Markus

  I relax on a recliner in my living room. I sip at a glass of wine and watch the obsidian portal beyond my window. I truly didn’t expect the actual Lillith to waltz into my arena. It would be a ballsy move and if that’s what happened I respect her for it. I’ll admit, I didn’t suspect her at all when she first arrived. Before today, I didn’t expect she was a real person at all. Even now I remain skeptical. Rowan has always said whatever he needed to in the moment to get what he wanted. Promises, threats, jokes, even a poem once. ‘Lillith’ as the queen of demons is very obviously a story some sage brought with them from Earth a thousand years ago. For wish fulfilment, or something along those lines. It’s not the only story that has traveled; I’ve found references to tales suspiciously similar to ‘Cinderella’ or ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. The kinds of stories everyone knows.

  The concept of a demon queen named Lillith has always seemed like one of those to me. I’m not alone in that. Any sage who recognizes the name from Earth would say the same. As a prophecy it has only ever been taken seriously by the locals. Us sages all assumed whoever brought the story over presented it as fact. And when a man with godlike powers says something is true, that’s what goes in the history books. When the Void Sage announced his bid for Minister this year, he dug up those old stories and started stoking the fears of the public. It was silly but that man always is. And, well, when a man with godlike powers says something is true . . .

  It never bothered most of us. We have long lives in this world; elections for Minister, or Councilman, or whatever other position are a fairly low stakes game in the grand scheme of things. Yeah we’ll still compete with him, or at least some of us will. But it’s honestly easier to lose from time to time. No one wants to run everything all the time anyway. We’ll all survive five years until the next game. And if we can’t we’ll go compete in the Council Lands. They have more positions open. Rowan has been especially eager to win this time for some reason, and we’ve been more or less okay with letting him. It’s clearly more important to him than us, and we never considered it likely he was actually going to try and enlist everyone in some kind of demonic defense army. That’s just a thing he said to rile people up. To get attention.

  His grief initiative has been a success, more or less. The people have been far less rowdy the last decade or so since he introduced it. It used to be exclusive to Guardians of Stone but the countrywide use went so well the Council adopted it themselves. People have just been easier to direct. When he told us the real reason was to fight the demon queen we all laughed. I thought it was an honest-to-god joke. We eased people away from their grief, a little at a time so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious what was happening. They don’t really know what’s been taken from them, so privately tying his excuse to a fairy tale didn’t seem to have much purpose outside of humor. He even laughed with us when we responded that way.

  Until my new gladiator showed up. A face for his stories, and in my control. An obvious persona. Or so I thought. But today . . . today the Original Sage interfered. The Original Sage broke a centuries old agreement to fix a petty fight in my arena and kill a single girl. It wasn’t until I called the other sages for help that we managed to put the pieces together. I don’t know what the Original Sage’s game is, but he’s got some kind of vendetta against this girl. He’s the one who has Rowan in a fuss, throwing her name all over the place and spreading all sorts of new stories about her.

  Rowan must have been talking to the Original Sage this entire time. Getting all these little tidbits from him. Or maybe not. I’m not sure. Cordelia, or Lillith as the case may be, didn’t really seem to mind the pears. Maybe Rowan made that one up. This girl must be who they have been preparing for either way. I think Rowan might actually believe everything he says about her. The push to suppress grief specifically instead of some other emotion makes a strange sort of sense in that case. She did use mana despite her restraints, which is interesting. Not an unprecedented ability but never one that could be used without either being a sage or working directly with one. It’s my understanding the method to acquire such an ability is lethal without the Nexus.

  Few sages bother with mana, it’s the poor man’s magic, used mostly by those with no access to the superior Nexus energy. Except for two notable sages. The Void and the Original both use mana. She is tied to them somehow. Perhaps she was meant to be a pawn and the Void and Original had a falling out on some plan? But then why suppress grief, if she supposedly uses it as a powerful aspect? I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter though. What matters is Rowan seems legitimately worried about the girl, in one way or another. Which means he might actually follow through on his crazy plans. And we can’t have that, which means we can no longer let him win the ‘Minister’ game. It would be too much of a headache.

  Fortunately, she came to me. Whoever she is, I can use her. And her ability. I just have to push her to use it even more obviously. With effects that can be seen even by the mundane. I need to broadcast the fight to entertainment centers around the country. With my allies here, she won’t escape and the Original Sage won’t be able to interfere. I can stack things against her enough that she needs to fight with magic. It’ll be easy. And it’ll be proof, as far as the masses are concerned, that she is in fact the Demon Queen Lillith. She wears the name, the strange powers, and obviously the body modifications of a cultist. There will be no doubt of who she is. It doesn’t matter if she’s a real prophecy come to life or a patsy. I will make her real in the eyes of the people.

  Then I will crush her.

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  Maybe she’ll die in the fight. The bleeding heart will feel connected to Riley after a week sharing a cell. She won’t be willing to kill her opponent. And, considering everything else I have planned, she may just fail anyway. There is a good chance Riley wins and Lillith dies then and there. That would be poetic in a way, considering Riley and Rowan’s history. But I think it’s more likely Lillith will win. She’ll win and refuse to kill Riley, and force me to enter the arena. Then I will kill her myself, in front of the whole damn world. It’ll be too easy. Rowan built his whole campaign on preparing for this foreign invader, here to kill and destroy and rule. How he would protect his people. Fight for them. Keep them safe.

  And I will kill her instead. He’ll collapse, and I’ll become Minister. He’ll be angry for a while, but that’s what he gets for upsetting the balance. Siding with the Original Sage? Is he insane? He’ll get us all killed, or worse. Luck was on our side this time, however. One more week and we’ll set things straight. Maybe head back to the local relay and slowly switch things up. My arena just doesn’t hit as hard without grief. We can take something else to subdue the people. I’m not sure what will work best but I have time. Easing them back into grief will take a few years anyway.

  Thank you so much, Lillith, for coming here first. I don’t know why you have two sages circling you, but your life ends in a week. And I am so, so grateful for your sacrifice.

  ???

  I was born of two mothers. Well, mothers of a sort. I came into this world bright-eyed and curious. Not from some other world, like most of the sages. Earth, they call it. Not from the water of the womb either. I am nothing so mundane. I am the child of two mothers. Two energies who swam through the universe, painting it wherever they touched. One of them was powerful and kind. She could look through a thousand windows at a thousand possibilities and bend the world around her to match. She had no name, but I eventually offered ‘Mirage’, years after my birth.

  The second was vibrant and empathetic and full of life. She loved new ideas and experiences. She wanted to see and feel everything that could be reached. To her I gave the name ‘Manara’. Where Mirage would change the world to match her vision, Manara would change herself to match the world. Together they were endlessly entertained and full of joy. They were unbridled and boundless. I was born of a vision Mirage had, of a world with a million brilliant and fierce people. Manara wanted to meet these people as well, and the two combined their abilities, as they had so often done, to realize me.

  It was creation like a song. I was created by joy in its purest form. So I was joyful as well. The three of us lived together, alone, for years. And years, and years, and years, and . . .

  I was not Mirage, able to take the whole universe in with eyes made of stars. And I was not Manara, able to feel and live every movement of the wind. All of my joy was joy they shared with me. Raw emotion they offered directly to me, like the air and the fruit. And I reveled in it, but . . . joy is like fire. It’s bright and warm but it needs fuel to burn. Their joy was not my joy. I wanted my own, something that was mine alone, and they wanted that for me. We never spoke, none of us knew how yet, but we all understood. Our emotions were shared. Offered freely and accepted. Where I took their joy, they took my loneliness.

  It wasn’t an emotion they understood, but they wanted to help. So Mirage watched the worlds around her. She watched the lives, glowing and dying like embers. And she touched them. One, then ten, then thousands. And Manara understood them. She empathized with them, bringing their very essence into our lonely world and realizing them again. None of them remembered who they had been, in other lives. None of them needed to. They were still who they were, but with a newer and brighter future. And I wasn’t alone anymore. I danced and I sang and I learned about new arts, like painting and language. And I felt my own joy.

  For a while, I shared it with Mirage and Manara. I took theirs and they took mine and the loneliness was gone. For a while. But I discovered a new emotion. These new people, with souls of art and flame, my mothers loved them too. Mirage offered them new lives. New bodies. New species and names and homes. And each time she did they felt further away from me. No longer did they share my shape. No longer did they share my understanding. They wanted to abuse Mirage. To manipulate her and reject her designs and ideas. They wanted to make their own instead, and the loneliness started to return.

  Manara too, loved them. She offered herself to all of them. She learned their writing, and offered her own. But her too, they abused. Using the language she created with them to change her. To warp her and control her. And she gave herself freely, complying with all of their ideas. Adopting the experiences they wanted for her, and not the ones she chose herself. And I felt jealousy. I didn’t share that with my mothers. I loved them first. I shared with them first. And I accepted their designs! I experienced what they wanted to experience! I was their world and they were mine and we were all grateful. But these people . . . these creatures . . . they weren’t grateful. They just wanted to use. I felt rage. I didn’t share that with my mothers.

  Mirage and Manara should have refused. They should have said no. They should have spat in the ungrateful faces of their other children. Mirage should have locked their forms in place. Should have held them in front of a mirror and screamed that she had created them with love. To reject that creation? To throw that gift back and demand something else, something they wanted more? What was that if not hate? Manara should have refused them. She should have recoiled from the words they wrote in her language. She should have left them alone and barren, never seeing or hearing her again. To take her and design her in their own image instead of the other way around. What was that if not hate? I felt resentment. I didn’t share that with my mothers.

  If I had my mothers’ abilities, I would not have stood for the disrespect. The hate. The loathing that their children’s actions implied. No. I would remove the offenders from this world. Or I would rule them and make them understand what they had done. I felt pride. I didn’t share that with my mothers.

  I was determined to convince them to change. To make them understand how much my siblings hated them and reject them in turn. But when I finally gathered the courage to confront Mirage and help her see the truth . . . she didn’t understand me. We couldn’t feel what the other felt anymore. We had lost the only language we both knew. I didn’t know her, she didn’t know me, and all we shared was silence.