I awoke to a humming from a delicate, feminine voice. I recognized it immediately – it was Callie. She was singing to herself, a lilting, happy tune that I didn’t recognize. I rubbed my eyes, trying to un-blur my vision. Where was I? I looked around, not recognizing any of my surroundings either, only Callie’s voice. She was somewhere a few feet away, messing with something in front of her, her back to me. I couldn’t see what she was doing, but something looked different about her clothing, ragged. Wasn’t she wearing an oversized tunic before?

I tried to sit up, and instantly fell back. My shoulder was in so much pain, it felt like it was on fire. I peeked over at it, convinced it would be up in flames. Instead, I saw a bandage that suspiciously looked like the same color of Callie’s shirt.

It all came rushing back at once – how we had traversed the caves, my false confidence in following the map, feigning competence so that Callie wouldn’t be afraid, how we had to double back, find an alternate route… and then our encounter with that monster in the giant cavern.

I shivered remembering its horrible cry, and how it had attacked us. But the last thing I remembered was Callie shoving us out of the giant cavern, and away from the creature. What had happened after that?

Laying on my back, not wanting to move for fear of amplifying my pain, I stared upwards at the sky. It was a clear blue, the wind brisk but pleasant, the sunshine warm on my face. Obviously, we were out of the caves. I moved my eyes instead of head to look around as best as I could with my peripheral vision. Something glittered a few feet away. Was that water?

I squished my fingers in what must be mud. We were definitely near water. I wanted to consult the map… didn’t Sage mention there was a lake near the portal, past the caverns? Could I dare hope that we’d made it that far? I had to ask Callie; surely, she could tell me what was going on. She seemed calm, at least, which was more than I could say for my growing panic.

“Callie?” I questioned, testing the use of my mouth and lungs. They ached and burned.

She started, jumping from her seated position a few feet away. “Fuck, Tomas, you scared the shit out of me.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. Her foul mouth was always entertaining, especially when you remembered that she was a well brought up princess.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” she said softly, still not turning around. She had stopped what she was doing, and just sat there on her knees, kneeling. “I was worried you wouldn’t.”

“Could you fill me in?” I rasped with a scratchy throat.

“Well first off, we got out of the caverns, as you can see,” she said, gesturing around her to the open air. “We are on the shores of Diamond Lake, which is actually very pretty and quaint when you’re not drowning in it.”

I coughed, the effort straining my chest and sending twinges through my shoulder. “How did we get out of the caves?” I asked.

She turned her head back to look at me and turned herself to face me. “Well, we did find an exit. It just happened to be off of a cliff,” she said quickly. “And possibly through a shadow demon.” She looked at me with a thin, comical grimace. “And then down into the lake.”

I stared at her. A shadow demon? How on earth had we survived that in a cavern? They thrive in the darkness, as far as I knew, and grew stronger where there was little to no light. Aside from a few bruises on her body that I could see, Callie looked relatively unscathed. We’d gotten very lucky.

She must’ve seen my thoughts on my face, because she looked down, grinning a little, though appearing chastened at the same time. “We just sort of… ran through the shadow demon. It appeared right by the exit. I wonder if we surprised it, or something.”

“And then we jumped?”

“Hmm, yeah. It was either that or get our souls eaten, or whatever it is that shadow demons actually do to you.” She laughed, then quieted. “It said something odd, though.”

I looked at her, waiting for her to continue, the curiosity burning in me. I hoped she understood that it pained me to speak. Apparently getting stabbed in the shoulder and then going swimming wasn’t an excellent combination.

“It said, ‘Capture the princess’,” she quoted, her hands each sporting two fingers in the air as she made the quotation marks, “and, ‘For Zaavi’.” She scoffed. “Who the fuck Zaavi is, hell only knows.”

I stared at her. I’d heard that name before. Every demon hunter – even the shitty ones, like me, knew of Zaavi the Cursed. I licked my lips, wondering how to tell her.

“Callie?” I said gently. “I know who that is.”

“You do?”

“…yeah,” I said hesitantly. “And you’re not going to like the answer.”

She settled in close, approaching me so I wouldn’t have to speak so loudly. She held something in her hands, though she kept them closed while she scooted to sit across from me. “Well?” she asked.

I coughed. “A long time ago, centuries ago, I think, there was a powerful demon sorcerer,” I said softly, trying not to strain my vocal cords. “Not all demons have that capability, but this one was particularly strong and dangerous.”

She opened her hands, revealing a stack of small berries that looked like blackberries.

“Are these safe to eat?” I asked. I wasn’t well versed in that kind of thing.

“Yeah, I know what these are. There’s a bunch around the castle, I eat them all the time.” She gestured to a set of bushes only a few yards away. “There’s the bush. Eat up – and continue.”

I nodded, taking a few berries from her palm and chewing the sweet, tart fruit. I swallowed and watched her watch me intently. “Well, I don’t really know the details, as history wasn’t my strong suit, but all Demon Hunters know that this guy definitely wreaked some havoc back in the day. Then, some humans came together that were able to cast some magic themselves, and they formed the Guild. Together, they imprisoned Zaavi, and cursed him, rendering him powerless, locked away forever.”

“So, he was the reason that the Guild was formed?” she confirmed, musing.

I nodded; I’d been speaking a lot, and it was beginning to wear me out, which was not a good sign.

“That’s very interesting…” she said, tapping her index finger on her lips. “But why would he want me?”

I was at a loss there. Demons, generally, hated humans, but it appeared to be nondiscriminatory. They hated all humans and usually didn’t bother with any faction in particular. The current demon king to be excluded, apparently, as he clearly had the alliance with Queen Selissa. As far as I knew, Zaavi the Cursed was still imprisoned, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon, so why would a shadow demon be searching for Callie on his behalf?

Regardless, we had to continue on.

I tried to sit up, struggling with the pain, the waves of nausea that threatened to overcome me, and the general exhaustion that I was sure we both experienced. Callie rushed closer, leaning over me, and helped me sit up. Panting, I stared at her. She was so much stronger than she thought, if she had gotten us through what she’d said.

“Let’s get going,” I whispered, her face only a few inches away from mine. The concern on her face worried me, as her eyes flit back and forth between my eyes and my injury. “We’ve got a portal to reach.”

“Tom, you can’t even walk like this!” she insisted, looking at my shoulder again. “You need to heal, to rest!”

“We don’t have the time, Callie…” I trailed off, thinking. “The alliance between your mother and the Demon King is the most important thing to the realm right now, and if it fails… then there won’t be time to heal. We’ll be dead.”

I stared straight into her face, squaring my jaw.

She stared back, calculating. Another glance at my shoulder, and then she nodded briefly.

“I’ll find you a walking stick to support yourself. And I’ll help you up.”

We struggled; her tiny frame and petite muscles weren’t enough to help me fully to stand, but I was able to lean on her and gain my balance. Finally, I was vertical. The blood rushed around my head, making me feel dizzy.

Callie led me to a nearby tree for me to lean against, and I fought off the light-headedness. She returned with a long, thick walking stick, clearly a fallen branch from one of the nearby trees.

“This should help,” she said, handing it to me. “If you look to the west, you can see the plateau that Sage mentioned. And if you look close enough, there’s even a path to follow.”

She pointed away in the distance, but I couldn’t see that far ahead.

“I trust you to take us there,” I said softly. And I did.