I didn’t rise to my feet. I didn’t really do that at all. I just sort of…jerked upright. And then I was standing. My body was no longer a bleeding carcass. It was no longer a dead thing. I flexed my fingers, and I then felt the sheer amount of things I could do.

But first…was the Fae. He was staring at me with surprised, furious golden eyes. Adn what was that? A flicker of uncertainty? Or was it something else? Yes…I felt it now. A faint tickle on my nose as it floated across the wind. Fear…I smelled…fear. And it smelled delicious. I pointed at Mitriell. He suddenly flew backwards about twenty feet into a nearby tree, and snapped the tree in half. Something else snapped too. Delightful. Oh…what was this? I flicked my finger. Suddenly, a cluster of metal spikes sprouted from Mitriel’s forearm. Mitriel had finally recovered his breath, only to lose it all again in a tortured howl. Oh my…what wonderful emotion was behind that howl…fury…disbelief, and delightful, mouthwatering…fear.

I inhaled deeply, taking it in. I could also feel that the dark power that was enveloping me was chuckling along with me too. The Devil in me was enjoying this immensely. I flicked my finger again, and Mitriel’s other arm sprouted into a cluster of metal as well. Then his leg. Then his other leg. And each time, his scream got louder, and louder. Oh shit…it felt so good! To feel his fear…his pain…

Or…how about. My shadow seemed to suddenly lose all shape and dissolve into black ink that poured out from under my feet and raced towards Mitriel’s shadow. As soon as it touched it, the shadow stretched itself off of the floor, and I saw it slowly creep over his body. The shadow grew tendrils that slowly wrapped him up like mummy, tightening its clasp over him so that Mitriel could only emit a muffled sound.

Perfect. They say that being unable to scream when under intense pain makes the pain even more painful…

“Suffer.” I summoned a thousand little barbed hooks made from shadow. They faded into reality like a horde of little angry little black wasps, hovering around me and Mitriel. Instead of letting them simply pierce Mitriel’s body through, I made sure to slowly stab him with each one, and then remove it, just as slowly, Eliciting muffled scream ater muffled scream from him.

I broke every last bone in his body.

I skinned him alive. I tore out his teeth, one by one. I tore off his fingernails, and his toenails.

I set him on fire.

Finally, the screams stopped. His body became a limp sack of meat and blood, unresponsive to anything I did to him.

I stopped, and the unstoppable feeling of bloodlust and rage faded.

“Ron, Anna, can you see? It’s fall…It’s fall. The leaves are red now. They’re all red…” I choked out a sob. “They’re…all red.”

After the initial rush of pleasure, of satisfaction…there was only a cold realization that no matter what I did…Ron and Anna were never going to come back.

I walked over to Chryssie and knelt beside her. The crater in her head was gone. Instead, her face was always as I had remembered it. Angelic, and peaceful.

I then turned to Ron and Anna. Why had I not asked the Devil to heal them too?

“Lucifer?” A small rumble came from under my feet, and a gravelly voice rang out in my head.

“Would you like to make another transaction?”

“Heal them. Take me.”

“...No.”

“Because I will lose my source of negative emotion.”

“Then take my soul, and imprison it! Torture me all you want…just heal them!”

“I cannot heal them. I am a Devil, you fool. Not an Angel. You are asking the wrong person. And I cannot, and will not heal bodies that are mutilated to such a state. I’m not even able to take their souls, for they were fragmented during the intense torture that the stupid Fae performed on them.”

“...then mend their bodies. I wish to give them a proper burial.”

“I want one of your ribs.”

“...deal.”

A searing pain blossomed out of my chest. He really did take one of my ribs. I clenched my teeth, not letting out a single sound. About an hour later, the pain finally faded a little and I got up. I felt at my right side, and sure enough, there was an area of my chest that felt empty.

Ron and Anna’s bodies had recovered. The blood had also disappeared from where they lay.

I knelt on the ground, and began to dig. Little by little, I made a deep hole in the ground.

“Lucifer.”

“Speak. I’d never thought you’d be so annoying.”

“Two…caskets, a hammer, and a series of nails. Then two stone plaques.”

“Three ribs.”

“Deal.” My chest blossomed into pain again.

“AAAAHHHHHH!” The searing pain engulfed my body, and my vision turned to black. When I opened my eyes again, it was dusk. Four ribs were missing. I touched the area in which they disappeared gingerly. Even the slightest touch generated intense pain.

I sighed, and walked towards the caskets. Opening them, I saw that they were both made of a rosy mahogany. For the first time, I wondered to myself if this so-called Devil had a heart.

I walked over to Ron and Anna and gently laid them both into a coffin. I knelt before them, whispering a string of various prayers - in Fae, Solarian, every last one that I knew. I didn’t know how else to tell them goodbye. It was my fault. It had to be. It was a blood feud, I kept telling myself. A contest for the throne. You had no part in it. You did what you could. But a nagging voice in the back of my head said that I could have saved them. If I had felt enough hatred, enough anger, enough fear, enough sadness to awaken the Devil within me earlier…perhaps they would be alive. When the sun had finally fully set, I had finished my prayers.

“Goodbye…Ron, Anna. I…I’ll take good care of Chryssie, I promise. Please watch me from above, at least until Chryssie grows powerful enough to protect herself.”

The moon peeked out from behind a gray cloud. It was unusually bright tonight…The stars shone out from above, and I gently picked up one casket and lowered it into the earth. My missing ribs burned, and bolts of agony shot their way across my body, but I ignored it all. First Ron. Then Anna. I knelt before their grave again, and kowtowed, three times.

“Goodbye…” Tears flowed freely down my face, and the sorrow drowned out all of the pain in my chest.

I felt some of my common sense return to me. Since Mitriel had died, the Solarian soldiers would definitely be on the lookout for us. While they had gotten lost in the forest, it would only be a matter of time before they found us.

I moved the earth back on them, this time with a spell. “ᛖᚨᚱᛏᚺ ᛚᛖᚡᛁᛏᚨᛏᛁᛟᚾ!”

The dirt, dark as tar under the night sky rose and gently settled onto the caskets, burying them deep under. The two tombstones still lay there. I used another spell to move them onto the top of the grave I made, and set the stone firmly into the ground. The stone was of an extremely heavy and durable variety. I shoved against it to make sure that it would not budge if the soldiers found it. To my satisfaction, it stood firm, without the slightest hint of giving way.

Without another moment of hesitation, I turned and walked over to Chryssies’ sleeping body.

I raised a shaking hand and carefully picked her up, gently easing her onto my back. She stirred a little. I rummaged around in the bloodstained supplies that remained and found large pieces of cloth. I wrapped the cloth around me and Chryssie, tying her onto my back.

And there was one last thing left to do before I left…

I looked at mitriel’s ravaged body. I would not let him rest, even in death. They say that elves return to nature upon death if buried properly, usually returning to the world as a beautiful plant.

“You do not deserve to return to nature, you piece of scum. “ I grabbed his long locks of golden hair and dragged him out of the grove. His blood trailed on the ground. I took my sword and cut open his stomach, allowing his entrails to spill over the dirt. Next, I cracked his chest open, exposing his heart. I looked above me, and I was satisfied with what I found. A large flock of crows had gathered. My heightened senses also told me that there were multiple foxes nearby, in the bushes waiting to dine on the bastard’s mutilated body.

“You won’t return to nature. Be devoured by these scavengers, you piece of shit.”

I let go of his hair, and wiped my blade off with his bloodstained clothes. I spat on his face, and kicked his head so hard that his skull split open and the gray matter inside leaked out. Some brave crows had already flown down and quickly nabbed a piece of his heart before it flew up again, cawing. I spat again on his face, and quickly found my bearings.

As soon as I located myself, I set off on the quickest path to the next town. If I made it there, we would have pretty much escaped the soldiers. They were only a small troop, and searching building by building was not only noisy, it took a lot of time as well.

We would have plenty of time to escape.

And I left the small glade that is known as the Red Grove today. I would come back hundreds of years later to find that Ron and Anna had both been returned to nature as enormous trees. And Mitriel never returned to nature; I had unwittingly devoured his soul under the influence of the Devil’s power.

It began to rain. Good. Our scent would be washed away. And no one would see the tears rolling down my cheeks.