The king’s pale eyes flickered to where the wizard had disappeared and raised his hand. The lights in the dome flared, and small forms jumped from the points of light dotting the walls. Each of them had the emaciated form of a starving man, but their mouths were wide, stretching near to their ears. They had pale skin, were nude, and stood about the height of a child. Their eyes glittered with intensity, but not hate. Their gaze was the lustful stare of hunger.

“Scora!” Squirrel heard Toren whisper beside her in dread.

“Seal the exits,” Roland spoke, his rich voice rolling through the stone room. The Scora separated, scattering through the room at a sprint. A moment later, arrived at the entryway they had come from, and another opening in the stone that lay just beyond the cages. The Scora who ran past watched her as they ran past, desperately reaching out to her without slowing, as though their feet and their arms were under the control of separate entities.

With anguished screams, the Scora threw themselves at the exits, becoming a pale white mist suspended in the arches leading from the room.

“A Dark Miracle happens sometimes, when an innocent is given to the demons of the abyss,” Roland said, lowering his hand. “You see, despite the fact that I get paid handsomely, and the soul changes hands, it doesn’t truly belong to the powers that rule the lower planes until it surrenders control of its own accord, or simply gives up.”

“New souls are constantly offered deals, bargains, minor favors in the land where the powers that be hold all the cards. Most souls that take these bargains are sorely disappointed, when weighed against eternal damnation, but Finn must have thought you were very important.” The king stepped in front of the pool of blood, slowly bending down as Squirrel’s heart began to hammer in her chest, drowning out the world around her.

“By the power of this sacrifice, I call to Onglashu, god of bargains. Lend me a warrior of equal value to the blood I have spilled.” Roland dipped the fingers of his left hand in the pool, while he touched the stone of the floor with the other. The pool of blood sank visibly, as a pitch black hole in the floor opened in front of him.

“King Roland,” Squirrel heard Toren’s voice from maybe ten feet away from her. “You don’t-“

“It’s alright,” Roland said, smiling gently, his tone at odds with the hungry stare he directed at Squirrel. “You children don’t have to call me King Roland.”

“I suppose I should have asked the Oracle for your name,” Squirrel said, setting down the emaciated ringmaster. The implications were beginning to sink in. The man wasn’t King Roland. King Roland had been dead since the queen had been lost in the supposed ambush. My mother. Everything she would have had had been torn away from her, and everything she had gained since then had been taken, too.

“I’ve found that life is about making the right choices,” The conjurer with the king’s face grinned as motes of darkness began to rise from the pitch black hole in the floor.

All the anger hiding behind Squirrel’s eyes rose up through the crown of her skull, bathing her body in ecstatic waves of fury, cooling her bones even as her heart began to beat slower and more powerfully in her chest.

“Too right,” Squirrel said, and sprinted towards him. The man probably expected her to run away, beat her fists against the sealed entrances, weep and scurry away from whatever beast of the Abyss he had summoned, but if there was one thing she’d learned from Jon, it was to do exactly what the opponent didn’t want you to do.

Squirrel pushed off the edge of the pit, sailing through the air above it as a shape dimly took shape beneath her, radiating pure malevolence against her skin with a palpable heat.

The Conjurer’s face registered an instant of surprise, and he managed to raise his face out of the way, causing her knee to make contact with his collarbone instead. Squirrel’s weight rocked the conjurer backward, and as his shoulders slammed against the boundary of the blood pool, she felt his left collarbone snap.

Roland let out a cry, and a gaudy ring on his right hand shimmered, moving in the corner of Squirrel’s eye. The conjurer swung his right arm forward, and Squirrel lunged to his left, unwilling to fall backward into the black abyss behind her. The shimmering resolved itself into a wicked blade, too long to be called a dagger. The shortsword caught her shoulder as she rolled away, sending fire shooting up and down her left arm.

“Hah!” the conjurer crowed, pushing himself onto his side. “With that you’ll-“ Squirrel interrupted his words with a solid kick to the nose, rocking the man’s head backward in a spray of blood. The curving blade clattered from his senseless fingers onto the stone floor. Squirrel leapt forward and snatched up the shortsword, her left arm already starting to lose feeling from the fast acting poison.

“This is for my family,” she snarled, lifting the sword over her head.

“Squirrel, look out!” Toren’s voice made Squirrel glance back, and she was able to shrug her shoulder and arm between her head and the descending claws of the monstrous beast standing behind her. The blow caught her injured shoulder and tumbled her away from the conjurer, abraiding skin away as she slid across the stone floor until she reached the wall.

Squirrel lay on her side, her neck crammed against the hard stone as the demon approached. It was a towering incarnation of war, eight feet tall, flame orange, black teeth and claws twice the length of her finger. It was no newly spawned horror; its body was riddled with the scars of a thousand battles, and it approached with an air of confidence, casually sliding the short sword further away from her as it approached.

The air around it shimmered, radiating a foul energy that prickled against Squirrel’s skin, increasing in intensity as it drew closer.

The demon made a sound like waves swelling mixed with the growling of massive predator. It formed an echo in her mind, resolving into a dreadful voice, deep as the ocean and unfettered by time. This task is beneath me, but I find honor in completing it.

The demon knelt before her, its talons outstretched, its expression bored. The black claws approached, filling her vision, until they were a single heartbeat away.

A shriek filled the air, and the demon whipped its outstretched hand back, catching Toren across the ribs and propelling him across the room into the iron bars of the cages. Toren coughed blood once and went limp, his eyes glassy and staring, the short sword hanging limply from his hand.

The demon suffered a deep gash below its ribs, but its attention was on the cages, where Toren had fallen.

“No,” Squirrel gasped, trying to stand as she saw Reginald catch sight of the sword, just within his reach. The old man stood shakily, his legs wobbling as he lifted the heavy steel in both hands, charging the wounded demon with a shriek.

“No!” Squirrel screamed as she levered herself up on her good arm.

The demon reached out and caught the handle of the sword with its left hand, and shoved five dagger length talons into the old man’s chest with its right, suspending him in the air before tossing him aside. Reginald slid across the floor, streaking the floor with blood. Reginald stopped on his side, facing squirrel.

“I thought, maybe…” he said before his breath left him for the final time.

“Damn it!” Squirrel shouted, tears clouding her vision. The sensation flowing through her skin from the top of her skull doubled and redoubled, becoming a surging wave that simply dragged her body along for the ride. She found herself standing, charging the demon that stood between her and the black pit it had come from.

The demon contemptuously put a hand in front of himself, to catch her as he had Reginald, but Squirrel focused all her anger and slapped the hand away. For an instant, the skin of her hand felt like water dancing on a hot stove before she impacted against the demon. When they made contact, her whole body began to buzz as smoke and spatters of hot liquid struck her clothes.

The demon recoiled from her with a pained scream that made her teeth hurt, losing its balance and taking a step back. Squirrel realized that the one sizzling was not her, it was the orange demon. She gritted her teeth, pushing the demon backward like a child locked in a pushing contest, forcing another step backward.

With a wailing cry, the demon tried to claw her away from its chest, its talons raking against her back. Squirrel let out a scream and channeled every fiber of muscle into one more push, sending the ancient warrior toppling backward.

The demon reached back with its hands to break its fall, but there was no ground beneath it. The demon sent Squirrel a last, hate-filled glance before it disappeared into the pit it had come from, it’s duty unfulfilled.

Squirrel stared at the now-empty stone, panting, her lungs tasting like blood. Her left arm collapsed to her side, once again numb as her back began to erupt with fire.

The scuffing of cloth against stone drew Squirrel’s attention. To her right, at the edge of the now dry pool, the conjurer climbed to his feet, glaring at her with a visage made all the more fierce by the blood dribbling down his beard.

The wizard’s eyes narrowed, and he spoke a single, complicated word that could be felt as though it had dripped form his tongue and impacted the ground, sending tremors through the earth. “Un’kaileinomix.”

The oracle appeared by his side, appearing as though drawn together by mist. “My lord?” she asked, her voice grating against Squirrel’s senses. The hag was wearing the same robe, a light green silk covering her withered and stooped form. A bony hand extended from one of her voluminous sleeves, while the other was conspicuously missing.

“Restrain her,” The conjurer said, pointing at Squirrel with his shaking right hand.

“I have innumerable ways to restrain her, for the right price, my lord,” the hag said, a sickly sweet grin pulling her cheeks back unnaturally.

“Physically.” Roland said with finality as Squirrel turned toward the sword, gasping for breath.

“But with one hand, I’m not sure I can stop her, my lord,” the oracle crooned.

“You can use both, just stop her now!” Roland screamed, his eyes never leaving Squirrel.

Squirrel bent her knee, reaching down to the sword beside Reginald’s limp form, a frustrated scream parting her lips as her back sent lancing agony across her body. The sword was a finger-length away when a blur caught her from the corner of her eye.

A force impacted against her side, drawing another scream of pain from her lips as Squirrel was hauled into the air by her arms, suspended above the ground. Squirrel twisted her head to the side, and shivered in terror at what she saw.

The oracle had grown to an imposing nine feet, her skin darkened to a morose blue-green. Damp hands coiled around her own, the fingers with too many joints. The old woman’s face was like a mask that, in its rigidity, had split and cracked, leaving pieces of itself dangling on the front of the horrifying creature behind it.

“Relax,” The demonic thing whispered beside her. “I think we’ll both enjoy this ending.” The thing chuckled, a whispering, invasive sound that felt as though it were slowly piercing her ears, seeking the flesh beyond.

“You bitch,” Roland said, stepping forward as Squirrel thrashed in the oracle’s grasp. “There are no words for how much trouble you’ve caused me.” Roland leaned down and picked up the enchanted sword, his head just out of range of her kicking feet.

“Your parents died hard, too,” he said, straightening in front of her, his left arm dangling beside him. “But this is an entirely different level of pigheadedness.” The conjurer cocked his head, studying her for a moment. “I’d tell you why I did all this, but I don’t care anymore. I’ll let your parents explain themselves. It’s them who should be begging your forgiveness.”

The conjurer raised the sword, just out of reach of Squirrel’s feet, his muscles tensing to bring the blade down on her neck.

Toren popped into the visible spectrum, slamming his wrist into the other wizard’s throat in a clumsy full-armed swing. Roland flung himself back, kicking Toren away, causing him to collapse to the floor, curled around his broken ribs. Squirrel glanced to where Toren had fallen against the bars and she saw him there too, still laying prone and glassy-eyed against the cage.

Squirrel watched wide eyed as the conjurer backed away, dropping the sword to the ground and clutching at his throat.

“I’ve stopped the girl my lord,” The demon spoke, vicious mockery oozing from its voice. “Do you wish me to continue holding on to her my lord? No?” Roland’s face turned red, and his eyebrows furrowed with rage as he stared at the demon, but only gurgling passed his lips.

“Well, I’ve stopped her,” The demon said, lowering Squirrel to the ground gently and giving her a push toward the stumbling conjurer, its claws tracing the wounds on her back. “If you want me to do more, you must say something, my lord.”

Squirrel took a step forward, and Roland threw himself to the floor, scrambling for the blade, but he was too far. Squirrel snatched up the handle as his palm fell upon the steel, and she drew it away from him, drawing a cut along his palm.

Air passed his lips in a wordless, gurgling hiss of pain as Squirrel raised the blade above her head and brought it down, burying the shining steel through his shoulder and halfway through his chest.

“It’s called a Dark Miracle, my lord.” The oracle said quietly. The conjurer’s eyes widened, staring past Squirrel at the demon. “Goodbye, Ariana.” A flutter of color flashed over Squirrel’s shoulder, and an imperceptible wave of force threw her back as the oracle dove into the conjurer.

Like a child diving into a lake, the demon passed through the conjurer’s body, and into the floor, disappearing into the smooth stone of the floor without so much as a ripple. Roland was on his knees, his eyes staring blankly into the air, his arms limp by his side.

The king’s body slowly slumped to its side, finally still. Squirrel collapsed to her knees, all the strength leaving her body. The mist covering the exits faded away, leaving shadowy tunnels in their place. Squirrel knew she should stand, that she should run for the exit, Roland wouldn’t have covered it if it were a dead end. surely there was a way to escape through the back of this cursed room, but she couldn’t force herself to her feet.

In front of her, Roland’s feature’s began to shift. His fiery red hair darkened to brown, his large frame shrank, revealing a somewhat stunted man with a homely face and brown eyes. It was the kind of man you could find in any village, torturing his back to eke a living out of the dirt, setting the stage for his children.

“Who in the Abyss were you?” Squirrel murmured. Her eyes scanning the man in front of her, bedecked in his now ill-fitting finery.

From the dungeons came shouts, the ring of steel, and the tromping of boots. Squirrel, aching all over, turned her body and struggled to approach Toren, who lay ten feet away, his breathing shallow, and face red.

“We have to leave,” Squirrel said, gritting her teeth and pulling herself to her feet.

Toren chuckled and moaned, “I don’t think I can run, at this point.”

Squirrel stumbled over to him as boots sounded down the hall, sprinting towards them. “Suck it up,” she said, offering her hand. The wizard took her wrist, and nearly pulled her off her feet as he levered himself up, groaning quietly.

Royal guards poured into the room, surrounding them. Most of them balked at the heinous torture implements that littered the room, tiptoeing around the pool in the center that was caked with dried blood. The one leading them was a grizzled man, with dark hair, a square jaw and a missing eye. He seemed entirely unfazed by the bloody, jingling chains that decorated the ceiling like a macabre chandelier.

“Commander Davis, I presume,” Toren said.

“There he is, commander!” Kolter said, pointing at her excitedly. “The boy who looks like the girl who played a boy at the festival, the one the oracle said was princess Ariana!”

The commander narrowed his eye and took in the situation, glancing around the room, his gaze lingering on Toren, Squirrel, and the conjurer in the King’s clothes, slumped over with a short sword buried in his chest.

“You look like a Reinbahm,” he said to Toren before his gaze refocused on Squirrel. “And you… look like a Fellianore. I’ll have the two of you come with us. The Grand Inquisitor and I have questions.”

Squirrel spat on the floor. “I’ve had my fill of this place,” she said, glowering at the soldiers. “I’ll be damned if I stay in this city another day. Try and force the issue and you cocksuckers won’t be having children.”

Commander Davis raised an eyebrow and signaled his men, who sheathed their swords before rushing toward her. Squirrel raised her arm to throw a punch, but Toren’s dead weight threw her off-balance, and four men caught her arms and legs, lifting her into the air as she shouted and tried to bite their steel-sheathed fingers.

“Will you be needing an escort as well?” Commander Davis said, regarding Toren.

“I wouldn’t say no to being carried,” Toren said, watching Squirrel thrash in the grip of the soldiers, her eyes growing more and more panicked.

“No!” Squirrel shouted, trying to pull herself out of their grip, surprising herself with the intensity of her struggle. Squirrel felt a dull tearing from her left shoulder and warm liquid began flowing toward her chest.

“Hold for a second,” Toren said, watching Squirrel with concern. He limped to her side while the Royal guards watched him with suspicion. Toren took a deep breath and laced his words with the power of suggestion.

“Squirrel, I’m tired,” he said, staring into her rolling eyes, waiting as they gradually focused on him. Her breathing slowed, and she locked her gaze on his. “Aren’t you tired? We can rest now, and deal with this tomorrow, what do you say?” he said gently, his voice soft.

Squirrel’s eyes slowly closed, and she gradually stopped struggling, going limp in the guard’s grasp.

“Slap a bandage on that shoulder and get her to a necromancer, now.” Commander Davis said, watching the sleeping girl. If she was who he thought she was, she absolutely could not be allowed to die from something as preventable as bleeding or infection.

“And you…” Davis said, glancing back at the young wizard.

“Toren Reinbahm,” Toren said.

“Ah, the dead one,” Davis said, thumbing his chin. “You’ve just earned a stretcher.” The Commander glanced over to the iron bars of the cells, where an identical Toren lay, his eyes glazed. “And him?”

“That’s Fifty-Three,” Toren said, waving his hand. In the blink of an eye, the illusion hopped to its feet, shifting to an emaciated young boy before disappearing in a shimmer of magic that withdrew back into Toren’s hand.

“I see,” Davis said, motioning another four soldiers to pick up Toren and carry him out on a stretcher.

“Careful!” Toren said as they picked him up. “My ribs are broken.” The young men transporting the wizard scoffed, claiming to receive broken ribs before breakfast in the Royal Guard.

Davis narrowed his eye and stored that careless comment for another day, kneeling down beside the imposter in the King’s clothes. “It’s going to be a nightmare, these next few years,” he muttered to himself.