“Bring him back.”

“I cannot do that, maiden.”

“I said bring him back!”

Sylvanis flung her hand towards the shadow, but the serpent would not strike.

“Are you so powerless that you cannot return the dead?”

“Not so, little witch.”

“Then bring him back!”

She whirled from the corpse and stormed towards the demon and slashed at its form with her dagger.

“I will pay any price,” she shouted. “Bring him back. Bring him back!”

As she thrust the knife forward, the shadow caught her arm.

“You have nothing left to offer,” it said. “Your life, already, is mine.”

“No!” the girl screamed. “You did not protect him, you did not save him.”

“Our bargain was fulfilled.”

Sylvanis collapsed to the dirt and grass and wailed the air from her lungs. She stabbed at the ground with the knife over and over again. With every tear that fell from her, the shadow grew larger still.

“Your anguish,” it smiled. “Remarkable. Feel despair deeper still, for you have nothing left of value. All that you are, you have given to me. Your body is mine, for I own your hair and flesh. Your spirit is mine, for you gave to me your very touch and feeling. Your soul itself is mine, your life and all you are, for you gave it to me freely by you own hand. And now, here you are, at the end of your days, a useless, empty husk.”

“No!” Sylvanis screamed. “You cannot take my life!”

“Take? No, maiden, you have given it to me. How can one take that which they own? Say now your farewells and my last gift to you will be to end for you your sorrows.”

With that Sylvanis filled with fear, and she trembled and squirmed on the ground. She crawled to Deyus, wrapped his body in her arms, and sobbed into his chest with a shattered heart.

“Please, shadow, I beg you. I beg you! You may have my life but I beg you to use it, not end it!”

“Use it, maiden?” the thing said. “Oh, but I will. I will rip the years from your body and add them to my own. Your suffering grants me life, and thus I allow you life a moment longer. Cry further, suffer more deeply, feel fully the anguish of your folly.”

Sylvanis cried on the chest of her love, screamed and begged and pleaded. But as the truth dawned, and as the shadow lingered large and grinning, and as the last of her tears ran dry, Sylvanis, finally, quieted her suffocating despair. Here she was, at the end of her life, with only tragedy surrounding her. No love, no feeling, no warmth, no life. Nothing. And as the girl began to still, and as her fate became real and inescapable, and as she stopped her cries, the night seemed to calm.

It was time for her to die.

“So you have accepted?” the demon asked. “Very well, then the reservoir runs dry.”

As Sylvanis listened to the demon’s words, and as she began to accept her fate, a new sudden feeling filled her, unexpected and unannounced. As the demon moved forward and brandished its reaping claws, Sylvanis turned to face it.

“Stop,” she said.

The demon halted.

Rage. Unrelenting, all consuming rage brewed within Sylvanis. Fear transformed to hatred: hatred for herself, for the King, for the people, and for the world. And Sylvanis lifted herself from the dirt. She picked up her body, and she glared towards the demon. And the girl, the sweet girl, from whom so much was taken, whispered.

“I have a wish.”

“You have nothing left to offer, little witch. Your hope, your anguish, all gone.”

“Be silent, you worthless rug.”

And the demon listened, intrigued.

“You seek suffering? You seek anguish?” the girl asked. “Then you may have no more from me, for my heart and blood run cold as ice. But if suffering is what you seek, then grant to me my wish. I wish for bloody revenge, on everything and everyone—on all who live in this miserable world. I wish for all people to know my torment, and for no living being to find any longer a single day of peace. Grant me power, shadow. Grant me revenge, and I will give to all the suffering that you so desire.”

The demon’s face then alit with flaming yellow eyes. A smirk split his black form. For the first time he laughed and looked upon the girl, and spoke with wretched delight.

“Wonderful!” the demon shouted. “How magnificent, how grand! Even I did not expect such an excellent wish! Very well, little witch, I shall grant it. You shall have what it is you seek.”

Sylvanis waited in numbness as the shadow reached over her head. This time no cold surrounded her, no feeling, but rather unfeeling—a black, dizzy haze.

“I will grant to you the magic of despair.”

A torrent erupted in the silent midnight. Darkness swelled and clashed around Sylvanis. Magic appeared and filled her, made of blackness and of malice and of hatred. It lashed at the trees and they shattered. It soared into the sky and made the stars black. It swept up the dirt and made the wind whip out in anger.

And Sylvanis could feel power.

She stood.

Clouds swelled over the King’s city and surrounded it. The sky became dark with storms.

Sylvanis raised a hand. Darkness mauled at the ground like wild claws, and a great spell blossomed upward. It stabbed the night sky and pierced up into the clouds as though it was a spear. It grew, and it grew: a dark, evil magic.

And from the spell grew three serpent heads.

From the rolling black the three heads formed, with eyes, and teeth, and tongues. Three heads of three gargantuan serpents sprang out from the nothing and dark, and they reached up into the sky. They roared and bellowed as their heads reared, they arched above the trees and pierced the clouds with their size.

Sylvanis felt them. She hated them. All that she could see, she hated. All that she had ever seen, she hated. And in that hatred she began to walk towards the City of White Lilies. At her side a crystal flask appeared.