Natazia drifted in the void, seeking refuge in the cold, empty place where she tried to hide from him. In this desolate sanctuary, the agony of her wounds brushed against her awareness like pinpricks, the howls and the screams naught but faint whispers on the wind.


    In this space, time stretched into an eternity or contracted into a fleeting moment. Natazia didn’t want time to move forward. Backward, into the distant past, before him, back when things could be warm. Where once upon a time, a little girl with a shaved head danced by the fire, her spirit brighter than the flames. She heard the rhythm of Jaxton’s drum, the strumming of Zalver’s lute, Quanix’s gentle harp, and Xillia’s chilling voice. She sang along to her parents’ melody, her voice lifting with joy as she felt capable of anything. The memory faded, leaving a void even deeper than before.


    She remembered wanting to impress him, feeling proud that he had chosen her. He was charming, handsome, so powerful. She wanted to be his. Instead, that little girl full of life, eager to soar on dragon’s wings, was gone. Taken by Hatrox.


    His face emerged from the darkness, a specter that shattered her fragile sanctuary. Pain seeped through the cracks, dragging her back to his domain. Hatrox had found her again. He always would.


    Natazia screamed, another plea unheard among the thousands before. Her body convulsed, every nerve on fire as she fought against invisible chains. Champions with blind eyes, knights too afraid to fight, warriors too grateful it wasn’t them—they had all abandoned her to Hatrox. She was alone in his hell, marked by his brand, his words cutting even deeper than his blades. You belong to me.


    She couldn’t escape Hatrox; she never could. Nothingness became everything, and everything became Hatrox. The sound of his voice, cruelty masked as false tenderness, his overpowering musk, the taste of her own blood from his biting kiss, his dominating touch pressing her into submission again and again—the face of sculpted ice with the thinnest of smiles as he whispered, “You are nothing without me.”


    She couldn’t fight him anymore, just as he wanted. No amount of thrashing and screaming changed her fate. She would never be more than the frozen nothingness he made of that little girl dancing by the flames. Everything was cold and dark. She would never find her way back to the warmth and light of the fire.


    Fire seared her, burning away the numbness. Natazia jolted alert, her eyes wide, the afterimage of Hatrox lingering. She blinked him away, finding Lexyn kneeling in front of her, holding an empty syringe.


    Lexyn smiled at her. “Hi, Natazia.”


    They were inside the remaining tent. She vaguely recalled crawling into here, hiding from the fighting, from Hatrox. She knew the monsters were his doing. Coryza could command them, drive them feral, herd them. Hatrox wanted to make Zyryxa his newest doll. All he needed to do was break her away from Natazia but he wouldn’t kill Natazia directly. Too straightforward. It didn’t inflict enough pain for him. He needed Zyryxa to choose him, to take the first step for herself. Then when she was in his grasp, he’d be able to say it was her choice, her fault. That was how he worked. He never hurt you because it was fun to him. He hurt you because you caused it yourself. And you believed him.


    Hatrox destroyed people thoroughly, until they were nothing but empty husks. Until they were like her.


    Lexyn had been speaking, explaining what she was doing as she tended to Natazia’s wounds. Pain receded, after a sting from whatever ointments or poultices she applied. Lexyn draped a blanket around her. Even if it wasn’t just because she didn’t want to go to Riverwatch, even if Lexyn still cared, all Natazia felt was cold. She tried to go back to her sanctuary. Lexyn kept trying to warm that which couldn’t hold heat.


    “You’re going to be alright,” Lexyn said, gently holding Natazia’s hand. “We will only go up from here.”


    Natazia barely heard her. Hatrox would be back soon. Her body went rigid, her muscles froze, her mind so clouded she couldn’t think about anything but Hatrox. She hadn’t been alright in years. She never would be again. There was nowhere else to go. She was too tired to say anything though, so she let out a grunt, and tried to bury her mind before he came back.


    A sound snapped her into focus. A dragon. The dragon. She’d heard Coryza descending into Riverwatch a thousand times. Each time, the hairs standing on her neck, her flesh prickling with bumps, her heart pounding, not knowing whether he would greet her with a kiss or a fist. Dreading his ridicule while craving his praise.


    “It will be alright,” Lexyn said, foolishly.


    For one who’d suffered so much in her life, it was amazing Lexyn hadn’t lost that innocence yet. She would soon. Hatrox would claim it. The only thing he despised more than people who were inherently good was people who believed that others were inherently good. He would feast on Lexyn’s sweetness until she became a bitter shell of the kindhearted girl she was now. Natazia felt sorry for her. She did nothing to deserve this. But the world cared little for what people deserved. Hatrox cared even less.


    Natazia crumpled when the tent flap shifted. She balled up, trying to make herself small. Not like it made a difference. She just couldn’t stop trying to protect herself, even when she knew it was futile. Her body refused to die, even when her mind knew there was no reason to live.


    “I need you to stand with me,” Zyryxa said. “Once he leaves, we will get away from him. Whether we go back to Loxzua and lay low for awhile or head into the wilderness away from the next trial. We can lose him and start over again, never having to come as close to Riverwatch as we did to slay the qione.”


    Natazia laughed a laugh as empty as her soul. “Don’t you get it? There is no escaping him.”


    “I’m not giving up,” Zyryxa said. Natazia could feel her fury growing. Hatrox would either amplify that until she was as destructive as him or siphon it away until she was meek. “Do you want to die out here alone? Or do you want to survive together?”


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    She didn’t understand. She would soon though. Hatrox would never let them go, never leave them alone until he got what he wanted. And she doubted he’d ever wanted anything as bad as he’d want Zyryxa. Her pride, her prowess, her perfect beauty. There wasn’t another girl like her in Volqor. Hatrox needed to break her as much as he needed to breath.


    And Natazia couldn’t keep doing this. She needed it to end, either through death or through giving him what he wanted. If there was any part of her that still lived, it was the part that clung to survival. All she needed to do was pay the price of freedom. Or rather, Zyryxa did.


    “Don’t let him win,” Zyryxa said, urgently.


    The beating of Coryza’s wings made Natazia flinch just before the earth trembled from his touch. Natazia shook her head. “He already has.” She met Zyryxa’s angry gaze. “He won the moment he saw you. You just haven’t accepted it.”


    “Drakeshit,” Pelzyq spat. “You’re giving up.”


    He was right. But insanity was continuing to try to do something that could not be done. She couldn’t keep believing her story might have a happy ending but she could make it less miserable if he turned his eyes to his next victim.


    Lexyn knelt in front of her. “I know it must feel like you’re in Zamael’s Hells with the Dark Brother himself.”


    “You don’t know shit,” Natazia spat, turning away from her. “None of you do.” But you will soon.


    “And you can make sure we don’t ever know,” Zyryxa said.


    “And we can help you escape,” Lexyn added.


    “And someday kill the devil,” Pelzyq finished.


    Natazia shut down their compassion. They didn’t care about her. They just wanted to save themselves. She curled into a ball, trying to fade into the cold place where she felt nothing. But once she was done listening to them, there was nothing to keep away Hatrox and his power to seize her body, mind, and soul.


    His voice rang out with that same exaggerated joy that she knew so well, something sweet covering the sourest of tastes. His confidence and charm were sharper than any axe, and his words cut deeper than any weapon ever could. “And, at the end of the long night, our heroes live to see another sunrise! The monsters are dead! But what could have left them in heaps of blood but monsters themselves?”


    The atmosphere of the tent changed, and never had the night felt darker. Natazia didn’t glimpse Zyryxa, Lexyn, or Pelzyq, but felt their dread. They felt but a fraction of what she felt every day, every night, every divinedamned moment that she refused to die. There was nothing she could do to help them now. All she could do was free herself and live in his shadow until the day she finally died.


    “I wonder who did all this killing?” Hatrox asked. Her mind could see his smirk, could anticipate his next words. “I know it wasn’t Natazia!”


    Natazia heard the tent flap open. Her body seized, bracing for the pain.


    “Go away,” Zyryxa said, meeting him outside. “You tried to break us. You failed.”


    Natazia didn’t need to see him. His mouth would open, his expression of boundless amusement, then that sharp, cutting laugh before he called you to question just how wrong you were.


    It came. A delayed laugh full of mirth. “Did I?”


    No, Natazia thought. He never does. He always wins.


    “Yes,” Zyryxa said, playing right into him. “We are triumphant. Throw a thousand monsters at us and we will slay them all.”


    “Together?”


    “Together,” Zyryxa said, firm as a true champion. For now.


    “Where are your valiant companions, Zyryxa? Where is the great Natazia?”


    “They are fine. She is fine.”


    The laugh, that laugh that tore into your soul. Zyryxa would know that laugh well soon, know to shut her mouth and stop feeding the monster. “Natazia is fine? Natazia?” He laughed. “Not only powerful, but hilarious too.”


    “Leave. Now.”


    She knew he would get right into her face. His voice would go low and cold as he withered her confidence with his glare. “I will leave—”


    “Good—”


    “No sooner than you show me how fine your brood is. Until then, it is my noble duty to advise the dragon warriors in my domain.”


    Silence. Natazia tried to imagine Zyryxa’s distress, but she was too far gone from days of being confident, of believing she was good enough to handle this world no matter what it threw at her. Hatrox would be smirking though, pushing her right into his grasp.


    “Everyone,” Zyryxa said, nervously, “come on out and show the dragon knight we don’t need his advisement.”


    “Come on,” Pelzyq said, grabbing at Natazia.


    She slapped him away, pushing herself into the tent wall opposite the flap.


    “Please,” Lexyn said.


    Natazia shook. She shook everywhere but the only shaking she controlled was the rapid jerking of her head.


    Sighing, Pelzyq grabbed her. She tried to fight him off, clawing at his face, drawing blood. He was relentless and she was tired. Even like a cornered, dying animal, she couldn’t overcome superior power. Distantly, she was aware of her own screams as he carried her into the night.


    Hatrox’s glee penetrated her terror, like he’d penetrated her so many times in so many ways. “I see! Natazia looks great!”


    “She’s only like this because of you,” Zyryxa snapped. “Everything was fine until you showed up.”


    “You’re right, Zyryxa. It’s my fault that your brood leader cannot handle being in command of someone so much better than her. It’s my fault that she refuses to face me. My fault that even when I’m not around, she hides and lets her betters fight for her. My fault that she broke all of her spears, that she is unarmed and dependent on you to keep her alive.”


    That was it! In her panic, Natazia seized upon the solution. Zyryxa and the others would never abandon her unless she did something they wouldn’t be able to tolerate. “Let me down,” she said, feeling a sudden peace bloom within her.


    Pelzyq obliged.


    “Tell him, Natazia,” Zyryxa said. “Tell him that we are together, that we will conduct the Rite of the Dragon Knight. Tell him that you are in command and that he needs to leave.”


    Natazia’s heart drummed, even as she felt her soul go cold. There was one thing Zyryxa’s pride would never give up, one thing that would get her to break the brood. She just had to say the words, then her suffering would be at an end. Still, it was hard, hard to send someone who saved your life to the place where her life would end, even if she too refused to die. But, in the end, all that was left of her was the part that clung to survival. And she couldn’t survive anymore of this.


    “I command you give me your axe.”