And Alina killed. Her teeth tore through demon hides. Her fire blazed over creatures of nightmare. A bloated thing, its belly swinging, buzzed toward her, and she disemboweled it with her claws. A great, naked fowl with three necks swooped above her, beaks pecking. She blasted it with fire, then bit into the charred meat, tugging out its innards. A pale demon covered in spikes and hooks slammed into her, cutting her leg, and she clawed madly, shattering its armor, cutting the softness beneath. Blood coated her scales and teeth, and she became a feral thing, a beast herself, a creature of retribution. The starlight had faded and her own darkness claimed her.

"For Requiem I kill," she said. "For Requiem I will become this beast. For Requi—"

An arrow whistled and slammed into her shoulder.

Alina yowled.

She beat her wings, but they felt so slow, so heavy. Pain pulsed from her shoulder across her body, digging like insects crawling through her veins. Her heart pounded. Haze covered her eyes. She looked up, struggling to stay aloft, to see the young woman flying toward her.

The woman held a bow, and a quiver of arrows hung across her back. She wore a cotton tunic, a fur cloak, and patches of bronze armor. She rode upon a buzzing insect as large as a dragon, its many eyes burning with inner flame. The strangest thing about the woman, however, was not the demon she rode but her face. Stitches surrounded it, as if she wore a mask of skin. She flew toward Alina, nocking another arrow.

"Fly to me, reptile!" the woman called down to her. "I am Ciana, Slayer of Dragons. I wear a new face after the fire of Requiem burned me. Now I live to see your kingdom fall."

She fired a second arrow.

Alina tried to dodge the missile, but the first arrow still blazed in her shoulder; she thought that poison covered its head. She managed to flap her wings once, but she only rose a few feet. The second arrow drove into her leg, and new pain exploded through Alina, and she dipped a dozen feet in the sky.

She managed to stay afloat through sheer willpower. Tears in her eyes, Alina looked up at the young woman. Ciana hovered above in the haze, riding her buzzing insect.

"You don't have to do this, child!" Alina said. "You don't have to fight for him. You don't have to fly with evil. You—"

Ciana fired a third arrow.

It slammed into Alina's neck.

Poison flowed through her, the world spun, and Alina fell from the sky.

She crashed against one demon, tumbled over him, flapped her wings once, then slammed into the mountainside. The arrows in her body snapped. The shock knocked the magic out of her. She shrank, taking human form again, and lay moaning upon the mountain in her druid robes. Her blood stained the lavender fabric.