"I do so like watching siblings trying to kill each other. It's nearly as funny as when one baby birdie pushes another out of the nest. The sound of those little bodies bouncing off the floor… classic. I'm just an old minion with simple tastes at heart."

Gnarl



"No."

Eleanore frowned, snowflakes whirling around her. "I beg your pardon, Louise. What did you just say?"

Louise jutted out her chin. "I said 'No'. Or are you as deaf as you are mean?"

Silence reigned for a few seconds. Even the minions seemed shocked, or possibly confused.

"You might want to reconsider your words, little sister?" Eleanore said, her tone flat. "Let's be honest here; you know you can't beat me. You're a mess, while I'm nearly fresh. Do you think your rather pathetic pack of minions will help you? I've killed hundreds of minions over the years." She paused. "Literally. Hundreds."

"And I said 'No'."

Eleanore gritted her teeth. "I am trying to save your stupid life here," she said, voice tight. "I am giving you a way out. You little idiot."

Louise took a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain in her back. "I don't understand how you worked out it was me," she said. She had to play for time. A little more time, and she could distract her sister or –

"A transparent attempt to play for time," Eleanore said.

Louise's shoulders slumped. "Oh, come on," she said bitterly. "It's not like you to pass over the chance to lecture me and show off how clever you are."

"I know you're trying to play me," Eleanore answered, looking down her nose at her sister. "Even if you're right. I do know what's going on better than you. You're my silly little sister who doesn't even know a fraction of the power in her heritage. Your entire plan was half-arsed, pardon my Gallian. You completely failed at disguising yourself. I mean, give me even a smidgeon of credit. There's a short overlady with a boyish figure—"

"Not boyish," Louise muttered, trying not to blush and failing.

"Oh no, I'm sorry, it's not boyish. Boys aren't so pathetically weak." Eleanore leaned in, red moonlight glinting off her spectacles. "I'm amazed you can even walk around in that armour you're so fond of with your stick-thin arms and legs."

"Oh, bravo!" Louise flared back, gripping onto her staff tight. The anger was at least helping to burn through the fear – and the aching pain of her fight against a dark goddess, too. "You made fun of the fact I'm skinny. All that brain and that's the best you could come up with."

"Aww, diddums. Did I make you mad? Did I make you angry? Are you going to throw a tantrum?" Eleanore said, a thin smirk on her lips. "Perhaps you're going to throw yourself to the floor and start wailing. It wouldn't be the first time."

Her golden tamarin chittered at her, the intonation making no attempt to disguise its intent.

"Quite so, Ozymandias," Eleanore said. "As he said, are you going to accept my kindness, or am I going to have to take you out – one way or another?"

The click of a flintlock's flint being drawn back was surprisingly loud in the night-time city. It came from directly behind Eleanore.

Char was looking more than a little dented from his death-by-Baelogji and subsequent resurrection. Nevertheless, she may have broken his body, but the body had served to protect his musket from the impact. It was now reloaded and pointed at Eleanore's head. "Ha! We is minions! We has no got kindness and we ain't asking for no kindness from you. But I got a gun and it are pointed at your head! We has won! All of minion will know of the Redvolution, and me, Char Marks, leader of the—"

Eleanore's wand twitched. "Crush," she said softly, without even turning to face him. Two paving tiles slammed together, reducing Char to the approximate consistency, thickness and shape of a pancake. "Buck," she added, flicking her wand again. The stone floor in front of Louise flipped up, throwing the minions standing on it into the canal.

Louise swallowed.

"Would you look at that? Minions can't swim." She nodded back to the remains of Char. "And that will be you if you don't take the sensible option," Eleanore said softly. "You'll be that flat." She looked down her nose at her little sister. "You might think that this won't change much, but trust me, it will."

All the insults, all the patronising comments, all the petty cruelties from her big sister built up. And somewhere behind Louise's eyeballs a dam broke.

"Fireball!" she roared, left-hand rising to point at Eleanore's head.

"Shielding flame!" Eleanore snapped as her wand flicked into the perfect defence to counter a thrown fireball.

Unfortunately for her, what Louise had used was not a classic fireball, and neither was it one of her newly learned magics. It was instead one of her old, malformed, miscast spells. And so rather than a ball of abyssal flame rushing into her perfect guard to be deflected, instead a concussive blast knocked Eleanore back into a snow drift.

And her glasses, Louise's true target, went flying. They hit the ground, and cracked. Eleanore's golden lion tamarin familiar lunged for them, but a second fireball – this time truly cast through the evil of her magic – melted the brass into a puddle on bare, steaming flagstones. The familiar flinched away, chattering at Louise in a bestial tongue that nevertheless sounded utterly filthy.

"You cast a fireball at my head!" Eleanore screamed, flat on her back.

"Not a burning one! Just one of the 'failures' you used to make fun of!"

"You cast. A fireball. At my head," Eleanore said, face very red. "Oh, that is it! No more Mademoiselle Nice Sister!"

"You're never nice!"

"Not the point! You're going to pay for that!"

"And how are you going to do that? You're as blind as a bat without your glasses!" Louise said, lips parted in an adrenaline snarl. "Don't think I haven't seen you walk into mirrors you thought were hallways!"

Soot-blackened, blonde hair frizzled, Eleanore pulled herself out of the snow pile. Squinting, she glared in Louise's vague direction. "That's because you used to hide them, you brat!" she snapped back.

"Yes! Yes I did! And now I'm going to give you a hiding!"

"Oh, bravo! A little bit of repartee from a crybaby!" Eleanore took a deep breath, every motion indicating barely suppressed rage. "So. Just because you happened to inherit mother's eyesight, you think you have the upper hand?"

Louise didn't reply, silently pacing around her sister.

"You're clever enough to keep quiet so I can't track you by sound?" Eleanore asked. Despite her rage, the corners of her mouth curled up. "Well, you're less stupid than the last person who thought to destroy my glasses. Whatever will I do?"

A twinge of fear squirmed in Louise's gut, fighting against the more-than-a-twinge of pain coming from her back. No one should sound that smug when they were effectively blind. It might just be that Eleanore was trying to psyche her out, but somehow she doubted that. Her big sister always had a plan – and right now, that was something Louise lacked. She didn't have an end goal right now. She didn't want to kill her sister, but she wasn't so sure that her sister was willing to return the same favour.

A chittering drew her attention. Eleanore's familiar squatted on a leafless tree, a sugar-eating grin on his face. He was looking directly at her.

Eleanore whipped to face Louise, eyes closed. "Granite Prison!" she snapped. Stone chains leapt out of the ground, latching onto Louise's arms and legs and dragging her down into the snow. Face-first this time. She hit the ground hard enough that she strongly suspected some bruises on her front would be joining the ones on her back.

"Got you," said Eleanore, her voice dripping with smug self-satisfaction.



Maggat's eyes flicked open and he vomited up a large amount of water as well as half a chicken, three handfuls of grass, and the finger of an angelic foetus. He looked up at Scyl. "Urgh, the dead place are real busy right now," he complained, picking himself up off the broken ice of the canal.

"Tell me about it," Scyl said, diving back into the water to haul out Maxy's floating corpse. "It are not so easy to find the right souls," he said when he surfaced, dragging Maxy out by the arm. "And I know you would kill me if I put the wrong soul in your body."

"I would," Maggat agreed, emptying out one of his skull pauldrons of water. "No one gets my body and loot but me." He paused. "Didn't Baloney kill you double-dead?"

"Nah," Scyl said casually. "She only exploded me. I got better."

"Ah, that are no problem," Maggat said. He looked around, noting that most of the minions had gone through the ice. Fortunately the blues could swim, but they were busy fishing the bodies out. "Right, you scum!" he shouted at the straggling survivors who were busy looting the victims. "I are gonna smash you all one if you don't get your behinds over here now!"

Maxy made a sound like a deflating balloon as Scyl ran blue-glowing hands over him, forcing a jet of water spouting from his mouth. "I hate drowning," Maxy muttered, rubbing his chest. "It are one of the least fun ways to die. At least dying when fighting not hurt because of the fighty rush."

Idly slamming two minions together who looked like they were about to think of betraying him, Maggat screwed his face up in a scowl of concentration. "The big oversister are a Hero and a very killy one too," he said, clambering up the stairs to poke his head over the low wall. "She are probably like the Karin."

Maxy shook his head. "But that mean that if we stab her, after five days of really bad pain we die," he said in a hushed tone.

"And even if that not true about the big oversister, the overlady prob'bly kill us if we kill her," Maggat agreed. "She are sent a metal. Not sure what kind of metal, but it are probably steel if they got it from the Karin."

Maxy crawled up next to him. "But look," he said, pointing at the tableau before them. Eleanore was approaching her chained up sister, her familiar leering at Louise from its position on a tree. "I bet she are doing the blind swordy-man trick."

"The one where they look through the eyes of their familiar?"

"Got it in one," Maxy said, yellow eyes narrowed. "And that monkey no are related to the Karin and it no are the big oversister. I is gonna wear it as a hat. But we gotta move quick."

Maggat nodded. "Oi, you lot," he snapped. "Blues, keep on fishing out the others. Rest of you lot, we is gonna get Maxy a monkey hat!"

"You're cheating," the overlady shouted, struggling against her stone chains as the minions snuck around the right.

"Oh?" the big oversister asked. "How is anything I've done cheating?"

"… you're cheating in some way! I'm sure of it!"

"And that, little sister, is why you have absolutely no grasp of rhetoric. In a debate, you're meant to substantiate your points. Throwing around wild unfounded allegations just makes you look pathetic."

Maggat scampered up and over a low snow drift, trying his best to keep out of sight. He threw himself behind a tree as the golden lion tamarin perked up, ears twitching. But coming around from the other side was Maxy, edging closer with a throwing knife in hand. He drew back his arm, carefully measuring up the angles and the distance to the little chittering thing on the tree.

Swift as an eagle, the knife leapt forwards, seeking its foe…

… only to hit the familiar handle-first.

The monkey fell off the branch in surprise with an undignified thud and a puff of snow marking its impact with the ground. Eleanore twitched, wildly looking around. "Are you all right, Ozy?" she asked. "What happened?"

Pulling himself out of the snow drift and swearing sulphurous monkey-profanities. Its eyes settled on Maxy.

"Oh, very clever little sister," Eleanore said, teeth clenched. "So you were telepathically directing your servants to attack my familiar. I didn't think you had it in you."

"… well, of course, that was my plan all along," Louise said quickly.

"It won't work, of course. Even if you have managed to do rather well in restoring your forces. There has to be, what, ten minions there. Such a feared dark legion. None of us can sleep in our beds."

Ozymandias picked up the fallen knife, which was the size of a short sword for him. He weighted it, and clearly found it to his liking because his posture indicated he was keeping it.

"Oi, give that back!" Maxy snapped. "This are why I no get to practice with throwing knifies. They always get stolen!"

With his other hand, Ozymandias bit his thumb at Maxy.

"Is you looking for a fight?" the minion growled.

The golden lion tamarin reached out with one hand, palm facing upwards, and curled his fingers inwards in the universal gesture for 'Bring it on'.

"Come an' have a go if you think you're 'ard enough!"

The monkey responded with a gesture which succinctly and graphically implied that he had had conjugal relations with the minion's mother.

"Ha, joke's on you! I don't even have a mo—"

As it turned out, the riddle of whether you could have an affair with the mother of a creature spawned from Evil and stolen life force was a mere distraction. The tamarin used the chance to close the distance. Ozymandias' hand lashed out, faster than the eye could track, and a trail of stinking minion blood splattered across the snow.

Maxy staggered, vileness oozing from his cut throat. "… ther," was his last word.

Eleanore's familiar used the chance to steal Maxy's purse, and then faced the other minions, grinning. His expression was a clear question as to who would be next.

"That thing just looted from a minion!" one of the surviving browns managed in shock.

"That are just not natural!"

"Yeah, but it were Maxy. He are sort of shit for a minion. And we is all not natural," Maggat pointed out.

"Is it natural to do something not-natural to something what are not-natural?" Scyl said, popping up from behind Maggat.

"Is you done with the drowny-ness?" Scyl nodded. "Maxy are needing a new throat," Maggay said.

"Then he can go loot himself one."

Maggat thumped Scyl. "He are dead, stoopid. Bring him back." He hefted his club. "Now, you damn dirty monkey," he growled.

Ozimandias flipped him the bird, and scampered away, laughing mockingly.

"After that gonna-be-a-hat!" Maggat roared and the rather small horde charged off, the blood-soaked and very annoyed Maxy at the head.



The smashing noise of minions faded into the distance, leaving a gentle silence. Snow drifted down from the sky, settling on the two figures facing each other.

Louise gritted her teeth. Stupid, stupid minions. While she did in fact approve of them driving away her sister's familiar, she could really have done with them using some of their dumb muscle to break these chains tying her down.

But at least her sister wouldn't be able to see small movements now. "Ha! I chased away your familiar!" Louise said, trying to sound more triumphant than she really felt. She raised her voice, trying to make sure Eleanore couldn't hear her trying to test the chains to see if she could twist her wrist enough to point the gauntlet at one of her bonds.

Eleanore cracked her neck. "That's funny," she said, breathing heavily. "I thought I lured away all your vile minions."

Louise choked. "That's not your plan!" she snapped. "I'm the one better off here! You can't look through that thing's eyes anymore"

"I do not need to. I wanted to get you alone. So I could talk to you in without you feeling that you have to lie in front of your subordinates." Eleanore cracked her neck, eyes narrowed. "Louise. Why?"

"Why what?"

Eleanore tapped her foot, slush squelching under her boot. "Don't play dumb. You know exactly what I mean."

"You want the truth? You can't h—" Wait. No. That was a very stupid thing to say. "… hate me for saying this," she corrected.

"I can and will, if I don't like what I heard. Talk."

"Okay, okay, but you have to realise, I'm not really evil!" Louise insisted. Wriggling, she tried to curl her wrist around so the gauntlet was pointed at her chains. This was going to hurt even if it worked, but at least her sister couldn't see her squirming right now and realise what she was doing.

"You're not really evil. Mmm. Despite the fact that you're an evil lady of darkness who has minions serving her, consorts with a demon cult, and if my intelligence reports are correct – and they are – has an incubus, a necromancer and…" Eleanore paused, "… and a vampire serving her."

"I realise this looks bad…"

"Yes. That is exactly what it looks."

"… but I just did it because the Regency Council are traitors! They made up that thing about Henrietta! Just as an excuse to seize power! I didn't kidnap her! I rescued her! They're the real evil ones here!" Louise took a breath. She was almost sure that she'd managed to work her hand around so she could touch one of the stone anchor points. A touch of acid should do the job, and she cast the spell under her breath. "Please! You saw that Montespan was possessed by a dark angel! All I did was try to trick Athe into destroying Baelogi, but then the stupid useless dark god proved too weak and got himself trapped!"

That was enough to give Eleanore pause. She furrowed her brow, scowling down at her sister. "You may have thought you had a good reason…" she began.

"I do have a good reason!"

"No, you do not. Mother was entirely clear. You can't do good by doing evil." Eleanore took a deep breath. "I understand the temptation. I really do. When the world seems so very stupid and you're the only one who knows how to fix it and no one will let you. When the world offers you power and it only seems like a tiny little sacrifice that you can give up any time you like. When you think that the only way to fix the world is to start doing the things that you shouldn't, that you mustn't.

"Do you understand? It's the easy path out. But that's all it is. It's easy and it's evil and it's wrong. You need to fight it every day. It's hard and it's thankless and it means having to put up with a lot of very, very, very stupid people. But…"

And that was about as far as Eleanore got, because the acid had melted through the stone chains and now Louise was in a crouched position, curled up like a coiled spring.

She would remember the noise her armoured fist made as it collided with her sister's stomach for quite a long time. It felt good. Really good.

Eleanore curled up around her fist, blonde hair falling forwards over her face. Louise grabbed her sister's wand-hand with her other hand, drawing her fist back and pounding on her sister's arm again and again until Eleanore dropped the wand. It fell to the icy ground, and as Eleanore staggered back Louise gave the wand a solid kick. It skittered along the ground, vanishing into the pools of snow and slush.

Louise stepped back, watching for a trick. "I am not going to kneel and be forced to listen to you lecturing me!" she snapped. "I know what I'm doing."

Eleanore gasped for breath, bent over. "Lucky blow," she retorted, blinking away tears of pain. "You're just fortunate that I'm out of shape from being in a cell for six months and…" She suddenly went ghost-pale. Her eyes rolled back in her head, showing only white, and with a groan she slumped forwards. Eleanore made no attempt to break her fall, and fell like a sack of onions.

Louise swallowed. Um. She stepped back cautiously, examining her gauntlet. It felt warm and kitten-like, which was either a sign that it was doing some great evil, or possibly that it had heating spells which made sure it was comfortable to wear in cold conditions. Looking around suspiciously, she checked that Magdalene hadn't shown up and decided to help out with a surprise sleeping spell. Or, come to mention it, any of her big sister's other vast array of enemies.

But there was a surprising paucity of suspicious cloaked figures who might have used the chance to try to get dark revenge on Eleanore.

Cautiously she circled her sister's prone body. Oh. Oh dear. She didn't seem to be breathing.

Oh.

No no no, this wasn't meant to happen. Things like this weren't meant to happen! Heroes didn't collapse and stop breathing because you punched them in the stomach! Even if you put all your strength into it and were wearing an ancient magical artefact on your hand which was both evil and perhaps more pertinently heavy and made of metal.

"Jessica? Jessica!" Louise kept one eye on her sister, just in case started moving – oh! Please! – and desperately tried to get in contact with the Abyss.

"Lou—" Jessica's voice only came in waves, filled with crackling and the screams of the damned. "Som— — —nd of spiritual interfer— — — —at did you do?!"

"That doesn't matter? What do you know about medicine?" Louise screamed.

"—n't hear you with the— — — — —ya get through?"

"Medicine! I need help with medicine?"

But there was just the screaming of the damned. "Darn it, darn it, darn it," Louise muttered pacing back and forwards. "Why didn't I learn any healing magic?" Well, because it had mostly involved blood sacrifice and the bits which hadn't entailed asking dark gods to heal people, she reminded herself. Stupid useless evil magic. Why couldn't she even save her big sister from…

Wait. Louise narrowed her eyes and glared at her sister's prone form. She remembered what Eleanore had told Montespan's body – which even now lay some distance away from Eleanore, staring up at the sky. Eleanore had gloated about how if it was her, she'd pretend to be dead in order to get the drop on someone.

"Oh, ha ha," she told Eleanore, voice shriller than she would have liked. "I know you're faking it. You can't fool me. I… I'm just going to turn my back right now so you can get up and punch me a few times and… and please get up, you have to be faking it!"

Eleanore didn't twitch. Her eyelids didn't flutter.

Slowly, carefully, she advanced on Eleanore watching for any trickery. Keeping her gauntlet ready, she reached out with her right hand and touched her sister's neck, feeling for a pulse.

There was nothing.

"Oh no," Louise whispered, sitting back on her haunches. "I didn't mean to… I… it was an accident! I… I… I…" Tears blurred her vision, and she raised her face to the skies, wailing.

And then Eleanore exploded up from the ground, barrelling Louise down. One arm was pressed against Louise's neck, and the other had a firm grasp on her gauntlet, twisting the arm up and away from her.

"… no!" Louise gasped, or tried at least. "I thought you… dead!" She couldn't stop crying.

"Why does everyone forget I studied with a Cathayan monk?" Eleanore whispered into Louise's ear. "Of course I can stop my heart."

Louise decided then and there that she really hated heroes. And her big sister. Mostly her big sister, really. She kicked and fought, but she was exhausted and injured. When it came down to it, Eleanore was simply a better fighter than her. And fatter. Yes, fatter and heavier and Founder she couldn't breathe properly. No matter what she did, she couldn't dislodge the weight of her big sister or get rid of that terrifying pressure on her windpipe. And then Eleanore started working on the straps of her gauntlet.

"Stop it! Fireball! Fireball! Incineration!" Louise screamed. Eleanore had removed the pressure from her throat to work on the straps and she gasped for air. She fired off mis-cast spells as she fought to get free. They did nothing. Eleanore was pointing the hand away from herself and ignored the thunderous explosions that rippled across the façade of the ruined theology department. "Get off! Stop it!"

"I'm not going to let you keep that thing!" Eleanore grated between clenched teeth. "It's probably what corrupted you! You're stupid enough to stumble on such a powerful artefact of Evil and just put it on. What did it promise you?" She unfastened the last buckle.

"It's mine!" Louise roared, throwing everything she had into trying to buck free. She clenched her fist, fighting to stop her sister from stealing her gauntlet. "Mine! Mine mine mine!"

Eleanore rode out her sister's fury, repeatedly punching Louise in the left forearm until the pain made her hand relax. With a crow of triumph, she tore off the metal glove, holding it aloft.

Then she cocked her head, staring at the suddenly-tarnished metal. "Oh," she said faintly. "Oh. That's the Ruby of… oh no. Yes, that would make sense. That would make a lot of sense. It would be h—"

"Give it back!" Louise screamed, bucking like a madwoman.

Eleanore hit her around the face with the heavy weight of the gauntlet. Stars spun in front of Louise's eyes and she tasted blood. "Shut up," Eleanore hissed. "You stupid child. You don't even know what you have. No wonder it called to you." She wet her lips. "It's calling to me too. It's warm. Like kittens. That… that utter bastard. That's what he was breeding us for. All those carefully selected spouses with links to the old royalty."

"It's evil and it's mine and you don't know how to use it properly and…"

A punch shut Louise up. Eleanore paused and peeled back one of her sister's eyelids back professionally, and checked her pulse.

"Oh, Louise," she said sadly. "You have fallen far." She straightened up, and finally let the pain she'd been hiding show. It was enough that she nearly fell. Gingerly she tested her gut. From the ache, she was bleeding inside. Louise had very nearly got her there. The collapse hadn't been entirely faked. Or even mostly faked. She needed to find a healer. And fast.

Squinting, she peered around the blurred night-time landscape. She was nearly blind in this low light. There was no way she could find her wand.

The gauntlet pulsed in her hands. You could use me, it seemed to say.

"Shut up, vile thing," Eleanore groaned, holding it tight to her chest. She staggered off down the path, heading towards what she hoped was the main university building. In the darkness and the snow, she honestly wasn't sure without her glasses. "Just because Louise could channel magic through you doesn't mean I could."

Oh, but she could, it suggested. She knew what it was. The Bloody Duke had worked so hard to concentrate the blood of the royal family in his descendants. He'd been more successful than he'd known.

"Shut up!" Eleanore hissed, and then gasped in pain. It hurt to breathe.

Two acceptable candidates to wear her in a single generation, the metal gauntlet pulsed. The Duke hadn't realised he was ahead of schedule. He'd probably thought he'd have the crown in the hands of the de la Vallières before he got a true queen – but, ah, that wasn't how things had worked out. Eleanore wasn't quite as good as her little sister when it came to magical potential and sheer stubborn willpower – ah, but the mind was something else. In the gauntlet's professional opinion, Eleanore's mind was that of a true queen.

Eleanore shook her head, trying to drive out the dark thoughts clouding it. Everything was blurred, and it wasn't just the lack of glasses. She thought she had a concussion, too, from that blast from stupid little Louise. She had… she had to get rid of the gauntlet. Put it somewhere. Get rid of the temptation.

But then she'd die out here. She'd collapse in the street, and never wake up. And then she'd freeze to death. It was so warm against her chest out here in the cold, and her stomach hurt so terribly much. And then what would happen to the gem she had, holding two dark gods? This was Amstrelredamme. She knew this cursed city, and knew how many people there were out there who'd want to use the crystal for dark purposes.

"Shut up," Eleanore whispered. "I know what you're doing. Stop whispering to me!" She staggered, and fell to her knees in the snow. She wasn't sure she could get up then. She'd have to put down the gauntlet to do so and… wait, wasn't that something that she wanted to do?

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to try it. Just for a healing spell. Just enough to stop her dying out here in the cold so she could keep that dark gem safe. And if she put on the gauntlet, she'd have two free hands again. It'd feel nice and warm, too. Better that this evil artefact was in her hands where she could keep it safe from other people who'd use it for the wrong purposes.

Eleanore could taste metal in her mouth. She wavered, the haziness of her concussion blurring her sharp wit. The blood of the de la Vallière within her welled up, screaming at her that she couldn't die out here in the cold, felled by a sucker punch she hadn't seen coming. She was the heir. She had to do her duty.

She raised her left hand, arm shaking. She didn't want to die. Was that so wrong?

Slowly, she inserted her hand into the gauntlet.



"Well, well, well." A female voice, speaking elegant old Romalian. "What do we have here? A nice, slender feminine hand. Callouses from wand use. Bitten nails. A sharp, hard mind – a royal mind. And –yes! – such glorious strength in the old blood. Strength enough to defeat the previous unworthy heir.

"Welcome, my queen."

The sky burned red. A girl screamed. A woman screamed.



Deep in the depths of the Abyss, Gnarl sprawled out on a comfy lounge, his suit decidedly mussed. He sat on the lap of a handsome and horny demon, while a pair of demonesses stroked his ears. He wriggled in joy, purring slightly.

And then he straitened up, frowning. Looking at the back of his left hand, he winced as the brand faded.

"Well, well, well," he observed to no one in particular. "Isn't that interesting?"



Eleanore straightened up, idly fastening the buckles on the gauntlet with no trace of hesitancy. Without a second thought, she cast one of the dark healing spells she'd studied to know how to counter, but never used before. Bloody red magic oozed out to sink into her abdomen.

Holding her hand out, she admired its new ornament. The gauntlet had shifted, becoming more elongated and more segmented. The ruby on the back gleamed with power.

And then she laughed.

"So this is what Louise has had all her life and never knew how to use properly," Eleanore said. "I couldn't believe my opinion of her talent could fall any lower. But apparently it can. As it turns out, the greatest aid the forces of Good have had in a generation is my sister's incompetence."

Her eyes were burning a bright yellow.