“I heard you are quite the delicacy,” the twisted face of the demon says, refined voice at odds with its appearance. “Would you mind dying for me?”

The demon opens its mouth wide, fangs bulging, and screams. The high-pitched sound is painful; she clutches at her ears with eyes screwed shut, not noticing the light from the duke’s sword going out.

The world starts breaking around her.

Something grabs her wrist and yanks hard enough to pull her arm from its socket. It’s so painful that she doesn’t realize she’s soaring through the air until her body is hitting the cave floor and rolling to a stop.

The duke’s sword reforms in a flurry of swirling flames that hiss and snap as if in anger. The Ashen Wolf, missing his usual grin, scans the darkness for his enemy. Behind him lies part of the ceiling. It’s where she was just standing.

She can’t feel her arm, she thinks dazedly. She doesn’t even know if it’s still there. She’s been tossed so far away that she’s trapped in darkness and unable to see anything but the spotlight of Duke Wulf’s sword.

She feels like she’s watching a play from the seat of the audience.

Another high-pitched scream erupts from the darkness, shaking the dripping stalactites overhead ominously. The duke swings his sword in that direction, and fire bursts forward like a shockwave, growing as if to consume everything in its path.

The demon is briefly lit up by the fire heading towards it, and she can see that it hides on the ceiling. The demon screams and disappears back into the darkness. A dangerous rumble is the only warning he gets before the duke has to roll out of the way of a falling stalactite.

“I will rip your head off,” Duke Wulf promises.

“You can try,” the demon taunts from where it remains outside the reach of the light.

The duke slings another wave of fire upwards, and the demon kills it with a scream before rocks fall. Again and again, the two of them make the same moves as if stuck in a vicious cycle. The only difference being that the duke is slowly running out of room to maneuver.

A rock knocks into the back of the duke, catching him by surprise. The demon takes advantage of his stumble to swoop down on silent wings. With claws outstretched, it aims for the Ashen Wolf’s head.

The duke jerks back in time to keep his head but the claws still get him. Blood gushes from his face, and she looks away, unable to keep watching. That’s when she notices she can see her arm; it hangs uselessly by her side. She couldn’t even see the bright, white sleeve wrapped around it earlier.

She looks up, and red stars shine down upon her.

The next time the duke throws his flames upward, she observes carefully. Near unnoticeable fireflies float away from the attack to stick to the ceiling, the sheer amount lighting up the entire cave.

She knows without a doubt that Duke Wulf is setting a trap.

The duke swings his sword in a wide arc, and though the demon dodges the attack, it overcorrects itself. The moment its wing scrapes against a cluster of fireflies, they swarm and stick to it like vicious sentient burs.

The fireflies grow unbearably bright, and a massive explosion rocks that cave.

A cloud of dirt and small rocks washes over her, and the ceiling rumbles dangerously. Her brain screams at her to move. There’s a nearby platform with a pulley system she can hide beneath, but she’ll have to leave the little niche sheltering her.

Not giving herself time to think about it, she gets to her feet and runs.

She almost doesn’t see the white, baseball-sized rock until she’s stumbling over it. Salt, her brain insists despite the fact it could be anything. Without hesitation, she scoops it up with her good arm before continuing to run.

There’s a ringing in her ears.

She doesn’t make it to the platform. Monstrous claws close around her, and her feet lose connection with the ground as she’s snatched upwards. To her horror, the demon, not only surviving the blast, now has her in its grip.

She can’t break free no matter how hard she struggles. The ground gets farther and farther away. She’s going to die if she doesn’t do something.

The white rock is still in her hand.

Determination rushing through her, she scrapes and digs what she hopes is salt into the claws holding her. With a pained hiss, the demon loosens its grip on her just enough to wiggle her arm free.

A heavily burned face meets her as the demon contorts itself to meet her eyes. Its dark eyes glitter with madness and anger. She knows this is what death looks like.

“I will eat you and be a god,” its distorted voice tells her.

Just before the demon’s fangs touch her neck, she puts everything she has into shoving the white rock into its mouth. She keeps pushing against the resistance of a tongue, keeps pushing until the rock has nowhere left to go.

With an indescribable choking sound and eyes bulging out of its head, the demon lets go of her.

She falls.

Strong arms catch her, but the feeling of falling remains. She looks up and sees glowing yellow eyes staring back at her from the bloodied face of the duke. The cave behind him rushes by in a blur.

They hit the cave floor with a loud thud, and the shock from the duke jars her painfully against the arms holding her. She can’t stop the moan of pain, and the duke crouches to lie her down gently on her back.

“You are safe now,” he says soothingly. He takes off his glove to run his fingers through her hair, and she realizes she’s trembling like she’s about to shake apart.

Everything hurts.

“You saved yourself, good job,” he tells her softly. He continues to pet her hair; the motion is so incredibly gentle and at odds with the wounds on his face.

She can’t stop the sob or the tears. She finds she doesn’t want to. It’s like she’s releasing all the grievances in heart.

It feels like freedom.