Chapter 1: The Hero’s Requiem.

My horde was dying, and I had never been more relieved. Not that I could show it.

The Demon Queen was supposed to rage, scream and swear vengeance. Thousands of years of history demanded it. So I stood there, watching the battle through the eyes of my fortress.

Outside, the Order of the Silver Pegasus flew through a crimson sky, golden lances lowered at my demons. Very heroic. Below them, the Band of the Golden Dawn carved into whatever imps, fiends and hellhounds I’d bothered to muster.

White fire rained in from their mages. Elemental magic was nuisance enough, but holy magic was far deadlier, and the combined forces arrayed against me had that to spare. It was a shame I had wiped out the Dwarves so thoroughly -their dark magic had at least been interesting to watch.

We were losing, something that might have frustrated me once.

A thought was all it would take to change things. I needed to ask, and the world, the [System] would answer. The temptation, the pull, was still there, faint. I fought against it. It was all the slack my chain had.

“Your Royal Darkness, the horde is fighting well!” An almost serpentine voice whispered behind me.

Seryth was one of my more loyal retainers, though even she would stab me in a heartbeat if she thought she’d live long enough to draw her blade. She was also wrong. The horde was fighting pathetically. She simply told me what she thought I wanted to hear.

“I suppose.”

“The intruders are approaching, Great Mistress.”

“I am aware.”

I had felt their presence for some time. I could feel everything within my fortress. It was as much a part of me as my flesh and blood. They had slowly worked their way through the many floors of my fortress and had slain some of my Generals.

Malrath had died first. His constant boasting hadn’t kept him from folding under a Hero’s Sword. Zarvok had fallen next, and then his sister Zera, who’d died trying to avenge him.

Orzathiel had fallen two minutes ago. That fight had lasted half an hour. It had taken them some time to kill him fifteen times. I’d killed him fourteen myself, back when I was rising through the ranks. I’d spared him his last life, and he’d given me his loyalty for it. As much loyalty as a demon could give another, anyway.

The doors to my chamber exploded inward. The shockwave ran through the floor and up through my legs.

“Humans? You dare?!” Seryth hissed.

I didn’t need to turn to see.

“Foul demons, this is where you were hiding?” A rough, angry voice shouted. It was the kind of voice that belonged to a Hero who’d just cleared a Demon Queen’s castle. They always sounded like that.

“Ash, wait up! I know how you feel, but-” A feminine voice cut off, presumably as she stepped into view and saw the people who stood within.

“You filthy mongrels dare look upon the Demon Queen with those wretched gazes of yours?!” Seryth cried and then lunged.

There was a burst of mana, enough that the air picked up. There was a scream. It came from Seryth’s throat. They had seen through her illusion that quickly? Now that was a surprise.

I finally turned to regard the Hero’s Party. They were the fourth, since I’d become Queen.

A Hero. A Sage. A Saint. A Warrior.

The Hero and the Warrior were men, the Saint and the Sage were women. That’s how it always was. How it had to be. No matter how many decades passed, some things always stayed the same. Perhaps that was simply how the world worked.

Just as there was always a Demon Queen, there always had to be a troupe of misfits to fight her.

The Hero -Ash- stepped forward. He moved over Seryth’s corpse. The woman was already decaying, her body turned into wisps of mana and aether.

“You are the Demon Queen, then?” the Hero asked, raising his blade in front of him. It shone a brilliant white, casting back the shadows in the room. “Lysanthia?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I looked into the Hero’s shadow. The God of War clung there. The God of Time. Haste. Skies. Fate. At least a dozen lesser divinities crowded in behind them, jostling over a single mortal. The rest of his party would have their own divine backers.

It seemed the heavens had finally come to claim me after all. Good. I had been waiting for a very long time. With this much power in one place, I could finally achieve it. That which even I, the strongest Demon Queen in this world’s history, could not do on her own.

But it had to look convincing. Fate was watching, as she always did, and she would not release me for anything less than a proper ending.

I had played my Role long enough. It was time to see if this Hero could end it.

What remained of the Demon Castle was rubble and silence.

Ash’s sword bit into the ground. Without it, her legs would have given out entirely. “Elowen? Are you okay?”

The Sage was lying face down, a small trickle of blood leaking from beneath her. Damn it.

“Orvyn?”

“I’m alive,” the woman croaked out, sounding like she was moments away from death. Ash didn’t dare turn around to see her, afraid of what she might find.

Ronan was dead. He’d charged the Demon Queen first, because of course he had. One swing of that obsidian sword had split him clean in half. The strongest man Ash had ever known, and one attack was all it had taken to end him.

The Demon Queen now stood in front of Ash. She was exactly as Ash had heard -and somehow more terrible all the same.

She was pale enough that she looked wrong, with eyes that bled a mix of white and red. Dark hair trailed down her back, reaching the floor. Horns -curved and silver- framed her regal face. Her clothing was a mix of mostly black with red accents, trailing down her body, as thin and flattering as any dress yet sturdier than any armor.

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The only thing Ash’s strongest attack had done was chip it.

After all of this, they were going to die. The journey they had set out on five years ago would come to its end, and it would be a bitter, pointless end. All of the people who had prayed for their success would soon be swallowed by the horde.

Somewhere beyond the walls, the horde was faltering. It wouldn’t last. Nothing would, once the Demon Queen was done here, once this distraction was squashed.

“Tell me, Hero,” the Demon Queen’s voice was soft, too soft to belong to someone so deadly. “Does your Role not chafe at you?”

What? What the hell was she saying?

Ash grunted and channeled more of her mana. She could feel it very faintly now. Her aura was even fainter, but she could coat her sword for another few blows. That would have to be enough for a last stand.

“I’m going to kill you, Demon,” Ash hissed, reaching deep inside of herself.

The Demon Queen sighed and stepped forward. “Please, do not shout pointless platitudes at me. I have heard them before. They are no more interesting the tenth time around.”

Many other great warriors had tried to kill the Great Demon Queen over the last fifty years. This woman spoke of them and their struggles as if none of them amounted to the dirt beneath her boots.

“Oh?” The Demon Queen paused and tilted her head.

“What?” Ash growled, buying time. She needed time to cover her sword again, when she had so little aura left.

“You’re a woman?”

Ash froze. Had her illusion failed her? Was she that out of mana? She didn’t dare look to check, but if Lysanthia had said it, then it must have been so.

“Does it matter?” Ash growled. Her sword was starting to glow again. “Man or woman, I’m still going to kill you.”

Lysanthia smiled. “No, I suppose it doesn’t matter. I was just surprised my eyes didn’t catch the illusion immediately. How cruel -it seems your talent lies more in the subtle arts, and yet the Gods made you a Hero.”

“Shut up,” Ash hissed and took a step forward. She thought she could feel her bones creak. Her wounds split wider inside her.

“I will ask you again: does your Role not chafe at you?”

Ash still didn’t know what this Demon was asking, no more than she had understood the first time. Her mana core was all but drained, and her aura reserves were no better. The only thing she could feel was her connection to the Gods, but they had already given her all of the help they could give a mortal vessel. There was nothing left.