"Is that really Enlil?" Arai whispered to Lillandra. "The Demon King?"

  "I suspect that it is," she replied.

  "He doesn't look like a demon. He looks like a man."

  "Looks can be deceiving," she muttered.

  "Can we kill him?"

  "We can try." She drew her sword and looked at it, taking a moment to contemplate the blade. "Is this why Maximine gave me the Bright Hope? Did she know this was going to happen? Did she know that Enlil would be resurrected, that the sword would be needed once again?"

  "It sure seems that way, doesn't it?" Arai raised his own sword, Silus, and was struck once again by how similar the two swords looked. But there was a difference as well -- Silus was made to combat sorcery, while Helene was made to combat demons.

  He glanced at the pile of rubble, the great ruin of the Nightfall, upon which Vex and the naked, resurrected Enlil were still standing. A sorcerer and a demon. Was it a coincidence?

  Forcing himself to focus -- and fighting through his grief at Shell's apparent death in the collapse of the Nightfall -- he approached Vex and Enlil. The sorcerer spoke: "You're a great swordsman," he called out, "and I've never doubted your bravery, but you're a fool if you think you can challenge Enlil. Don't you understand what he is, what he's capable of? He could snuff out your lives with a thought." He knelt before Enlil once again, and put his hand over his heart. "King of kings. I am yours to command."

  Enlil frowned at him. "By what means have I returned to the world of the living?" His voice was odd; it seemed to echo, as though two or three of him were speaking at once.

  "A spell," Vex explained. "A great and complex spell, over a hundred years in the making."

  "Who are you?"

  "My name is Vex," he said, "and if you would have me, I would be your guide in this new world. I am a servant of the Six Secret Temples, and I have devoted my life to your return, to your glory."

  Enlil's expression didn't change; evidently he was unimpressed. "And who are they?" he asked, referring to Arai and Lillandra.

  "Enemies."

  "Indeed?" The Demon King spread his arms...and then, as though gravity had no hold on him at all, he began rising into the air, hovering over the ruins of the Nightfall, and coming to rest on the solid, snow-covered ground a few dozen feet away from Arai and Lillandra. Vex, giddy, scampered down the rubble after him.

  "Is it true what he says?" Enlil asked them. "Do you oppose me?"

  Curious, Arai said, "Well, that depends. What do you want?"

  "I want you to fall down and worship me, as this one did. I want to make this world mine."

  "You want death and destruction," Arai growled. "You're a demon."

  He smiled faintly. "And you're a fool."

  Arai readied himself, falling into the Rising Tide stance, expecting Enlil to leap at him with supernatural speed. Instead, the demon approached him, quite unconcerned, walking towards him at a normal pace. He had no weapon. Arai waited for him, backing up a step in case he suddenly picked up speed, then switched his stance to the Crashing Waves and started to attack him with the Net of Steel -- four strikes, one to the left, two to the right, one sweeping upwards. But he never made it to the first strike, because Enlil, to his amazement, simply caught the blade in his hand, ripped it out of Arai's grasp, and tossed it aside. He then stepped forward and thrust his hand out, aiming it at Arai's chest. Some kind of strange, invisible force suddenly enveloped him, holding him in place for a moment, then forcing him down to his hands and knees before Enlil. Gasping, Arai tried to fight against it, but this force was impossible to fight against; he felt as though he was being held down by a dozen strong men.

  "That's better," Enlil remarked, regarding him in this submissive pose.

  But that's when Lillandra suddenly jumped into action. Enlil, who apparently hadn't seen her as much of a threat, was not particularly concerned, and he put a hand out to stop her, to freeze her in place just as he had Arai. Only this time his spell -- or whatever it was -- didn't work. Lillandra continued racing forward, slashing at his outstretched hand.

  Alarmed by the failure of his spell, he pulled back, but not fast enough, and Lillandra's sword managed to slice into the top of his forearm. The demon's eyes widened, and he instantly retreated, jumping into the air and hovering away from her very rapidly, before she could cut into him again. The wound on his arm was a black line, bloodless, but it stood out plainly against the pure white of his skin.

  At the same moment, Arai felt the invisible power that had been holding him down loosen. He got to his feet and scrambled to retrieve Silus, while Enlil wondered at what had just happened. Vex, too, seemed a little puzzled.

  "Are you all right?" Lillandra asked Arai.

  "Yeah." Her gave her a quick glance. "What happened?"

  "Helene protected me from his power," she said. "The sword is an anathema to the demon-craft, just as Silus is an anathema to human magic."

  "I guess that's how Maximine was able to kill him with it." He turned his eyes back to Vex and Enlil. "We have our strategy, then. I'll handle Vex. You focus on the Demon King. But be careful. We don't know what these two might be capable of."

  She nodded, and they slowly began to approach the duo, side by side, their swords raised and ready. "I recognize that sword," Enlil said, studying Lillandra.

  "You ought to," Lillandra said. "It was the sword that slew you, all those years ago."

  "I won't make the same mistakes I made then," he warned. "You are the heir to Maximine's powers, then? I would know your name."

  "Lillandra."

  He looked at the black cut on his arm. "Lillandra," he intoned. Then he pointed at a patch of snow, which whirled to life, fashioning itself into an icy blade and flying into his hand. "Shall we dance?"

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Arai, meanwhile, waved Vex over. "Traitor," he said. "Come, fight me."

  Vex was distracted. The fact that Lillandra was wielding Maximine's sword -- a weapon capable of killing a demon -- had obviously come as a surprise to him; he threw a worried look at Enlil. But then, shaking his head and snarling, he turned to respond to Arai. "Very well. Let's fight, then. But if you think your sword is going to protect you from me, think again."

  Arai rushed him. Vex began performing a series of gestures -- crossing his arms, uncrossing them, closing his fists, opening them -- which Arai recognized as the beginnings of a fire-spell. Confident that Silus would protect him from this magic, Arai kept charging him, yelling out a battle cry.

  But at the last second Vex added another set of gestures, which must have altered the spell, because instead of fire, a cold wind arose, and Arai was suddenly pelted with freezing rain. Though it had no direct effect on him, it transformed the snow beneath his feet to ice, and he slipped and fell, his legs flailing almost comically. Cursing, he got to his feet, but Vex was already working another spell, and by the time Arai got to him, he had levitated himself out of reach.

  "I thought you wanted to fight," Arai shouted up at him.

  "I am fighting," he said, "in my way."

  So saying, he removed an object from inside his robes -- Arai couldn't see what it was, but probably it was some kind of zemi -- and raised it skywards, apparently invoking some kind of spell, though it had no obvious or immediate effect. Then he floated down, closer to the ground, and ignited the air around Arai's body. The flames didn't burn him, but they did blind him; for a moment all he could see was fire and light. Then, all at once, the flames vanished, and suddenly Vex was there, dagger in hand, stabbing at him. He managed to drive the dagger into Arai's side, just below his breastplate. Grunting, Arai pushed him away, but Vex scampered back before he could strike him with Silus. Then he floated back up into the air, safely out of reach.

  Arai felt the wound in his side. It didn't seem to have penetrated very deeply, but it was already seeping blood. He grimaced. He realized that he had underestimated Vex -- he wasn't as powerful as the Aeromancer, but he was a skilled and experienced battlefield mage and unlike the other sorcerers Arai had faced, he was aware of Silus's power and understood that he couldn't attack him directly.

  Vex cast another fire spell, blinding him again. Ignoring the pain in his side, Arai raised Silus in front of his face, which caused the flames to dissipate. Undeterred, Vex changed tactics, levitating a huge piece of rubble out of the Nightfall's ruins and sending it rolling in Arai's direction. Silus was capable of deflecting an object away from his body if it was propelled by sorcery, as in the case of wizard's whiskers, but Vex, who had the high ground, didn't need to use his sorcery to keep the boulder rolling; he only needed to get it started, and gravity took care of the rest. Arai was forced to leap out of the way of one boulder, and then another.

  He risked a glance at Lillandra, who was currently locked in combat with the Demon King. Wary of her sword, Enlil, too, was hovering out of her reach, but Lillandra must have struck him at least a few times, for his ice-sword had been shattered and both his chest and one of his thighs had black slash-marks over them. Frustrated, Enlil's demonic nature was becoming evident; his body had grown, his lean muscles becoming swollen and misshapen, his face turning animalistic.

  Arai could only pray that Lillandra could take care of herself, however, because it was all he could to do to fend off Vex's attacks. He could feel his blood, warm and wet, leaking out of the wound in his side, and one of the stones Vex had flung at him had come within inches of crushing him. This was a precarious situation.

  He finally managed to reach the rise over which Vex was hovering. The sorcerer cast another ice spell -- presumably the Frozen Touch -- making the terrain slippery, but Arai was close enough now to launch his own attack: he reached into his boot and threw a dagger at the mage. His aim was true, but Vex didn't blink, and instead of striking him, the dagger sailed off to one side.

  "Badge of Deflection," Arai muttered. This was getting more frustrating all the time, and time was running out -- he was starting to feel a little woozy, probably from blood loss.

  He dropped to one knee, panting.

  Vex grinned down at him, pleased by this development. "I told you your sword wouldn't help you," he said to Arai. "I've had plenty of time to think about how I might combat it -- of how I might combat you."

  "I can't believe I fell for your act," Arai grumbled. "I can't believe I didn't see it."

  Vex hovered a little closer. "You didn't want see it," he said, chuckling. "You didn't want to believe that a friend might be plotting against you. You're the kind who only ever wants to see the good in people. It's a stupid, naive way of looking at things, but quite common among people like you."

  "People like me?"

  "People who think they're heroes."

  "Come down here and fight."

  He snorted. "Do I look like an idiot?"

  And then, without warning, a huge, shaggy creature, something like a dog and something like a bear, suddenly came bounding out of the darkness, eyes and teeth flashing, headed straight for Arai. Startled, he leveled his sword at the snarling creature, which narrowly avoided the blade; it passed by him, but managed to slash his shoulder with its claws; if he hadn't been wearing his armor the monster would have torn into him. Where the hell had it come from?

  The beast -- which he now recognized as a stipewolf, a kind of monster -- whirled around, preparing to leap at him again. Above, Vex grinned, and Arai realized, belatedly, that the sorcerer was controlling the monster, that he must have called it. He was using Lillandra's Dragon's Bit; that was the item he had held up earlier.

  The monster flew at him. He stepped to one side and slashed at it as it came forward, ripping open its belly and causing it to break apart, into magia particles, but in the process he slipped on the icy, uneven ground and fell forward again, onto his knees. Pain tore through his side; the wound Vex had given him must have ripped itself open even further. He struggled to find his footing, and realized, to his dismay, that he could not stand -- his legs refused to obey him.

  Seeing that he was in no condition to continue fighting, Vex floated back down, alighting on a large piece of rubble jutting out of the ruins of the Nightfall. He was only about a dozen feet away, but Arai simply could not find the strength to rise to his feet and finish him off. Frustrated, he slammed a fist into the ground.

  Vex gloated. "I thanked the Night Queen," he said. "I suppose I should offer you my thanks as well. It was your rebellion, after all, that made Enlil's resurrection possible. I never could've defeated the Night Queen on my own."

  "Her...name is...Lillandra," Arai managed, fighting through the pain.

  He snorted. "What's in a name? She'll be dead in a few moments, and you with her." He drew his dagger; Arai heard it slide out of the sheath. "You've reached the end of your journey, Arai. It's too bad Odo and Maya aren't around to--"

  But before he could even finish the sentence, a huge figure suddenly exploded out of the rubble of the Nightfall, right behind Vex. The sorcerer spun around, but not quickly enough; the giant was on him in a second, twisting the dagger out of his hand, seizing him by the neck, and using his great strength to unceremoniously snap his neck. Vex, the life going out of his eyes, toppled forward, dead.

  Arai stared. Was he dreaming? Was it really him?

  Odo gave Vex's body a disgusted look. "Traitor," he spat. "Always knew there was somethin' off about him." He reached into the rubble and picked up his huge battleaxe, then waved to someone behind him. "Better hurry. He's hurt."

  Maya, dressed in her blue Selestrian robes and still carrying her staff, emerged from the ruins as well, accompanied by Shell, who was waving the Griffin's Down over her head as though it was some kind of trophy. All three of them ran to him.

  Arai didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Odo, who had always been pretty good at reading his thoughts, broke out in a big grin. "It's good to see you too, boss," he said. "How ya holdin' up?"

  "Could be better," he admitted.

  "I'll see to your wounds," Maya said.

  "No," he said, pushing her away. "We have to stop Enlil first. We have to help Lillandra."

  Odo glanced at Lillandra and the Demon King, who were still engaged in their own battle. "Help Lillandra," he muttered. "Now there's something I never thought I'd hear." But he hefted his axe anyway, resting it on his shoulder. "Well, then. You ready, Maya?"

  "Yes," she said grimly, setting her mouth into a line. And they ran across the snow, to join her fight.