One hour.
One hour to defeat a demon, navigate a maze, and escape a city.
I had no time to contemplate the options. I made Acad charge at the monstrous stomach in the center of the room. It writhed and slithered back toward the crowd of people pressed against the wall, and I wasn’t fast enough.
It swallowed another person whole. People screamed and scattered in its wake.
“Stay together!” I swung at the monster, but it swam through the air above out of my reach. “I can’t protect you all if you’re spread out!”
But of course, no one but Malinda and Acad could hear me. Malinda did not translate. She was curled up against the wall, trying her best not to draw attention to herself amidst the screams around her.
As for Acad…Acad was laughing.
“What could possibly amuse you in this scenario?”
“You waste your time flailing me about. Even if you get these people past Aztomag now, they are marked, promised sacrifices sold for passage through her Hellgate. She will never stop hunting them until she has her due.”
I cursed Deathsinger Zasha. The Brinn were secondary, I decided. I was going to kill every single treacherous spellsinger who had used that blasted Hellgate. I was already responsible for my own order’s extinction. What were a few more?
But that was an objective for when Malinda was safe
“Is there any way to stop it?”
“I do not take kindly to being denied.” The voice was a rumble that shook the walls. Her laughter was even worse. “Little Brother Tooth.” A chill ran up my blade. I didn’t like that name in a demon’s voice.
Malinda liked it even less. She straightened from where she had been hiding. “I named him that! Come up with your own names!”
To my horror, Aztomag turned her attention to Malinda. “Zaukket’s Scraps, I shall call you. You will taste sweet even as incomplete as you are.”
“You will not touch her!” I roared. I threw Acad in front of her just as the demon struck, fast as a snake.
I was faster.
My edge collided with her maw, and she reeled back with a roar. “You dare!”
Now all her attention was on me. She struck, again and again, faster than a human could defend. Acad’s natural reflexes couldn’t keep up, and I barely could. Slowly we were pushed out of the stone room and back into the palace proper.
Away from the people I sought to protect. Away from Malinda. But there was nothing I could do to prevent it. Facing a demon was nothing like fighting a swordsman. Against another sword, I knew every step to every dance.
But here and now, I was dancing to someone else’s song. Aztomag could strike from any angle and squirm out of every riposte. She could fly out of my reach. She threatened to strangle and constrict and swallow whole.
And I was just a sharp sword.
Our battle took us from wondrous room to wondrous room, and the palace was devastated in our wake. Porcelain shattered, murals cracked and upholstered furniture smashed as we traded blow after blow.
It was all I could to keep Acad standing, ungrateful as he was for the attempt. “I bet you’re wishing we were just slaying Brinn now.”
“Silence yourself if you won’t say something useful.”
There was a crash. The silencing of a great song resounded through the halls of the palace and made Aztomag and I both pause in our duel. As the last echo of the music died, never to be heard again, I recognized what it had once been.
The front door of the palace. I heard thunderous footsteps as hordes of soldiers swarmed into the palace. “You had to wish for more Brinn.”
They would find this room any moment; I was out of time.
I looked to Aztomag. It may have been wishful thinking, but I thought she looked tired.“Listen, we don’t have to do this.”
“23 more meals I was promised,” she rasped. “I do not give passage for free.”
“Why can’t you feed on the approaching army? There’s way more than 23 of them to choose from.”
“I require sacrifice. Their deaths are no loss to you.”
“That’s…” Inspiration struck. “That’s not true at all. I was going to devour them myself. You would be denying me meals that would have been mine.”
She tilted her maw thoughtfully. “I do so rarely get to taste Brinn. Their precious angel tends to hoard their lives for herself and Heaven. Are they tasty?”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Delicious,” I said honestly. I hated to admit it to myself, but I did crave the memory and vitality I consumed from everyone I had slain. Desperately. No doubt my father had made me so.
“You feed on life like a demon?” Confusion morphed into amusement. “Oh! I see!” She cackled. “The Datreans are brazen to make something as unholy as you. Such magnificence right as they fall.” She leaned in close. “Are you willing then, little tooth, to sacrifice the feast from 23 of your meals?”
“So long as you unmark those that the Council of Songs sacrificed, and promise to hunt them no longer. Yes. You may feed from my kills. 23 lives.”
“I agree to this bargain.”
“I cannot believe you managed to pull that off.” Acad actually sounded impressed.
I didn’t relax. Somehow, I could tell Aztomag was smiling. “You realize you will have to defeat them without killing them. If you just slay them outright, you will take their life and not me.”
“Aren’t you going to help?”
She laughed. “The only reason I agreed is because I’m tired.” Suddenly, Aztomag began to shrink, smaller and smaller until she was the size of a little snake. She wrapped herself around my hilt, coiling around Acad’s grip. We both shuddered as one. She was slimy and revolting to the touch. “I will be happy to enjoy the fruits of all your hard work.”
The Brinn swarmed into the room and Acad turned to face them. I had to defeat 23 people without going for the kill.
Alone.
As fast as I could.
There was only 50 minutes left.
Acad backed up into a doorway. The only way I would defeat 23 Brinn soldiers without killing them was if I faced them one-on-one.
The first to come was as tall and wild-haired as the rest. His bare neck was tempting, but cutting off the head was out of the question. I drew on all my knowledge of their strange scale armor. The key was to cripple my opponent so utterly that Aztomag, would be bothered to uncurl herself from my hilt and finish the job.
The Brinn swung his red fang blade at Acad. He was sloppy. I saw an opening to kill him that I was forced to ignore. I instead parried, letting the red fang grate against my edge. I defended, again and again, waiting for an opening to maim. It was too passive for my liking. More soldiers were pushing forward and if I waited any longer I would be overwhelmed.
I would have to make my opening.
I parried again, but this time, I locked myself with the fang. It was made from a dead thing, static and long defeated and breakable.
I cut through the cross guard, letting me slice off the hand at the wrist. He screamed and tried to withdraw, but I swung again. Time seemed to slow as Astomag snaked up my blade to strike him through the heart just as I touched him.
He died, and for the first time, no life force went to me.
“One,” I heard Aztamog count.
Ah. So this was how this was going to work.
Three more came.
“Four.” Aztomag’s count rang through the palace, unnerving the Brinn, for they did not know what it meant.
It did not unnerve them enough to stop coming for me.
“Seven.”
Each exchange became a symphony of blows that would not immediately kill. I crippled vital appendages and punctured non-vital organs.
“Twelve.”
All the while, Aztomag would strike the moment they retreated, so fast no one but I could see.
“Fourteen.”
Red tendrils would leave their bodies, but they would go to her, stealing the life that would have been mine.
“Fifteen.”
Acad rushed backward to avoid being overrun, going from palace room to palace room, taking a stand at each doorway before backing up further.
“Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen.”
At the nineteenth kill, Acad backed up into a room where my crowd of survivors were hiding. It was not the room with the entrance to The Maze of Stone and therefore not where they were supposed to be. The Death Circle would activate in 45 minutes. They needed to be escaping.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Acad roared, helpfully voicing what I very much wanted to shout.
“Nisha went into the Maze,” a man from the crowd said, “and then we heard her screaming about turning to stone.”
“Then she stopped screaming,” Malinda whispered. “And everyone started running.”
Acad scoffed. “It’s just as I said, sword.” He swung me at the Brinn in the doorway. “The maze is useless without a Stonesinger to navigate it.”
“Twenty.” Aztomag suddenly added, “I know how to navigate the Maze.”
“You do?”
“Of course. I was there when it was made.”
“Would you tell us?”
“Not for free.”
“What do you want?”
“A way forward in exchange for your way forward. It is not every day one gets to steal life that belongs to the First Deathsinger. I want the life of the body you wield.
“Acad?” I tried not to laugh. “That’s all? Deal.”
Acad spat. “Backstab—”
“Backstabbing?” I roared. “You helped the Hellgate knowing what it would cost and you dare speak to me about backstabbing? This is justice, as far as I’m concerned.”
“ Bastard swo—” Aztomag struck Acad in the heart and I let it happen.
As much as I detested Acad, the pain of our separation was just as terrible as every time before, worse even as now I could feel my wielder’s life be ripped away from me and drawn into the maw of a demon.
But this time I was given something in exchange. Aztomag opened her maw not just to devour but to sing.
Suddenly, I knew the Maze of Stone; I knew it as if I had created it myself, but of course, I did. Aztomag was singing me the song of its creation.
It was beautiful and glorious and so simple.
Acad crumbled to the ground and I with him. I barely noticed my fall. This was perfect. We would make it out in time. Now that I could see it so clearly, we only needed half an hour. We could make it if we hurried.
All that needed to happen was for one of them to pick me up and I could lead them all out.
But the hand that grabbed my hilt first was not Datrean, and all my happiness turned to horror.
The Brinn had reached me first.
Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate all the support I have gotten during the transition to move this story to Royal Road. Do tell me what you think! I love comments and often respond to them
I will be posting a chapter every day until July 30, 2025. Make sure to follow the story and come back to read more!
Would you make a deal with Aztomag?
