being to wield magic, because she knew what it was, this strange amalgamation of animals that was filled with feral nature. Every child knew of their kind from stories told at night.

It was a demon.

Stunned by the revelation and unable to act, she watched as the creature stumbled into the cave. Taking a closer look, she saw its right arm was hideously scarred with ragged scales, dried blood caking around a gleaming black gem that was embedded near the wrist. The demon was clearly wounded and exhausted; it was breathing heavily from numerous gashes that covered its body. With the last of its breath, it dragged a massive carcass of some thick-skinned, tan beast of the plains into the cave before collapsing onto the floor, shoulders heaving with the effort.

Overcoming her shock by now, she saw that the demon was obviously weak. Now would be the easiest time to kill it. She should kill it. She had to. It was unnatural—a monster that could wield magic and curse the world. Its existence was a mistake, its life nothing but a tragedy. She would be doing it a favor.

“No need to thank me.” the girl whispered softly, making up her mind.

Daggers in hand, the sloane nimbly leaped over to where the demon lay. The beast did not even respond to her presence, seemingly too tired to notice. In a single movement, she straddled its chest with her thighs to keep it in place while pressing her dagger to its throat, intending to kill the demon in one clean stroke. With the briefest moment of hesitation, she sliced clean across its throat in an all-too-practiced motion.

To her unbidden surprise, the blade had just barely broken the skin on the demon’s neck before she found herself flying upside down.