Chapter 3: The Hero and The Demon Queen.

Our mutual staring lasted only for a moment.

“Answer me, Demon!” The Hero called out, her sword pointed at me. “I will make your death a quick one.”

I rose to my full height, making me a head taller than the girl. “Demon? Did your brains leak out of your ears? Do you have the faintest idea who you dare speak this way to? I am not just any Demon.”

The Hero paused and took a tentative step forward. Her blade was still leveled at me. It didn’t glow like a [Hero’s Sword] should.

“You are scum. A parasite on the world. A-“

“I am the Demon Queen.” I cut off the woman’s blathering. “And your head is far too high. Perhaps I should have cut it off last time we met.”

The Hero’s step faltered. She looked at me. Really looked at me. “That’s not possible,” she finally muttered. “I turned that bitch to dust. You look similar, but-” She shook her head. “Don’t think you can get into my head, Demon!”

I suppressed the urge to sigh. “Ash. I believe that was what your companion called you, was it not?”

Some of the color left her face. “How did you know that? Are you in my mind?!”

“No,” I said. “If I were, I fear I may never leave. I would get lost in its infinite void.”

Ash searched my face, and for some reason, recognition finally dawned. “You…you really are her. Lysanthia, you fiend, what did you do to me?”

Her voice broke on the last word. The fear had left, and only anger remained.

“I did nothing to you, fool.” My limbs still ached, but I could move them for another fight. My gaze dropped to her sword. It hung lifeless at her side.

“You do not have your powers either, do you?” I asked. “Your [System]?”

Ash hesitated at that. “Either?” She whispered. “That means I can cut you down!”

I was starting to get a headache. Another time I might have charged at her, but curiosity had always been a sharper hunger. Why was she here? I turned, sat back down, and let my feet dangle in the cool river.

“You would show your back to me?” Ash called after me. “You mock me eve-“

“Just come over already,” I said. “You died, didn’t you? That’s why you’re here. Except I took the brunt of the backlash, so you should have lived. Were you that weak that you died anyway?”

“I was not.” A low, barely controlled voice answered.

I paused. “Then someone else killed you.”

There was nothing but silence at that. After a heartbeat, there were footsteps. Those footsteps branched off from the path directly behind me, came to my right, and stopped just off to my side.

“What do you know? Where are we?”

“Hmm….” My legs trailed idly through the water. “Who was it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Which one of them killed you? I am curious.”

I felt the whisper of steel against my throat. I did not turn, did not do anything but kick up the water with my legs. Nobody who could become a Hero in the first place would cut down someone not fighting back. That was the trapping of their Role, after all.

“Orvyn,” Ash finally said.

“And which one was that?”

The steel dug against my throat. There might have been an insignificant trickle of blood.

“The Saint.” The words sounded like they had been dragged out of her. “She did.”

“Now that makes perfect sense,” I mused. “I could see how a Saint might turn their blade against the Hero.” I turned my head, regarding Ash again. She was glaring down at me, brows knit tight, lips pressed into a thin line.

“I think I see now. They found out you would live, didn’t they?”

Her glare twisted. The blade moved away from my throat. Ash grunted and sheathed it back into its scabbard. “Yes.”

She stood there a moment longer than she needed to. Her jaw worked. I expected her to say something, but she didn’t. Twice, I saw her hand drift toward her sword, only to fall back to her side. Then she was pulling off her armored greaves. I watched her sit down by the riverbed, her own legs sinking into the waters next to me.

She stared at the water for a time, and when she spoke, there was no anger. “She was crying when she did it,” Ash said quietly. “She told me she was sorry.”

There was something in the Hero’s voice I hadn’t heard before, something I had no name for. I didn’t say anything and did not know why she was telling me this in the first place. For once, I did not cut her on my wit.

“Now answer me,” she muttered, staring straight ahead. “What do you know, and where the hell are we?”

I did not appreciate her tone. Then again, we had made something of an informal accord.

“We are roughly one thousand years in the future. Nine hundred and eighty four, to be precise,” I said absently. I hadn’t noticed before, but the river wasn’t actually empty.

Tiny fish swam in the waters, occasionally brushing past my skin. They tickled, which was curious. The beasts that grew in Demonic Waters would not have simply tickled.

Ash didn’t respond. The silence stretched so long I nearly turned to check if she had simply died from the shock.

“A thousand years,” she finally repeated. The words came out flat and empty.

“Nine hundred and eighty four.”

“Elowen wanted to open a bakery,” Ash said.

The words sounded heavy in a way I didn’t know words could. I wouldn’t have cared before, and perhaps still didn’t. Now, however, without my role bearing down on me, I at least considered them.

“They are all long dead,” I said.

“I know.” Her shoulders tightened again. Some of the fire returned to her gaze as she met my own. “And you did this. You expect me to believe you cast a spell that sent us almost a thousand years into the future.”

I shot her a glare, my brows narrowing on instinct. “Child, I am -was- the Demon Queen. A spell of that magnitude might be above your means. It was well within mine.”

Ash held my gaze for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “Let’s say I do believe this madness, and that I am not simply in the middle of a long dream I will soon wake from.” She tilted her head. “You used my power to do it, did you not? Something to do with those damn runes.”

My jaw tightened. That much was true. Without the Hero’s Requiem, without a Hero’s connection to a large portion of the Pantheon -many of whom controlled Fate and Roles- the spell would have been impossible. That did not mean I was going to say as much.

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“I needed the Gods’ powers. You are little more than a vessel,” I said.

Ash’s face twisted. “Fine, I’ve heard your answer.” She didn’t reach for her sword this time. Instead, she turned to face me fully.

“You killed Ronan,” Ash said, and her face twisted again. “He was the bravest man I ever knew, and you cut him down like he was nothing.”

“He charged at me,” I said. “I gave him a quick death in recompense, which is better than most would get. Aren’t honorable deaths what Warriors care about?”

Ash’s hands balled into fists at her sides. For a moment, I thought she might strike me with them. That, at least, would have been more interesting than whatever this was.

“Countless more,” she continued. “Villages…whole cities. Children who never-” She stopped herself and drew a breath. “For that, you deserve death.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “And yet, here we both are, with neither of us in much position to deliver it unto the other, I suspect.”

“I will try all the same,” the Hero said calmly.

It was hard not to laugh. I stifled it, the laughter turning into an amused snort instead.

“You think that’s funny?” There was true rage behind the words. Truly the voice of a Hero, even in the pitch of a woman.

“I do. It has been a thousand years. All of the people you are so furious over would have long since died already. Their descendants are likely just as dead by now.”

“You cut their lives short,” the Hero hissed. “You and your damned horde.”

“And what lovely lives they no doubt were,” I said dryly. “In opposition, our demon lives were worth so much less. The horde you slaughtered with such relish, if you recall.”

“You dare compare the two?” Ash roared. “No demon is equal to a member of any other race.”

“Obviously not. But they’re worth something.”

“What?”