The world didn’t come back to Melpomene all at once. It rose around her like a tide.

  “““[Hero]! [Hero]! [Hero]!”””

  Her soul half-reassembled, she’d gathered herself just enough to hear the people’s cry — and at first, she was excited!

  A [Hero]? Here and now? Right when she was at her most vulnerable?

  Perfect.

  She was injured, but that would only make her coming victory all the sweeter.

  “““[Hero]! [Hero]! [Hero]!”””

  Her soul grew whole and her perception clear, but so too grew her confusion.

  Where was this [Hero]? Where was her foe? Where was the climactic duel she’d been waiting for all this time?

  She was no fool, but neither was she as heartless as she claimed to be. She knew the answer before she could bear to put it to words, and in that gap, she knew horror.

  Her Daemons stood by, unsure of what to do, as thousand upon thousands of Humans and Fae chanted a pox upon her very soul, their smiles sharper than a knife to the heart, their words seawater in her lungs.

  The tide rose high, and she began to drown.

  “““[Hero]! [Hero]! [Hero]!”””

  Tears flew down her face, freer and fiercer than ever.

  The [Hero] they cheered for… was her.

  From within a certain dark and ominous tent perched at the edge of cliff overlooking a valley of spikes — not the best place for a tent, but appearances had to be maintained — came another high-pitched wail.

  “UUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEWWWWWW!!!! They were—hic! They were so MEEEAAAN to me, Eury—hic! Eurymedon! And not even… Sniff… And not even mean in an E—hic! In an Evil way!!! They were just—!!! Just MEAAAAANNNNNNNN!!!!!”

  Eurymedon’s [Liege] — transformed back into her usual form — burst into another wail, absolutely inconsolable. The [Daemon of Eyes] responded by wrapping their arms around her all the tighter.

  “Autarch Melpomene… might I tell you something?”

  Their [Liege] didn’t respond with words, but her crying momentarily quieted.

  “You, my [Liege], are the most vile, dark-hearted, conniving person I’ve ever known,” spoke the [Daemon of Eyes].

  Melpomene sniffled, burying her face even deeper into one of Eurymedon’s many shoulders. “You mean it?”

  “I do,” Eurymedon replied without hesitation. “There’s not a [Villain] on all of Terra with half as much wrath as you.”

  Melpomene laughed in that fragile way Eurymedon knew to mean she was being bashful. “Oh stop,” she complained, voice small. “Now you’re just exaggerating.”

  Eurymedon pulled their [Liege] away so that they might look each other in the eyes. Melpomene at first resisted, clinging to their shoulder, but relented at her second’s gentle touch.

  “Perhaps I am exaggerating,” admitted the [Daemon of Eyes], “but my sentiment holds true. No matter what the ignorant might say, you are Melpomene, fifty-fourth [Daemon Autarch] of the [Despoiled Legion]. You are a [Villain]. You are the [Villain]. You are the greatest [Villain] those ingrates will ever have the displeasure of encountering.”

  Melpomene opened her mouth to respond, perhaps intent on shrugging off the direct compliments, but Eurymedon cut her off.

  “Do not do me the disservice of downplaying my words when you have so clearly taken the words of strangers to heart. Listen to me when I say that you are covetous. You are vain. Your malice knows no end. Those jeering do-gooders cannot begin to comprehend the depths to which you’ll sink to attain that which you desire. They know not what they see, and so their words matter not a whit.

  “You, my [Liege], are pure Evil?, and no one can ever take that away from you.”

  Autarch Melpomene’s eyes hadn’t been dry for quite some time, and that trend continued as tears of an entirely different sort now rolled down her face.

  “Thank you, Eurymedon,” whispered the autarch. She threw herself back into her lieutenant general’s many arms. “Today’s been a nightmare — and not the pleasant kind — but you always know just what to say.”

  “Of course, my [Liege].”

  The two embraced for a length of time neither bothered to track.

  “I do have a question, though,” said Melpomene, first to break the comfortable silence.

  “Yes, my [Liege]?”

  “Why did you say ‘evil’ like that?”

  “Like what?” the [Daemon of Eyes] responded. The uncharacteristically lax words came out automatically, as if by instinct.

  No sooner had the question left one of the [Daemon of Eyes] many mouths than they felt their [Liege] stiffen in their arms.

  Eurymedon at first wondered why that might be, but the answer struck them in an instant. A thousand memories flashed through their mind, all of them pointing to but a single, unthinkable conclusion.

  Slowly, the lieutenant and their autarch pulled away from their embrace. They looked each other in the eye.

  Eurymedon hoped against hope that they might find anything other than their own fear reflected in the gaze of their [Liege], but all they found scrawled across Melpomene’s face was a slow, dawning terror, identical to their own.

  “Aaaaaaaand… done!”

  Theokakos, Chief [Surveyor] and Head of the Engineering Corps for the [Despoiled Legion]’s Army Protos — or just ‘Theo,’ as most people called him — chiseled one last groove into the artificial stalagmite he was working on. He placed two hands on his hips while his third wiped the sweat from his brow, a look of pride on his face.

  He looked around to check on his underlings, and —

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH—!”

  The blood in his veins turned to ice. His heart leapt to his throat. He blushed.

  That was the uh… the most piercing wail he’d heard thus far.

  “They do know we’re down here, right?” he overheard one of his underlings whisper. “You think that’s part of it for them? Knowing other people are—?”

  “That’s enough of that,” Theo cut in. His two gossiping underlings rose to attention at his voice, a half-shaped cone of rock between them. “What did I tell you two about gossiping about others’ private lives while on the job?”

  The two of them flushed. “Chief! To first receive the involved parties’ explicit and enthusiastic consent, Chief!” replied the one who’d been speculating.

  “Good.” Theo gave a nod of approval. He looked left, looked right, then leaned in conspiratorially. “But if you two are in the gossiping mood,” he whispered, “one of my partners — won’t say which — just sent me a letter with the juiciest piece of news about Terpsichore…”

  The other two’s eyes lit up. The trio went back to work, furtively chatting away as they finished up the valley of spikes for their Autarch.

  Perhaps it was a bit hypocritical of him, but Theo couldn’t help but let his mind wander to the ongoings hidden within the tent perched at the clifftop above him.

  Autarch Melpomene sure is lucky, he thought, trying — and failing — not to imagine what the absurdly attractive Eurymedon might be doing to her.

  He did feel guilty for letting his mind go in that direction… but not too guilty. He would have to have a frank discussion about this with his two superiors later, because if he and his underlings overhearing them was indeed ‘part of it,’ he would’ve rather been given a heads up. Alternatively, if the two of them just didn’t care if others overheard, that’d be useful to know as well.

  This was all premised on the assumption that Eurymedon did indeed know that the three engineers were within earshot, because of course the [Daemon of Eyes] knew. Rumor had it they could track a mote of dust from across a battlefield. Sensing three interloping sets of ears would be easier than stealing babies from a candied foe.

  Unless of course the [Daemon of Eyes] was wholly overwhelmed by some task at hand, but Theo couldn’t imagine that happening.

  Eurymedon was wholly overwhelmed by the task at hand.

  Their many arms drew arcane lines of amethyst upon the air. Their many mouths chanted words of power. Their every eye glowed with magic.

  Something was amiss with their [Liege], and they needed to find out what.

  “[Identify]!”

  Eurymedon cast the spell at [Tier V], opting for the full manual cast to ensure nothing went wrong. So of course it came as a shock — but perhaps not a surprise — when everything went wrong.

  The spell’s lines fizzled and cracked, shooting off sprays of purple sparks in random directions.

  “Eurymedon, what’s happening?” called their [Liege]. Her voice shook with ill-disguised fear, and Eurymedon’s heart quivered to hear their nigh-invincible leader sound so frayed, so vulnerable, so unsure.

  They wanted to respond, but their entire being was tied up in trying to save the spell.

  Their mind raced to determine the cause of their impending failure, and it wasn’t long before they found an answer. Their casting had been impeccable, and they could still feel their [Liege]’s consent through the nascent spell, which meant the spell could only be failing for one other reason…

  Eurymedon poured more mana into the spell, causing it to fail all the more spectacularly — which was exactly what they wanted to have happen.

  They pored over the spell, absorbing every iota of feedback they could glean. Every break or burst or buzz of failure, every variation in light or resistance or flow, every ripple or wave or twist in its shape…

  With the spell’s inadequacies exaggerated, the way forward became obvious — or as ‘obvious’ as the flaws in a high-[Tier] spell could be, at any rate.

  Every flaw was problem to be solved, and Eurymedon was nothing if not a solver of problems.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Their arms traced lines all the finer. Their voices chanted all the fiercer. Their eyes saw all the clearer.

  While a far cry from their usual standard, Eurymedon managed to wrangle the spell into a form stable enough to use. All it took was one last burst of mana — far more than what a [Tier V] spell of its kind should require — and their magic leapt into action.

  “[IDENTIFY]!”

  Purple light flooded the tent, so bright it forced even Eurymedon to squint against its brilliance. Myriad arcane shapes flew from the spell and into Melpomene’s orbit, picking up speed. They whirled around her faster and faster with each revolution, a thousand constellations flitting through a century’s worth of sky.

  With one final burst of light, the spell exploded into a deluge of sparks, and information flowed into Eurymedon’s mind. They hurriedly scanned the data for what they expected to find, and find it they did.

  “My [Liege]! My [Liege], it worked!” Eurymedon squealed with glee. “I have good news! Great news! You’ve become [Tier…”

  Eurymedon trailed off as they examined their findings further. The joy in their eyes slowly morphed into confusion, and then to horror.

  “Eurymedon, what’s wrong?” asked their [Liege], but the [Daemon of Eyes] had no idea how to respond.

  “I-I, I…”

  Melpomene took a slow, cautious step closer. “Eurymedon? You’re worrying me. What did you see?”

  “I… I apologize, my [Liege]. I believe it would be best if I… just showed you.”

  They waved an arm, and more lines of purple magic etched themselves upon reality, putting to words the horrid knowledge with which Eurymedon had been cursed.

  Name: Melpomene

  Race: Daemon

  Faction: [Despoiled Legion]

  Rank: [Tier VI] [Leige]

  Class: [Tier VI] [Autarch Redeemed]

  Keywords: [Angsty], [Anti-Hero], [Unbreakable]

  Just as Eurymedon’s had, Melpomene’s face flashed through several emotions… but her reactions were far less negative than the [Daemon of Eyes] expected them to be.

  From trepidation, the autarch’s expression rapidly cycled through astonished, excited, puzzled, and contemplative, until finally settling on relief.

  Melpomene let out a full-bodied laugh, shoulders untensing. “Don’t scare me like that, Eurymedon!” she complained gleefully. “But [Tier VI]?” she asked with an air of wonder. “I’ve never heard of it before! I always thought [Tier S] came next?”

  Eurymedon stared, curious as to why their [Liege] wasn’t more concerned.

  “I always thought it’d be funny if the ’S’ stood for ‘six,’ but I suppose it just means ‘special’ or something? Could explain why only monsters and godlings ever seem to get it…” Melpomene scratched her chin, and then her eyes lit up. “But hey! I’m [Tier VI] now, and you used [Identify] on me! That means you just cast your first [Tier VI] spell! Congratulations, Eurymedon!”

  The [Autarch Redeemed] stepped forward and wrapped Eurymedon into a hug. Tentatively, the [Daemon of Eyes] hugged her back.

  “…My [Liege]?”

  “Yes, Eurymedon?”

  “Are you not… concerned?”

  “Concerned?” Melpomene repeated, pulling back from the hug.

  “Concerned with anything I showed you, my [Liege]?”

  Melpomene shrugged. “It’s a shame that my [Villain] keyword isn’t in my active three right now, but I’m not too worried. It’ll come back if I ease up on the angst for a while, and then everything will go back to normal. But what I’m really excited about is this new [Anti-Hero] keyword!”

  “You… You are?” Eurymedon asked. The [Daemon of Eyes] had analyzed battlefields a hundredfold more complex than the current conversation, but they’d never been so befuddled as they were now.

  The Autarch did a little twirl and started prancing about the tent like a child, straight-legged with arms out for balance.

  “Haha! Of course I’m excited! Can’t wait to try it out! I wonder how noticeable the effect will be?”

  Eurymedon’s leader, life partner, and closest friend continued toddling about, always just about to fall over, but never quite losing her balance.

  “I do hope it’s a boost for me,” she said, pitching forward but managing to turn the fumble into a front flip. She landed off-balance and stumbled backwards into a pirouette, a grin on her face. “Having it debuff my opponent would just be boring, but I wouldn’t mind a bit of both, I suppose.”

  Melpomene’s words caused something to click in Eurymedon’s head, and the lieutenant general’s many mouths frowned with worry. They needed to clear up this miscommunication immediately, but before they could find the words, their [Liege] continued speaking.

  “By the way, any luck figuring out what that mask or the crown do yet? Do you think [Tier VI] [Identify] will help at all?” she asked, falling into a back handspring. She pushed off her hands, throwing herself into a double-leg hanging grip around the tent’s central pole. The specialty-made pole spun the autarch around in a lazy circle as she held herself upside down by crossed thighs. She rubbed her chin. “Not sure about the mask, but it’d be interesting if the crown could—”

  “My [Liege], I hate to interrupt, but I believe it important that we correct a misunderstanding.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I know there’s a lot I don’t understand about magic, but I do remember that [Identify] only works on living things, and only on consenting living things for the more interesting stuff. I was just wondering if—”

  Eurymedon reached out and placed a hand on their [Liege]’s side, arresting her momentum. They looked Melpomene in the eyes.

  “My [Liege], do you know what an [Anti-Hero] is?”

  The inverted autarch furrowed her brows. “I assume it’s like ‘anti-large’ or ‘anti-infantry,’ right? I’m so evil that I specifically counter [Heroes] in combat?”

  Eurymedon winced. This wasn’t going to be pleasant for either of them.

  “My [Liege], an [Anti-Hero] is…”

  “AAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAA—!”

  Theo was in the middle of packing away his chisels when the scream pierced his ears. He took one last look at the tent high up on the cliff above him and gave a low whistle.

  Luckily, his underlings had already finished their work, so they weren’t there to see the naked admiration in his trio of eyes.

  His hands cinched his pack tight as his imagination ran wild, dreaming up all the ways he might make his own partners scream that way too.

  “I definitely need to ask them for tips.”

  Melpomene skulked through Soleil, sifting through her emotions.

  It was… Its was all too much.

  Everything she’d ever wanted. Everything she’d ever worked for. Gone.

  No, worse than gone:

  Sanctified. Perverted. Redeemed.

  Night had again spread her cloak over Soleil, but the dim could do little to obscure the city’s hope. Bricks and pavers stacked neat and ready for use, debris piled and sorted for carting away or salvage, wreaths and flowers and candles at every corner to celebrate and mourn the dead…

  Soleil was quiet, but it was the quiet of a soldier who knew her battle was won. She breathed deeply, evenly. Her wounds were healing even as she slept, her people dreaming of the peaceful days soon to come.

  Melpomene hated it. She hated all of it.

  Where was the open wailing in the street? Where were the rebels plotting her demise? Where was the anger? The dread? The fear?

  She was the [Villain], godsdamnit! She was evil! She’d won!

  …Except she hadn’t really won, now did she?

  Melpomene was mired in her thoughts. She had no mind left to spare on setting her path, and so she wandered about aimlessly, listlessly, going wherever her feet would take her. By chance — or perhaps by no chance at all — she eventually found her way back to the edge of Kingsblood Square, back to the site of her greatest shame.

  Dropping all pretense of stealth, Melpomene stepped past the shattered remains of a barricade. Her boots clinked against the cobbles of the scarred, empty square. She let fall her cloak, and her darksteel armor gleamed with all the colors of the night’s northern sky. The air felt cool against her face, and the breeze hummed pleasantly in her ear, singing about everything and nothing at all.

  “I’m the one to blame, aren’t I?”

  She began walking toward the Torr Royale. Shoulders back and head held high, her every stride was deliberate and firm — the march of a soldier to war, or perhaps a condemned to their gallows.

  Eurymedon had explained everything in the postmortem. The false assumptions, the misconceptions, the mistakes…

  A lesser [Liege] might have claimed they’d done their best given the circumstances, but Melpomene would make no such excuses.

  With every step of her boots, she reviewed the steps of her campaign, and her path lay fraught with regret.

  If she hadn’t been so cautious, she could have conquered the lands west of the [Titan’s Fingers] in half the time and made the crossing before winter. If she hadn’t been so arrogant, she could have gotten the truth from Percival upon their first meeting. If she hadn’t been so impatient, she could have conquered Soleil with an actual plan.

  Over and over again, she found herself wanting. Her ‘best’ hadn’t been enough. Not even close.

  She’d failed in a thousand ways large and small, and every shortcoming stemmed from but a single truth:

  “I’m still too weak.”

  Her words came out matter-of-fact. Her eyes brimmed with tears unshed.

  [Heroes] could afford as many mistakes as the story asked of them. [Villains] had to be perfect, and even that was seldom enough.

  Melpomene, to put it unkindly, was a complete and utter failure. In the past year alone, she’d failed more often and more spectacularly than perhaps every [Daemon Autarch] in the history of the [Despoiled Legion] combined.

  She had no right to be mentioned in the same breath as those unholy [Tyrants] and [Villains] of ages past, much less the right to bear their title.

  She was no longer a [Daemon Autarch]. She was no longer a [Villain]. She was a… She was…

  Melpomene’s strides slowed to a stop a dozen paces from the Torr Royale. She looked up at the tower and opened her mouth to speak, but all that escaped her throat was a tiny, strained whine of air.

  She was a… a [Hero] now, and no mere prefix could soften the blow.

  Just acknowledging the fact made her feel wronged, betrayed, violated.

  Her soul felt raw. Her mind was scattered to the winds. Her flesh didn’t feel her own.

  Her tears fell. A traitorous sob escaped her lips. Her arms rose to her sides, and she held herself tight.

  “I don’t even know who I am anymore!”

  She reared back to kick a stone at the stupid tower, but she stopped herself short. Something about the action set off an alarm in the back of her head.

  She took a moment and considered the last two times she’d kicked a random stone. The first had collapsed a fortress, and the second had caused an avalanche.

  Slowly, carefully, delicately, Melpomene placed her foot back down onto solid ground. She stepped around the stone, giving it a wide berth.

  She breathed deep, and exhaled a shudder.

  As strange as it was to admit, that tiny act of restraint helped Melpomene center herself. It served to prove that in spite of it all, she wasn’t powerless. She could control neither the past, nor the future, nor even the present; but she could control herself, and that would have to be enough.

  She stepped closer to the Torr Royale, her footfalls lighter than dust, and stared up at the edifice.

  Her focus was drawn to one particular scene carved into the building’s side. It depicted the [Shattering of Aolyn], the battle that despoiled the [Deathless Legions] of their god. The forces of Good were arrayed on the left, Evil on the right, and in the center was the [Hero] Gregory Kingsblood II locked in battle with the greatest [Villain] to ever live — Thanatos.

  Melpomene would be the first to admit she wasn’t an expert on the subject of history — and what little she did know, she’d need to reexamine in light of old man Gregory’s claims — but whoever’d made this carving seemed to actively despise historical accuracy. The Solarians’ armor was far too modern. The Daemons were a chaotic mass of shadowy beasts foaming at the mouth. Gregory was wielding a sword thicker than he was wide, and Thanatos was charging into battle bare-chested.

  But where the carver had failed in the facts of their subject matter, they excelled in the essence. It just felt right. A climactic battle. Everything on the line. Fate hanging in the Balance. Good versus Evil. A [Hero] and a [Villain] giving it their all to lay the other low.

  One final fight that made the world around her disappear. One last duel, win or lose, that would at last make her feel whole.

  “That’s what I want,” said Melpomene, the no-longer fifty-fourth [Daemon Autarch] of the [Despoiled Legion].

  Her eyes locked onto the granite visage of Thanatos the First, first and greatest of the [Daemon Autarchs], tactician beyond [Tacticians], trickster beyond [Tricksters], villain beyond [Villains]; Thanatos the Inevitable! Thanatos the Implacable! Thanatos the Indomitable!

  Thanatos, Progenitor of Death.

  Thanatos, the Dead.

  “I want to be evil,” whispered the living autarch, words so quiet she could barely hear her own voice.

  “I want to be the [Villain].” Her breathing hitched, choking back a sob.

  Her vision blurred with tears, but her eyes remained locked on the stone-eyed depiction of her predecessor. Thanatos stared down at her from on high, judging her, his unseeing gaze colder than Night.

  “I want to be like you.”

  Melpomene placed a hand against the tower’s stone.

  Unbeknownst to all, a fly buzzed about within the Torr Royale. It’d been blown up there by a stray gust of wind, and now it wandered aimlessly through the halls in search of food.

  It’d been at it for hours and was growing ravenous. Had it a mind, it might’ve felt despair at being trapped within so many sterile, rotless halls, each identical to every other; but the fly had no mind, and so was dauntless in its mindlessness.

  It was rewarded for its perseverance when a new scent — tantalizingly putrid — wafted across its antennae.

  The insect was enraptured. Pulled like an iron filing to a lodestone, the fly zipped toward the scent’s source with renewed vigor. It passed by some blood spilled on the ground — a find that any other day would see the creature settling down for a feast — but it could sense a greater bounty close at wing, and it would not be distracted.

  Deeper within the tower was the ritual chamber. Imperfectly restored by the [Hollow King], missing the [Couronne Solaire], and furthermore damaged by battle, the chamber was in rather poor condition — but that did not mean it was inert.

  To oversimplify, the chamber functioned as all things did: moving energy from one place to another, and having it do something interesting along the way — except now, there was nowhere for that energy to go.

  The cables feeding the chamber mana and divinity were all severed, but the room itself managed to gather a steady trickle of magic all on its own. Retaining energy from the interrupted ritual and now having sat undisturbed for over a day, the room’s magical reservoirs were charged to a level far beyond what they were designed to hold, and its dormant energy only grew greater by the minute.

  The fly flew into the chamber through the large hole in its iron door. It buzzed its way over to the opposite domed wall, heading straight for the human-shaped indentation where the [Hollow King] had slammed into the gold-inlaid marble.

  The severed end of a gold wire — jutting out and up from its proper channel in the wall — hung limp in the air, sparking with magic. The fly — attracted to the putrid sparks of tainted magic — landed atop the wire’s frayed end.

  Despite being incapable of eating raw magic, the fly’s instincts were satisfied to bask in the glow.

  The wire began bending under the fly’s minuscule weight, sagging down, down, down to the floor.

  The fly and its wire got within a millimeter of the floor. The magic arced through the fly’s flesh, completing a circuit that was not meant to be completed.

  “I want to be like you.”

  Melpomene placed a hand against the tower’s stone.

  The Torr Royale exploded.

  Mini Character List:

  Melpomene: Despite her best efforts, maintaining her [Angsty] keyword.

  Eurymedon: The best friend a Daemon could ask for. Has six shoulders, all of which are perfect for crying on.

  Theo: An expert at setting boundaries and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

  Fly: Knows what it wants in life.