Greisen's Trap

Prince Darian opened her eyes.

Stars greeted her vision. Shockingly familiar stars, the same ones she watched every night from the deck of the skycraft. The Lone Princess. The Mountain Demon. The Four-Headed Medusid.

This didn't make any sense. Was she...back home?

No. Darian drew in a sharp breath, tasting cold, bitter air. Not a trace of the Tielan sky's crisp edge. This pressure crushing her chest, the icy Levia, could be one thing only.

Her hand flew to her rapier. To her relief, it hung by her side – but that meant she was no longer in her glamour.

Looking harder, she saw that the starry sky had a distinct curve to it. Not the sky after all, but a domed ceiling. This must be the museum's planetarium, she realized. Or rather, an arena based on it.

The arena's floor was cleared of seats, leaving it an expanse of solid black. All except for the projector in the center, a towering, baroque contraption of gigantic spheres and knobs.

Several people stood atop the projector. The largest of them looked down, meeting her eyes. Tusks jutted from his lower jaw while short horns framed his face, and pure malice glinted in his black eyes.

A demon. Even from this distance, Darian felt his Levia throbbing her bones. She forced strength into her legs and rose to her feet, putting on a taut smirk.

"Well, well. To whom do I owe this pleasure?"

"Greetings, Prince Darian," the demon rumbled. "I am Colonel Greisen of the Infernal Legion."

"Oh? Is this arena yours?" Darian glanced at the ceiling, mock-casual. "I must say, the stars are a nice touch."

"I'm glad you appreciate it," Greisen said. "Consider it some small thanks for the gift you have delivered me."

Darian's heart skipped when Greisen lifted his hand. A tiny blue object gleamed between his thick fingers.

Rage erupted inside Darian, white-hot and choking. Something deep in her soul, deeper than her Levia, screamed that she could not allow the crystal to fall into a demon's hands.

She raised her rapier, pointing it straight at Greisen's face. "I don't remember ever giving that to you. Return it."

"So you say, yet you have no idea what this is."

"Maybe not, but I know one thing. It doesn't belong to you." Taking a deep breath, Darian gathered her Levia. Already, she sensed this demon was stronger than any opponent she had ever faced. She would need to hit him with everything she had.

Suddenly a voice sliced through her concentration, shrill and breathless. "Please – please, Prince Darian, please forgive me – "

Darian blinked. Someone huddled at Greisen's feet like a grub, his face gleaming with tears.

"I, please, you must understand," Dr. Markov went on babbling, practically sobbing. "They – they – they reached me first, they threatened my family! They knew you would come to me with questions about the shard, and so – you must understand, my family – "

"Silence." Greisen kicked Dr. Markov in the ribs. A crack echoed across the arena and Markov screamed, high and thin.

Darian gripped her rapier tighter, cursing how her hand shook. She wasn't afraid – much. But she had to admit Greisen had caught her completely flat-footed. Now all by herself, with no idea where the others had gone, she'd ended up in about as disadvantaged a position as she'd ever found herself on Earth.

Not that she'd let it show. "Let him go," she snapped. "You've gotten what you wanted. No need to keep tormenting the poor man."

"Feeling pity for a traitor? Such softness hardly suits a prince."

"Thanks for the advice," Darian said dryly. Then she tensed, gathering all the strength in her legs, before leaping for Greisen.

The blue crystal gleamed in her vision like a star. Just like when she'd aimed for Oliver's ring – but this time she didn't have a contract with Theo to help her. It didn't matter. She would get it.

But as the wind rushed past her ears, her Levia surged in warning and her rapier struck something hard. Metal, judging by the sound that zinged through the air. The force of the impact almost snapped the rapier out of her hand. Gritting her teeth, Darian tightened her grip, but she'd gotten knocked off course.

As she tumbled to the floor, she tucked her legs in and managed to transform the fall into a roll at the last moment. Her bones rattled and the air flew from her lungs, but she barely wasted any time catching her breath before jumping back upright.

Two people had appeared in front of Greisen – also demons in Infernal Legion uniforms. One a woman, the other a man, both with tall oryx-like horns and huge swords in their hands.

For a moment, Darian glared at the demons and they glared back. Sweat crawled a trail down the back of her neck. The only sound in the arena came from Dr. Markov's sobs and whimpers.

Which made her rage spike. At the very least, she needed to save him.

"Try to make this easy, prince, and come quietly," Greisen said, his gaze stern. "If you do, your friends will not be hurt."

"And I take it you have a bridge to sell me as well." Darian raised her rapier, placing her weight on her front foot.

"The Infernal Lord wants you alive. Either way, you will face him soon enough. The only choice available to you is what happens to your friends. Will they escape unharmed, or will you condemn them to death?"

Darian couldn't care less about his villain monologue. Once again, she leaped for him.

And once again, the sword wielders intercepted. This time, Darian had been expecting them. As the man swung his sword to block her rapier, Darian thrust the blade downward. Taking advantage of his brief moment of surprise, she pushed off with her heel against his shoulder and jumped higher.

The woman lunged at her. Darian aimed low, trying to get her in the knee before she could bring her sword down, but she wasn't fast enough. The slender rapier clanged against the broad blade, shooting pins and needles down her arm.

Darian twisted midair, not wanting to fall quite yet. But the man had jumped behind her. He slashed at her and Darian automatically flung up her rapier to block, only for the edge of the sword to catch her sleeve.

Pain seared across her arm. Crying out, she almost let go of the rapier. Once again she went tumbling, but this time she landed at the base of the projector.

Gasping for breath, Darian hauled herself to her knees. Her torn-open sleeve flapped like a flag of surrender, a stark contrast to the blood dripping beneath it. Not a deep cut, but it bled harder with each slight twitch of her arm.

Scowling, she transferred the rapier to her left hand. Her right was the dominant, but she'd learned to fence with both.

Already, though, she could tell that each of these sword-wielding demons alone was as strong as Sir Zenith. On her own, her chances of defeating them were infinitesimal.

'But you're Prince Darian. You don't give up,' her mother's voice whispered in the depths of her memory, and so she gritted her teeth and rose to her feet once more.

When she lifted her head, she met Dr. Markov's huge, stricken eyes. He leaned over the edge of the projector, lips moving and throat convulsing as if he was fighting with himself.

Then he sucked in a breath and cried, "It – it's the Star of Miriel! What you have is a shard of the Star of Miriel! If you find the others – "

Greisen snapped his fingers. An enormous stone axe solidified in midair before swinging down.

A sickening thud. Dr. Markov's head tumbled like a ball, hitting the floor at Darian's feet. She lurched back, but his blood had already splashed her shins.

His dull blue eyes stared back up at her. His mouth was wide open, frozen mid-shout.

"That will be quite enough," Greisen said, lifting the axe one-handed. Blood dripped from its edge. "Well. He served his purpose."

Darian could barely hear him beneath the thunder pounding inside her skull. All she could see was Dr. Markov's face. In the end, in his last moments, he had tried to help her. The Star of Miriel. Darian didn't know what it meant, but she did know one thing: she couldn't let that information go to waste.

It was too late to do anything for Dr. Markov. Just another soul she'd failed to save. The familiar anger rose inside her, hot and grinding, but she savagely pushed it back. It wouldn't help her now. 'Remember this.' Remember his lifeless eyes, the blood drying on her clothes. It, along with all the other bodies across all the years, would propel her forward.

Until a day where there wouldn't have to be any more bodies.

The anger still burned, stirring to life something hotter, brighter. Blazing light. The taste of ozone. She ground her teeth until her jaw ached, trying to draw out as much of the fiercely crackling lightning as she could.

"Now, Prince Darian, it is time to go home."

She couldn't help it – Greisen's words shocked her out of her concentration. The lightning scattered. Reeling, Darian stared up at him.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Greisen didn't answer. Instead, a deep rumble built beneath her feet, trembling through her entire body. For a wild moment she thought the arena was collapsing, but when she heard metal groaning she realized that the projector was rising into the air.

It tore out of the floor like a leviathan surfacing from the depths, shedding scraps of darkness. Greisen and the sword wielders remained at the top, seemingly unperturbed, but Darian only had eyes on what was appearing beneath the projector.

It was like the projector had been built atop an underground platform – no, not a platform. A cage with thick iron bars. And inside them –

Three silent, bound figures. Her gaze fell on the round-faced boy in the front, his golden curls glowing in the darkness.

Oliver?

The arena's Levia deepened, gripping her like icy claws. She could only stare as a diagram appeared beneath the cage and exploded across the arena, carpeting the floor in strange symbols formed of the deepest darkness she had ever seen.

"As I said," Greisen said with relish, "it is time to go home."