I can win, I said silently. I am going to win. And I’m going to do it my way.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Suki. Her teeth flashed. Little girls can beat big bad wolves. We have teeth, too.

Teeth weren’t all the same. For so long, I had made the mistake of thinking we all had to fight monsters with the same weapons, but that wasn’t true. The Asuras had their claws, Chamundeshwari had her chakra, and Ashwini had her sword. And mine?

Mine was mightier than any sword.

So I dropped the actual sword on the ground, sobbed, and ran.

Behind me, Mahishasura’s loud, surprised boom of glee shook the trees. “Look at her!” he cried. “Fleeing like a rabbit!”

His army joined in with a cackle that spread like ink in water. Until, out of nowhere, Suki’s voice cut across them:

“You haven’t beaten her,” she called, loud and clear. “Those were the rules. You only win if you beat Kiki.”

Mahishasura growled. “She ran away. She loses by default.”

“Um, she’s still out there, isn’t she?” I could picture Suki pointing at my back as I fled, just as we rehearsed. “If you haven’t beaten her, you haven’t won. So why aren’t you chasing after her?”

Silence.

And Suki giggled. “Huh. I guess you’re scared.”

Mahishasura let out a snarl, but unlike Pip, who hadn’t had anyone to protect him, Suki was behind Simha, Chamundeshwari, and the other Crows. Mahishasura couldn’t take his fury out on Suki, but I knew he wouldn’t be able to bear the idea of anyone thinking he was afraid of me, a weak little girl. So he did the only thing he could.

He chased me.

As I raced past the gargoyles and back toward the city, I looked back once. The Asuras in the sky swooped and the gandaberunda met them with a vicious slash of its talons. The demons on the ground leaped forward. Simha seized one around the throat and flung it to the side. Chamundeshwari’s chakra sparkled as it flew into the heart of the Asura army.

I turned and kept sprinting onward, away, into the city and down the empty main street to the palace at the other end.

“You cannot hide inside your maze of traps, Kiki Kallira!” Mahishasura thundered behind me, so very close. “I will find you no matter where you go!”

I let out another loud sob and kept running toward Mysore Palace. Past the gates, down the overgrown grounds, until I stumbled to a halt under the tallest arch. Above me, carved into the marble, two words shone in the sun.

“Never terrified,” I whispered.

“You are braver than you think,” the palace whispered back. “And stronger than you know.”

“Are you okay with what I’m about to do?”

“Yes.”

Trembling, I turned back to face Mahishasura. “Leave me alone!” I shouted. I threw in another whimper for good measure. “I don’t want this anymore! I just want to go home!”