The dim light was spotty before Kat’s newly opened eyes, circles overlapping over her vision as she struggled to focus on what lay before her. Her head thumped dully, as if there was some hammer beating on her skull. The dream had been taxing on her; her clothes were soaked damp by sweat and her wet hair was plastered to her face. Yet the coldness of the air around her made goosebumps prickle on her shivering skin, and she was surprised to find some rags reminiscent of a blanket tugged up over her stomach.

As her vision somewhat returned, she peered around blearily to find herself in a small room carved from the stone not unlike her former cell. A thick covering of that luminescent moss these demons seemed so fond of covered the stone, giving a faint glow to the air. Feeling it clump wetly between her fingers, she slowly sat up with a grunt of effort. As she did so, a faint dizziness overcame her and sent the world around her spinning. Breathing hard, she could only close her eyes and feel her heart thumping hard as she waited for the feeling of vertigo to depart.

As the world around her ceased to move, she felt some impulse telling her to stand. Perhaps it was her legs, long since tired from lying still on the ground. Trying to oblige, Kat slowly tried to stand up with a slow hiss. With a stagger, she slowly pressed up with screaming legs that refused to move despite her commands. She very nearly collapsed just from that simple task, her arm flying out to the side in an effort to keep herself from falling. Her throbbing head made the task no easier, and she found herself shivering from the cold. Her skin was clammy to the touch, yet her forehead felt unnaturally hot in spite of it all. Even her hearing seemed distorted; the dripping of the water on the stones seemed to be only inches away from her. Was it fever then?, she wondered idly as she fought the weakness in her own body. No, it’s of no matter.

There was a brief flash of fear as she wondered if it was Faith speaking to her, but that was swiftly overcome by the realization that it was but her own thoughts. She chuckled softly to herself, reprimanding her own foolishness. Was she to be so scared now that she could not pull apart her own thoughts from those of another’s? And besides, he was supposed to have been silenced now—these thoughts were surely her own.

There was something waiting for her in these tunnels, she was sure of it. It was not a thought she had considered questioning; she merely accepted it as surely any other fact. Simple curiosity drove her to take a staggering step forward, her legs trembling from a lack of use. Was she truly this weak? A sudden doubt made her question just how long she had been sleeping there, that her body might have atrophied so greatly. Yet that concern was fleeting as well, swiftly departing as she gritted her teeth and took another shaking step. The whole of her weight was on those screaming legs, her arms pressed hard against the stone and her fingers digging into the moss as if it might give her some leverage. Come one, she told herself. You can do more than this, come on.

Whatever it was that was waiting for her in these tunnels, it surely would be waiting for much longer. The sense of urgency drove her to make her way out of that small room, into the maze of tunnels that sloped over her head. The stones were cold and wet, fed by trickling water that had made its way through the earth. The chill made her skin prickle and shiver, yet she fought on with hardly a pause. It would surely take more than this to drive her away from what was waiting so patiently.

As she walked, her thoughts turned instead to her dream. The corpse has told her that the demons were deceiving her friends, that Willem and Norus both had been enthralled by such magic. It certainly was possible, but how likely was it to be true? Words, certainly, could be lies, but she had seen Norus draw a blade on her. That, surely, could not have been deception. What she saw before her eyes, surely could not be a lie. Yet she remembered the glamour that the diggers had used to capture them, to bring them to these crow-cursed Outlands. They could warp the light, blind the senses, and so even these senses could be lied to.

No, she told herself. That is not the way to approach this. If she thought that everything was a lie, then there was no longer anything to be trusted. Yet she had to trust something to be truth then, surely? And so would she rather place her faith in words, or in senses? That question was hardly one worth asking, after all. And so she reached her conclusion, that what she had seen before her was most likely truth. But then if Norus truly had drawn a blade on her, what was his motivation for having done so? She had never felt any danger from the man before, had never seen him give the slightest hint of disloyalty before. For him to suddenly betray her felt unlikely—Faith’s answer seemed to be the only one that made sense.

So then, she thought with a bewildered heart, it was likely that much of what the corpse had said was truth. These demons had enthralled her companions, and now Norus was dead. Blood and bones, she cursed to herself. She would make these creatures pay. Her heart was pounding louder than a drum in her chest, so tight that she thought it might break her ribs. Yet she took in a deep breath as she nearly stumbled on the stone, forcing herself to calm down. Her vision had begun to blacken at the edges, and she knew then that she needed to ifght to remain cautious. If they found her collapsed here, now, then it would all be over.

She needed a plan; this much, she could realize even in this weary state. First she needed to find where Willem was and free him from whatever spell had been cast. If she could not break the magic, then at the very least she could incapacitate him and take him with her. Yet how could she escape? In its very shape, the Outlands were like a prison. There were mountains on all sides save for the Cold Sea to the north, and the mountains were under control of the demons. She would have hope of escaping without at the very least being spotted by the diggers, and she had no optimism towards fighting those warped men. She had seen their thick bones and hardy build—she doubted even a spear would be able to help her fight them off much.

Would she truly have to take Faith up on his offer then? What would it mean, to accept? She would have to serve that dark god Atal, surely, but he had said nothing of losing her humanity. Would she have her mind, then, at the end of it all? Or would she become tainted and corrupted, like that withered corpse? She simply did not know, she realized. She could not make this choice without knowing more, and she doubted that Faith would be willing to tell her more. And even still, she had no way of talking with him like she had before; that dream before seemed likely to have only been for the one time. What choices were these? She half-cursed to herself as a sudden weakness made her fall to her knees, and she struggled to rise back up. Dammit, this road only leads to dead ends.

Yet some part of her drove her to stride for even still. She had been walking mindlessly, following that instinctual sense of direction as she had been lost in thought. Where there had been forks in the paths, she had merely chosen one without thinking, seemingly at random. And yet now she heard sounds from farther down the tunnel, seemingly of talking. Her heart began to pump harder and she fought to hurry, knowing that whatever was waiting would be over soon, and she would have missed it. How she knew, she had no way of knowing—and the irony was not lost on her as she coughed out a bitter smile.

Seeing the light illuminate what seemed to be an opening leading to a room, she heard the voices sounding out louder from inside. She could not make out what it was they said, but one was most certainly a demon, from its guttural, low tone that sounding like crushed gravel. As for the other—instinct told her that it would be Willem. Her hand instinctively flew to her side as if expecting to find a blade, but there was nothing but empty air waiting for those fingers. She cursed inwardly, realizing that they surely would have taken her blade, and that she was approaching this unarmed. She would have no hope of fighting a demon head-on, and so this would not be her chance to save Willem.

Approaching the edge of the doorway, she knelt hesitantly just outside. Her thumping heart promised to give her away, but she felt the anticipation racing through send every fiber of every muscle aflame. The talking seemed to have stopped, and her curiosity drove her to cautiously peek around the edge.

It was a larger room, yet only two figures stood inside. The first was unmistakably the king, with those scaled arms and furred body. Its black claws glinted wetly in the faint light, and it took her a moment before she realized that it was blood that coated their surfaces. They shimmered in the light, dripping crimson onto the stone below. The second figure was Willem, his chest bare and covered with blood as well. Only, as she soon realized, his was flowing out of a hole torn into his chest. The bones had been broken, shard of white visible amidst the pink and scarlet. As for the placement of the wound, it would have led straight to the heart. And as she saw the demon lick its claws in a cleaning motion, saw the red that stained the demon’s mouth, she realized most certainly what had happened here. And it was then that she realized she had come too late.

Willem fell slack to his knees, those eyes blank and empty. Blood was still spurting from his wound like a fountain, pooling onto the ground messily around him. The demon seemed not to notice, closing those mismatched eyes. Its claws were raised, its arms tense to the point that she could see the muscle rippling underneath the scales. And as the air began to crackle with purple magic, see could see strands of white begin to pour out of the hole in Willem’s chest. They wriggled frantically in the air, as if alarmed by the outside, yet more and more seemed to be pulled out of him.

At the same time, there was a stirring in the ground. The stone shimmered and rippled like the surface of pond water, growing malleable as clay despite its composition. Slowly, more and more of the earth seemed rise up, like some pillar that was climbing out of the earth. Yet it was morphing even as it moved, sprouting out to the side as it was shaped by crackling magic. She held her breath, unable to turn away despite knowing in her heart what would happen.

As the stone slowly morphed into something resembling a body, the king flicked its claws, its forehead tense with concentration. Those strands of white promptly sank into the stone, apparently eager as they buried themselves in the still forming vessel. Sparks of white would join the purple then, molding the stone and dirt until more and more features became visible in the newly forming demon. Kat blanched, unable to watch any longer, and she turned away.

Getting up on shaking legs, she hurriedly fled away from that room, cursing in her heart that she had been too late.