Sylvanis stood in the ruins of the city, at the top of a hill that once was green but now was red.

The demon suddenly appeared.

“One year from now,” he began. “A forest will grow. It will cover all this land, verdant, and lush, and green. The City of Lilies will be lost beneath root and vine. You, my little witch, will come to this forest. Once every ten years, you will be drawn to it, compelled to venture deep into dark wood. And with a flask full of souls, from men and women slain, you will summon me. In the ruins of this land, atop the keep where your revenge was granted, where our pact was made, you will call for me. And I will come. I will devour the souls, and I will be pleased.”

Sylvanis looked emptily through the shadow, and she handed him the flask and he drank the souls within. She cared naught, for she could feel nothing and had killed her compassion.

“And all of your daughters who follow you will do the same, and to each you will give the flask, and to each this will be tasked. They will be powerful, as you are, and they will live long and unnatural lives, as you will. And I will have souls to feast on for eternity, and I will live forever. This is the cost of the wish you have been granted.”

Sylvanis said nothing. She turned from the shadow and began to leave. Behind her the demon disappeared, and from the ground began to sprout saplings and bushes, and Sylvanis saw that he had spoken true. Next to her the snake began to slither, and it followed her and was hers. She stopped to look down at it, and stared into its eyes.

“I am entwined as a serpent who bites its own tail,” she said to it, and her eyes gazed into his, and she spoke.

"My own end spared by the end of others, and now I must bring end forever more. Now the whole of the world will suffer me.”

With that she began to walk, and she snake followed. Her tears dripped to the earth, and Sylvanis, poor, wretched thing, disappeared into the night.

To wander through the mist alone.