• The artwork burned, all of it. Paintings and drawings which had consumed the last six years of her life now were being eaten by malicious, ever-hungry flames. Before her was the ultimate reason for everything: a statue of a beautiful woman that now held the shape of her friend, Grace, standing calmly before a horned demon whose reptilian tail wrapped around one of the woman’s leg.
    Kiera hesitated. How very long it had taken her to complete that masterpiece, so very long…
    No, it must be destroyed. Raising the sword that had been found within the stone, she thrust it though the woman’s heart.
    Behind her, she heard Grace’s body lurch on the floor.
    A flash.
    Heat.
    Darkness. Yet before all faded, the last few minutes played painfully in her head.

    “Grace, you absolutely have to see it!” Kiera blurted as Grace closed the door.
    “You finished it!” Grace asked, possessed with an excitement that sent her jumping and throwing her shining auburn coils into a bouncing frenzy. Always was she excited to see Kiera’s new works, but this had been building for over half a year.
    “Yes!” came the rightfully proud and equally ecstatic reply. “C’mon, I’ll show you,” Kiera added, although needlessly for Grace was well on her speedy way to the room that held the title of Kiera’s art gallery.
    When Kiera glided in seconds after Grace, she found the other staring in indescribable awe. Several moments passed before anyone spoke.
    “It’s…beautiful,” Grace breathed, then, looking at the demon, added, “in it’s own slightly twisted way. Is there a reason or a story behind the, um…the devil-man?”
    Kiera thought for a moment, the reason behind the design a distant memory, then said, “It was a dream, I think. After the workers put the block up here, I sat for hours next to it trying to remember the design—I had forgotten and misplaced the papers I drew it on, and I have yet to find them. Finally, I went to sleep in the chair and I saw that in a dream. Once I woke up, I started to chisel it out immediately, starting from base-up, even though I usually start at the top. I didn’t draw out the design or even tweak it; as far as I remember, that’s exactly how I saw it in my dream. Oh, there was something strange, though: I found that embedded in the stone.”
    Grace followed Kiera’s gaze to find a sword buried under paintings. The hilt was golden with scale-like carvings, coming to meet the blade with a many-toothed dragon head with two curved horns. The blade itself was serrated, the only true sharp edge being just an inch from the point on both sides, so it seemed logical to Kiera that it was meant as a thrusting weapon. Looking at the small, jagged teeth of the serration, she shuddered.
    “I’ve tried to sell it many times. The first time I met in person before bringing it along. That night, his house burned down, killing him and his family. So, since then I’ve tried several sites—Amazon, e-bay—but my computer freezes every time.”
    “So what, bad luck?”
    “No, but there is someone coming in just a few minutes who sounded like he really wants it. He says he knows what it is supposed to be in some mythology or something. A ‘demon sword,’ I think.” As if on cue, the doorbell rang. “Oh, stay here, I’ll get it.”
    Kiera raced to the door, then, taking a short moment to compose herself, she opened it to reveal a tall, dark-haired man in his thirties with a couple days worth of growth on his chin. His eyes held urgency; his stance, forced restraint.
    “Oh, eager to see it, Mister…?”
    “Connors,” he said, flinching that she had seen right through him. A single thought held him in check: Had it already begun? How did it just so happen to come into the hands of a sculptor?
    “Yes, I remember now. So, if you’d come with me, I’ll show you the sword…”
    A moment later, they walked through the doorway to find Grace standing unsteadily, slightly rocking back and forth. She nodded, and her hand raised.
    The eyes of the dragon on the sword were glowing.
    “No, don’t touch the—!” Connors yelled when suddenly the sword pulsed with light, sending a wave of flames around the room. Connors barely grabbed Kiera in time to avoid them both being caught in the blaze.
    “What the hell just happened?” Kiera shrieked, panting in fear.
    “That sword houses the spirit of a pyrodrae’ic, a demon of fire, which was concealed within stone as banishment. Until now, of course. You have created its new form.”
    “What about Grace?”
    “It’s too late for her, even if she’s not already dead.”
    “Oh my…” she started, but trailed off, then screamed when Grace landed limply beside her and slid across the floor, her clothes reduced to smoldering patches yet her skin and hair seemingly untouched by the flames.
    “I require a worthy sacrifice! Send forth the male!” The voice boomed from the statue, a distorted, growling sound. Glancing back, Kiera saw that the woman on the statue had changed to Grace’s appearance.
    “Yeah, right, like I’m going to just give myself to be your sacrifice?” Connors snapped.
    Suddenly Grace was on her feet, lifting Connors and throwing him the twelve feet to the statue’s base effortlessly, then collapsed back down to the ground.
    “Stab its heart!” he shouted, pointing at the sword and statue before a red light tore through the stone and he disappeared.
    Seconds of eternity passed, and finally Kiera mustered the will to stand, then to walk, to grasp the snarling sword, to raise the blade, to stab the heart.

    Kiera awoke in a land of fire. It surrounded her, climbed her, violated her, yet did not burn her, only that which was artificial.
    Conners’s voice came weakly from his body on hands and knees in obvious agony—the fire did burn him. “Stab the heart…” he repeated in a hoarse whisper.
    “I did!” Kiera pleaded.
    “No, you stabbed hers,” he replied, pointing.
    Kiera followed the finger to find Grace, lying motionlessly on the blazing ground. “How can we help her?” she demanded, and when he did not answer immediately, she screamed “How?!”
    “You cannot even…help…yourself,” he answered.
    A dark figure appeared behind him, slowly taking form of the demon Kiera had most carefully sculpted for the last seven months. “Nonsense!” it shouted, stepping on Connors, and Kiera heard the snap of bones breaking. A fire enveloped the two, a purple blaze that Kiera felt more heat from than any other, even that which surrounded her. The purple flames shrunk and changed, forming the shape of a single human, and when the flames died away, they revealed the woman who had originally been in the statue.
    Beautiful, but skin paler than death, hair whiter than winter, and pale blue eyes piercing. “There is a way to save Grace, and to spare your life,” she said, her voice smoother than silk. “It is your choice, although there is one thing I ask in return.”
    “And…what is that?” Kiera asked shakily.
    “Do you wish your friend alive or not?” the demon beauty demanded.
    “Yes!” Kiera blurted.
    “Then take my hand,” she offered.
    Kiera hesitated, then, finally, her hand reached forward.
    Flash!
    Three women stood atop the rubble of the statue. Two of the women, one with auburn coils and the other with straight brown hair, turned to regard the third of flowing white hair. Then they declared, “The world is mine again.”
    Three voices, one thought. Three bodies, one master.