The Hero’s party enshrouded themselves in an eerie silence on their way out of the castle. If this were any other trek, Iris wouldn’t have to intervene with her inquiry. “So what’s our next plan? Really.”

  Her question would go unanswered. They were at the entrance where a familiar face came into view. Laying at the massive doors was the body of Grndal, a member of the Hero’s party. In their desperate attempt to raid the Demon King’s castle, Grndal suffered heavy wounds and used the last ounce of his strength to open the door.

  Iris thought it was a futile attempt, considering Yevon could’ve done it herself. But she said nothing at the time. It was better for the orc to die with some sense of purpose. Now, however, he was simply a sack of burden.

  Uriel could tell from the scowl on Iris’s face that she refused to carry him. He sighed and tried his best at lifting up Grndal.

  “Maybe you should hold onto her instead.” Yevon handed over the tied-up Demon King onto Uriel. Then, with a hefty “hup!” she brought Grndal on her shoulders.

  Though her question had gone unanswered before, Iris wasn’t going to give up. She tapped her foot and waited for a response from anyone.

  “It’s going to take us a while to get out of Demon country, so let’s get that over with first,” Uriel said.

  “And her?” She pointed at Agnus. “That flimsy piece of rope isn’t going to hold her.”

  “Haaahh… We’ll… figure that out once it happens, okay?”

  “What do you mean when it happens? She’s going to kill us!”

  “No, she won’t.” His words were clear and firm. If there was something he was confident in, it was the aura around Agnus. It was white, almost innocent. Nothing like the black cloud that would choke the colors around it.

  Convinced, but not satisfied, Iris stingily trailed behind the party.

  ———

  When the sky darkened, the Demon King showed her first sign of movement. A long yawn roused her from her slumber, taking her time to open her eyes.

  Shing!

  Her lazy wake was disrupted by the Hero’s sword at her neck. The tip close enough to pierce her skin.

  “Move and you’re dead.” If Yevon’s eyes could kill, she would’ve done it over a thousand times. How she wished she could cut through the Demon King’s body and the earth just to make sure she was dead. All Yevon needed was for the Demon King to give her a reason.

  “Hold on, Yevon.” At Uriel’s words, Yevon backed away though the tip of her sword never leaving the Demon King’s sight. Uriel walked closer to Agnus, crouched and began observing her. Her confused look was astonishing, never had Uriel seen her like this. It made him think.

  Whatever that contraption of hers was, did it not work? Did it wipe her memory instead? No… even if her memory’s gone, her aura would remain.

  “You’re not Agnus. What’s your name?”

  He saw her mouthed out the name, then her eyes glazed at him before moving to Yevon and Iris.

  “You can just call me by that name.”

  “What?” Iris was befuddled. Who in the world would want to continue using the most hated name?

  “Are you sure?”

  “My real name doesn’t matter.” To her, this was the honest truth.

  Iris pinched her brows together, sighing in frustration. “What the hell? You’re telling me that this isn’t even the Demon King? Then where is she?”

  Uriel shook his head, not knowing the answer. If aura was a glimpse into the soul, then that must mean the real Agnus was gone.

  Having sheathed her sword, Yevon said, “If not your name, then tell us where you’re from.”

  Agnus pondered about it. The last thing she remembered were her hands on the walking rails, and the nurse’s palm brushing behind her as a way of support. Then a deep and sharp pain stabbed at her heart. It had almost been three years since her diagnosis, and she thought she had already gone through the worst of it.

  So when it attacked her without warning, she lost balance and smacked her head against the railing. Next thing she knew, she was here, but not herself. If it weren’t for the faces of suspicion and animosity aimed at her, she would’ve been as gleeful as a fortuitous golden shepherd.

  “I’m from… America?” Her inflection perked because even she wasn’t sure if there was such a place here in this world. It was a word her new tongue didn’t recognize.

  “Ah-me-ri-ka?” Yevon parroted before looking back at her party.

  Iris shrugged, ready to clock out at this point. She was so weary of Agnus and what would happen when she woke up, but after this whole ordeal? Her tiredness peaked. Iris sat back down on her resting spot, frowning when she caught a glance at Grndal. Though Uriel placed a couple spells to keep Grndal from rotting, Iris wished he would put him away from camp.

  “Do you want him to get eaten by the wild?” was Uriel’s response when she suggested this an hour ago. Iris scoffed at the question, but didn’t argue.

  “I’ve never heard of that place before,” Uriel said, glancing at the yawning elf. “But perhaps we should rest now that we know she’s not going to harm us.”

  While Agnus pondered how Uriel knew she wouldn’t harm them—not that it was the first thing on her list—he pointed at the rope around her wrists. She sat up and with a loose motion of her arms, she ripped the rope apart. Surprised at her own strength, Agnus admired her new body. The skin from her fingertips to half of her forearm glimmered and felt like obsidian.

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  Uriel settled beside Iris, who curled into his arm like a child clinging to her favorite stuffed animal. His haori, pale and patterned like drifting clouds, fell over her shoulders and surrounded her in quiet warmth.

  Yevon, on the other hand, couldn’t separate her eyes from the Demon King. The scar that carved her abdomen pulsed like a brand. Her body remembered the Demon King, even if this version was a new soul. Losing one night’s sleep wasn’t going to hurt her. She had gone on for days without it before.

  Agnus had a long nap, so she wasn’t bushed by any means. She wasn’t sure what to think of the Hero’s stare down tactic, whether to be intimidated or not, but she found Yevon’s eyes beautiful. A golden shimmer that flickered with the dancing flame. If it weren’t full of ire, she might’ve even blushed from Yevon’s intensity.

  Yevon’s teeth gnawed on her split lips. Her golden hair was tied in a ponytail that had been roughened and loosened from the constant battle. Her freckled nose appeared straight at a glance, but upon inspection, it was a little crooked on the bridge. Whoever managed to cause that damage either was a powerful foe or it was from before Yevon became the Hero. Agnus wasn’t sure which.

  “What?” There was a tint of annoyance to that question. Yevon was only keeping watch, but Agnus… she was ogling.

  “I just thought that you’re very pretty.”

  Pretty was the last word she expected to come out of the Demon King’s mouth. The phrase was often directed at Iris followed by her fist in their face. Never did the word come for Yevon. Not that she ever thought of herself as ugly.

  Iris once said, “The Hero’s job is to kill, and looks can’t kill.”

  If it weren’t for the hoots from nocturnal birds, the crackling fire would be all that was heard. Agnus was beginning to believe she must’ve said something wrong, averting the Hero’s gaze.

  “Sorry, that must’ve come out of left field.”

  “Left field?”

  “It’s a base-ball thing—” Agnus caught on to Yevon’s confused look. “—ah, it just means it was unexpected.”

  Yevon didn’t respond, leaving Agnus feeling awkward in this silence. She hoped Yevon would fall asleep at some point, but from the way she stared, it wasn’t any time soon. Not that Agnus planned on running away. She didn’t even know where she was. What she did know, she kept to herself.

  Deep down, she already knew Yevon was the Hero. She even knew that Agnus was the Demon King—the most hated and feared. So why did she not tell them her real name?

  Being feared is better than being a burden, her mind reasoned. Still, I didn’t think this world was real. I thought it was all a dream, something my mind made up as an escape.

  But now, this was her reality. What was she to do? She wasn’t a fighter like the real Agnus. The Hero could split her head open if she tried hard enough. Everybody wanted the Demon King dead. She was trapped in an inevitable fate.

  While Yevon stayed composed for the night, Agnus stirred her brain for any sort of solution.

  ———

  Iris felt like a broken record, but she asked again, “So what’s the plan?”

  It wasn’t like she was impatient. She much preferred to keep her head on her shoulders. If they came back to the Imperial Kingdom without anything to convince the Imperial Prince—who was, at this point, of age to become King—it wouldn’t take him long to execute the Hero’s party. Compliance was the only positive thing about the Prince, his late father would’ve executed them on command.

  The council of old men has a head start. We need a strong argument, Iris thought.

  Uriel opened his map, dipping a bit of his mana to find their location. “We’ll be out of Demon country in a couple weeks, then we’ll enter the Dominion of Calbiac. Ygisburg is our first stop. We need to return Grndal to his hometown.”

  “Haaaahh… That’s not what I mean.” Iris could care less about the plan with Grndal. “What are we going to do with her?”

  Agnus flinched at the sudden point from the elf. She kept her mouth shut for now, not wanting to fan Iris’s flames.

  Uriel made one glance before sighing even deeper than Iris. He was getting frustrated at Iris, which was a repeated scenario.

  The elf was comfortable at being the pawn, but if her fate in the party meant death, then she had to break away. It’s not like I want Yevon or Uriel to die, but I can’t go home if I’m dead.

  Yevon stepped in between them. “Iris, let’s give Grndal a proper cremation first.”

  “Yeah, sure. We’ll stroll right into town with the Demon King right next to us and nobody will bat an eye.”

  She makes a good point, Uriel thought. This Agnus is at least docile, but who knows what she’ll do if we leave her alone while we head into town. Humans wouldn’t dare attack her. Orcs, well… not that they’d damage her anyway. The only one who can hurt her is Yevon.

  “And you!” Iris went back to pointing. “Say something, damn it! It’s creepy how you just keep staring.”

  Iris was so used to the Demon King’s blustering that it was weird for her to be so quiet. She’d punch Agnus if she could, but she knew better than to break her knuckles and waste Uriel’s magic. Agnus’s slumped shoulders made her look so pathetic that it boosted Iris’s confidence.

  Agnus realized she was in a lose-lose situation with Iris’s unrelenting flames. She couldn’t stay quiet and she had no idea what to say. Step one to her plan was supposed to be thought of last time, but she fell asleep to the “peaceful” atmosphere. Yevon couldn’t believe what she saw at the time.

  Unlike Agnus, Yevon stayed awake, resulting in her inattentiveness. Her body was awake enough to travel. Her brain, on the other hand…

  Iris could tell the direction of this conversation, from Yevon’s exhaustion to Uriel’s fizzled expression. Then there was the Demon King’s constant silence.

  “Tch!” She clicked her tongue before walking off. The rest of the party followed. For now, Iris would stay with them until she no longer could.

  The road to Ygisburg was a smooth and boring journey. Dret, also known as Demon country, was a barren wasteland after Agnus. Demons who followed her have perished and the ones who didn’t ran away from their country. The land wasn’t always so gray and cracked, but when Agnus began building that machinery of hers, it sucked up all life in Dret. Most of the wildlife were dead, except for some birds and canines. Though even they were migrating to more luscious lands.

  .

  On the third night, Agnus decided to explore her body. Touching the top of her head, she felt the bump where her left horn used to be. If it was like her right, it would’ve curved backwards. She hadn’t realized she had a tail until she addressed this weird feeling around her waist. When it uncurled, Yevon was at first dumbfounded by this discovery. After digging into her memory, she remembered seeing the tail before, but it vanished after Yevon cut off the Demon King’s horn.

  Tonight was the same with Agnus and Yevon being the only ones awake. Though Yevon was starting to waver, her eyelids became heavier. In moments where Agnus thought Yevon was going to fall asleep, Yevon would jolt awake.

  As Yevon rubbed her eyes and looked at the Demon King, she wondered aloud. “How can you be so calm?”

  This question hadn’t crossed Agnus until now. Why was she so calm? Was it because of her tranquil heartbeat? Even when Yevon’s sword was at her neck, her heart rate did not rise. Or maybe it was because for the past two years, her dreams often involved the Hero’s party. The real Agnus was waging war with the world and her skirmishes were sometimes intervened by the Hero.

  Agnus wouldn’t admit it out loud, but she definitely had a parasocial relationship with the Hero’s party. It wouldn’t be on the best terms when she saw them. She cheered for them nonetheless. The real Agnus was terrible.

  A yawn crept in for the hundredth time. Yevon’s heavy eyes were unbearable. The third day was usually her limit. The nights were serene and without a dose of adrenaline, her fatigue was overwhelming her. What was worse, or perhaps the best, was how she wasn’t compelled to keep her guard around the Demon King anymore. So she fumbled and made mistakes. She was only going to rest her eyes for a bit. And when her eyes closed, she leaned her head against the tree.

  By the time Agnus found a possible answer, Yevon was deep into her sleep. Almost like instinct, Agnus felt her body stiffened. She had to be extra sure that Yevon wouldn’t fall out of her slumber.