Lucian stepped back—one slow foot behind the other, like a man trying not to wake a god in the heart of a nightmare.
"I told you…" His voice barely held. "You need to control it."
He glanced behind him—
There wasn't a man anymore. Not really. Just a ruin of flesh and splintered bone, twisted into something no sane mind could process. One eye stared blankly upward. The other… was gone. Not torn or bloodied, just absent, as if something had devoured it from the world itself.
Blood painted the forest floor in spirals—elegant, looping, ancient. Symbols that no hand could have drawn. They pulsed faintly, like they breathed.
And Kitana hadn't moved. Hadn't even blinked. Stillness more terrifying than any scream.
Then—she was gone. No one saw her move.
She was simply there, upon the next man, her hand clamped tight around his throat before his scream could rise.
Lucian didn't speak again. But Moira did.
"Stop!"
Her voice split the air like lightning cracking open the storm. Kitana flinched. Just a twitch—but it was enough. Her head turned slightly, cocked like an animal caught mid-feast.
Moira stood frozen, her veil fluttering. Her eyes held a fragile mix of terror and desperate hope.
"Do you truly want to kill him?" she asked, voice trembling.
Silence. Heavy. Electric.
Kitana tilted her head—and smiled. Not the smile of a woman.
The smile of a devil remembering joy.
"Yes," she said sweetly, like the word was candy on her tongue.
Before a breath could be drawn, she placed her other hand atop the man's and ripped his head from his body. Lucian didn't move.
He just watched.
Watched the man claw helplessly at her arm—that arm. The right one. No longer human. Jagged. Dark. Veins glowing like molten cracks in the earth, red sigils dancing along her flesh as if savoring the life they consumed.
She moved again. Slower this time. Like a beast savoring its kill, stalking the next.
Then Lucian said it. Quietly. Sharply. Like a dagger to her memory.
"And if Arlo saw you…, what would he say?"
She froze.
A shiver trembled up her left side—almost too faint to see. Her human hand curled into a fist. Nails bit into flesh.
The red symbols on her shoulder flickered—just once. Dimmed.
Moira stepped forward.
"Kitana…" Her voice was softer now, aching. "Will you let that side take over? Will you let it devour the part of you that still remembers him?"
Kitana's lips parted. Her breath came unsteady. But her right hand clenched. And without more effort than crushing some fruit, she ripped again. The man's scream died in his throat. His head came free with a wet snap, spine trailing behind like a severed leash. The body dropped. The head hit the dirt with a dull thud.
Lucian's voice broke again.
"Kitana, please—this isn't you. Not yet."
Her eyes flicked to him. Just for a second.
"You think I don't know that?" she whispered.
Her voice had changed. Layered. Hers—and beneath it, something ancient.
"She died," Kitana said. "In the chains. This…"
She raised her demon hand. Blood dripped from the clawed tips.
"…This is what was left."
The red returned. Crawling like fire up her neck. Her horn gleamed under the dim sky, a shard of the abyss.
The human part of her began to burn away—eaten slowly by the demon beneath.
She took a step—but stopped. Her feet wouldn't move.
Moira, still breathing hard, whispered, "You stopped."
Kitana fell to her knees. The demon side flickered retreating, shrinking. She looked at her hands.
Then at the bodies. "No…"
Kitana couldn't look away from the bodies. From her hands. Blood soaked her fingertips. Not dry. Not old. Still warm.
The forest had gone silent. Even the wind seemed to fear her now. She dropped her hands to her lap and stared at them, shaking. The strength that had possessed her seconds ago had vanished, leaving behind only a hollow ache—a chasm inside her chest that stretched far too wide.
"I'm…" Her voice cracked. "What am I?"
She didn't hear Lucian step forward, but she felt it when he knelt in front of her. His shadow fell over hers, long and steady in the dim light. She looked up.
And when her eyes met his—soft, patient, unbearably kind—something inside her broke. Her hands reached for him before her mind could stop them. She threw herself into his chest, sobbing. Ugly, shaking sobs that wracked her whole frame.
"I don't know what I've become," she cried. "I don't know who I am anymore…"
Lucian wrapped his arms around her. Not tightly. Just enough.
I'm a monster," she whispered.
"No," he said softly. "You're lost. That's all. We'll bring you back."
Behind them, Moira tilted her head slowly. Her veil shifted, as if stirred by something more than wind. She felt it. A tug in the threads of the world. A presence she couldn't name. But she said nothing. Lucian pulled back just enough to look Kitana in the eyes. "I'll help you learn to control it."
Kitana blinked through her tears. "How would you even know how to control demonic powers?"
Lucian hesitated—but only a second. "I've fought enough demons to know how they work."
Moira stepped closer. Her voice came quiet and sharp. "And how do you plan on helping her?"
Lucian looked at her. Then back at Kitana. "I don't know," he admitted. "But we'll figure it out."
He shifted to sit beside Kitana and gestured for her to do the same. "Start here. Sit. Ground yourself."
Kitana furrowed her brow but obeyed, sinking cross-legged into the forest floor. Lucian's voice softened, almost reverent. "Feel what's around you. The life beneath your skin. Beneath the dirt. Everything is connected. Breathe with it."
Kitana closed her eyes. Moira crossed her arms. "You're asking her to feed from the earth like a leech."
Lucian didn't look away from Kitana. He reached out, brushing a blood-matted strand of hair from her face "But do you want to look like that?" he asked gently.
Kitana flinched. She didn't answer. She sank to the ground without another word, folding her legs beneath her, her hands trembling as they hovered just above the dirt. Ash stained her fingertips. Her right arm—still monstrous and gleaming with thin red lines pulsing in time with something unnatural—twitched with hunger. She pressed her palm to the soil.
Nothing.
Fellspar was dead. That much was obvious. Its trees were blackened husks, and its grass long devoured by flame and rot. Even the insects avoided this place. It reeked of memory and grave-dust. "I don't feel anything," she whispered. Her voice shook. "It's empty. Hollow."
"Go deeper," Lucian murmured from behind her. "Life isn't always green. It's not always warm. Sometimes it's buried. Sometimes it hides."
Kitana closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose, slow and full and she searched. She reached with something beyond her body—beyond muscle or thought. Her mind stretched down, through the cold layer of ash, through tangled, lifeless roots. She went past the bones, past the scorched rock, past the forgotten remnants of buildings sunken into the earth.
Deeper and Deeper
And then—
A thrum. A single pulse. Faint. Cold. Like a heart long unused, flickering to life.
Her breath caught. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. Not soft. Not kind. This wasn't the kind of life that sang with bird calls or blossomed in spring. This life was buried in pain. In decay. It had endured rather than flourished. The very soul of Fellspar trembled below her like a wounded beast that had stopped screaming long ago.
But it was still alive. A tear traced down her cheek. "Good," Lucian whispered. "Now… feed."
At first, she hesitated.
Feed?
The word tasted vile. Like a monster's command. But some part of her—a part she had tried to kill—understood. That was what her kind did. Demons didn't ask. They took. So she opened the gate inside her. The only way for it to go away was to be fed. The moment she did, power bled into her like wine into a thirsty mouth. It flooded her limbs, cold and metallic. Her hand burrowed into the earth without moving. Her monstrous veins drank from the land's hidden life, each symbol along her arm lighting up like embers.
But then the earth resisted.
A sudden pressure crashed into her like a wave. The dirt under her hands writhed. The connection trembled and bent, and something vast and ancient beneath the ground recoiled from her. The land remembered demons. It had been scarred by them before. Fellspar didn't want her inside it. The life she had touched twisted like a worm on a hook, trying to flee her grasp. Kitana cried out. Her back arched as if invisible hands tried to tear her away. Moira took a step forward, face tense. "She's hurting it."
Lucian didn't move. His eyes were locked on Kitana. "No. It's just trying to survive. She has to show that she wants to survive too."
Kitana gritted her teeth. Her left, human hand clawed into the dirt as if to anchor herself.
"I can't—" she gasped.
"You can," Lucian said firmly. He stepped closer, his voice like a tether. "This power is yours. Make it listen."
Kitana slammed her eyes shut and dug deeper. Her mind pierced the resistance like a blade. She forced the connection. Not with anger, not with hatred—but with sheer, unbearable will. She bared her grief, her pain, her guilt, and let the land see her.
And the land… relented.
A low hum rose beneath her. Her demonic arm glowed like a lantern underwater. The markings along her flesh shimmered—then began to retreat. Faintly, slowly, they dimmed like dying coals. Her right side, once monstrous and jagged, smoothed. The veins of red light receded beneath pale skin. Even her horns dulled to a dark ivory, barely visible beneath her hair.
The transformation held.
For now.
Kitana gasped—then breathed again. Her body sagged forward, her hands still clutching the dirt like lifelines. Her heart pounded, but the hunger… was quiet. It had fed. Not on blood. But on life. She opened her eyes slowly. The world around her looked different—sharper, more vivid. Not beautiful. Not joyful. But grounded. Steady.
"Now what?" she asked, voice raw.
Lucian crouched beside her.
"Now… you remember this. You hold onto it. This is balance."
Kitana looked down at her hands—human again. She flexed her fingers, hesitant. Still trembling. Still hers.
Moira stood behind them, watching quietly. Her veil fluttered again, and her expression—though hidden—seemed distant. She wasn't watching Kitana. She was watching Lucian. But she said nothing.