Returning in the dim cave that was Mezo's quarters twisted her gut into a disarray of knots. Hesi craned her neck at the ceiling as she listened to the High Prince's cutlery clink against a porcelain plate. Like last time, he ate slabs of meat sliced so thinly and served raw.

"Does it bother you?" The demon prince's gentle tone jarred her attention back to him. "Me eating, that is."

She jerked her chin. "No, go ahead," she replied. "It's not like I can bring back their lives. We also need to avoid your...um..."

A sigh made his shoulders slump. "Of course, we will talk about that," he said. "I hoped you figured out what happened by now."

She glanced at the shelves lining the walls. They were back in their pristine condition as though nothing did. "Apart from the snake-like frills, I saw a furry tail." She inclined her head at him. "It is only found in demons of mammalian forms, right?"

"Correct." He speared another slab of meat and stuck it into his mouth, turning slightly away out of courtesy. As he swallowed without chewing, he faced her again. "I came from an interracial consummation. My father believed it was the future of the Mayaware."

"Except it isn't," she blurted out the sentiment he might fear saying aloud. "Because you have difficulty controlling it."

The demon nodded. "The High King believes having an army of hybrids will increase our might," he explained. "That is why he has to hide my condition. If the generals see my affliction and how...unpredictable it can be, they will withdraw their support."

"That is also why the King is in a hurry to produce an heir born out of a human," he continued when she didn't construct a coherent reply. Yobekh explained that. They wanted stronger soldiers and citizens and only realized the puru of their prey was the answer.

"But I doubt he will get what he wants," Mezo finished.

"I never imagined seeing you go against your father even in the dark," she noted.

He pursed his lips. Was that guilt in his eyes? Since when did demons exhibit such emotion? "Consider it my penance for the sins I required absolution for." He hung his head, saying the same thing Kharta told her. Silence thickened to a cloud for half a minute. He broke it with a sigh. "I am truly sorry about what happened to Mensa. I couldn't warn her in time."

"Like what you did for me?" she asked. "How did it become so ravenous towards Mensa that you didn't foresee it?"

Mezo set his fork down and put his hands together. When he leaned forward, only the low table stood between them. In the darkness, she felt his knees almost brush hers as they sat with their legs folded over square cushions. "My demon forms are at war with each other, but they see a common enemy in this form." He gestured to his human body. She thought of it as his normal look. "That means there are days when I can keep them at bay, and some when I can't."

"Is there any way to control it?" she ventured. "Have you tried?"

His slitted eyes narrowed further. "I only need to calm myself and distract my thoughts by reading. I tried a few times, and it worked," he replied. That was a relief.

But he wasn't finished. "When I'm with you, I find it harder," he said. "As though..." He clicked his forked tongue as he searched for the right words. "As though they were both tame and agitated. Both want to get out and devour you, they also want to spare you."

Their gazes locked, and for the first time, she noted how lamp-like his eyes were. "They have never been more at war than when I lay my eyes on you," he continued. "Sometimes I want to listen and give in, but I know I can't. I don't want you to get hurt, especially by my hands."

She averted her focus and studied the rim of the table. Why wouldn't it burn with a mere gaze? In her periphery, Mezo scratched the side of his face. "I've been thinking about it, and I realize I have a wide range of emotions I felt before—fear, anger, concern, and happiness—but never to this degree and in this...combination and never towards an individual." He tilted his head in genuine askance. "Do humans have a word for this strange emotion?"

There was, and she couldn't bring herself to say it. Because once she did, it might become something she couldn't deny anymore.

"Hesi?" the demon prince said softly. "It is fine if you can't answer. This will not be our last meeting."

Her head snapped up. "What?"

His lips parted into a gentle smile—the kind he gave only to her. "I will choose you as my bride," he said. "I have already decided."

Bile rose in her throat, coating her tongue and blocking the air coming down from her nose. She should be happy; she will not die, and she won the wretched trial. But all she managed was, "Why?"

"Because I would rather spend my life in the dark as long as you are here." The Mayaware prince ducked his head to hide his face. Demons had black blood, so he looked as though he was bruising like an abused grape rather than blushing. "I do not know the word in Birejyet for these...feelings, but it is what it is. I feel for you."

Silence.

"Birejyet has a word for it," she answered after a beat. "But I'm not sure if it's the right one for what we have. Not when I don't believe you."

He blinked. He wasn't hurt, but his expression bore a striking resemblance to it. She forced herself to remain oblivious and clenched her fists underneath the table. "You're a demon. You will always be one despite your kind words and your fake worries." She leveled her gaze at him and reached for the huurshe dagger's hilt tied around her thigh. "I don't need it. I don't need your charity."

"It is not charity I offer." Mezo, for a moment, sounded like a royal and not like the lost shepherd she viewed him as. "I know everything, Hesi. Why you're here, what you concealed in your jewelries, and what you brought with you today. I know."

Her fingers slipped from the dagger's hilt in shock. Her brain went through a list of fibs and excuses, anything to drive off the prince's certainty, but he shattered it to dust when he continued. "I offer you an escape. A way to save who you want."

"Grand, because I have an offer too," she replied.

He waved a hand. "You want to save the brides, correct? Now that you know you are my chosen bride, you look for a way to not have them killed." He blew another breath when she did little to hide her suspicion. "I saw you after the second to the last trial. I saw your unshed tears and the ire you reserved for my kind and this world. I will give you a chance to avoid that path."

"What must I do?"

The demon prince leveled his gaze at her. "Kill me."

Cold gripped her limbs. This was the moment she waited for, so why...

Why was the only word out of her lips No?

He raised a lined eyebrow. "No?"

"Demons could change their consumption," she reasoned. The back of her head screamed at her to stop, to retrieve her dagger and plunge it deep into his chest. What was she saying? Why did she continue talking? "Maybe...maybe our people can live in peace, as we do now."

Kharta would have a heart attack if he heard her. It was plausible, right? If Mezo learned how to relate to humans, the others could too. Nobody had to die or get hurt.

A far-off look crossed the prince's features. "What a beautiful world that will be, don't you think?" His gaze fell on her again. "But it cannot be so. It is our nature to crave human flesh and thirst for your blood. You cannot change nature itself."

Her chest constricted with every word out his mouth. "If you do not do something as early as now, you will see a world destroyed. What eats and does so without control is bound to consume for eternity. They would start wars, seize innocent lives, and topple civilizations so they would feel safe with their existence. They would do it over and over until nothing remained." He flashed her a melancholic smile. "You have a chance to stop that. Take it."

The first of her tears dropped from her eyes and onto her gossamer dress. "I can't." She swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand. "You can't ask me that."

"It will be difficult to see the dream you held on to come this easily." He looked at her with not a shred of pity. It was tender, kind. Human. More than anything she saw in her lifetime. "Kill me, and end everything here. Paint me like the murals of old—with vicious claws and bloody fangs—because it is what I am. Make me the villain of your dreams. Your villain."

"You can't ask me that," she echoed. He couldn't. Not when he wormed his way into her heart with his warmth. Not when his laugh became a relief from reality. He couldn't ask her that because she cared about him enough to hurt when spears pierced his skin for her sake. Out of everyone, you have the most heart to give. Kharta told her that, and now, she realized the truth. It wasn't a gift. It was just another curse she grew up with.

Mezo didn't listen. Even with his enhanced senses, he ignored her. "Use me as leverage against the King," he advised. "Get him to yield, and you will save the brides. You can walk away from Berheqt. All of you."

She gritted her teeth. "I'm not trading another life," she said. "I can't.."

"Then, you leave me no choice."

Before she made sense of the threat, the darkness rushed towards her. She tumbled back, her hand flying towards the dagger on her leg. Fangs clashed against her blade as she leaped back and swung. "Wait—"

Mezo lunged at her again, claws extended. They flashed against the lanterns' meager glow. She slashed a wide arc, but she didn't aim to cut. What was happening? Did he force her to attack him?

Her back pressed against a shelf. It bursted to the brim with books he talked about passionately. Books that contained stories of other worlds, of other realities where everything worked out in the end and where the heart was in control and not the universe. Onyx scales rushed towards her, sailing past her guard. She brought her arms up and scrambled sideways. The shelf cracked and exploded into splinters as the demon slammed into it.

Like the previous encounters, she only has to knock twice, and they would take her out. Maybe they should resume this talk tomorrow when they calm down?

The demon roared, shaking the entire room. She clutched her ears to drive out most of the ringing, ducking when a clawed hand swung into her periphery. Darpeh. He would not let her leave until he had an answer.

She would give him one, then.

She tightened her grip on her blade and met the prince head-on. Sparks lit the room brighter than a lantern could. She aimed for his frills, spread wide and without inhibition. His lower half remained human. The mammalian features didn't show. Yet. He was in control, but for how long?

Her dagger slid across onyx scales with the angle she hit him with. She threw her weight forward, and while a normal demon would have torn her arm off her shoulder without thought, he simply dropped all the tension in his limbs. She struck his knees, and he sank to the ground willingly. He took a blow to the side of the head when she slammed her dagger's pommel into it.

She towered over him—a tempest above a vessel in open waters. She raised her blade, the obsidian sheen glinting amber. It stabbed down.

And paused mere inches from warm beige skin.

She clenched two hands around the dagger's hilt, her knuckles turning white they almost gleamed. "Why aren't you fighting?" she demanded, her voice not above a stringent hiss. Then, louder: "Why aren't you doing anything?!"

Mezo eyed the blade and chuckled, resting his head on the floor. His eyes stared up at the bare ceiling. "The gesture's welcome," he answered. The onyx scales subsided. "I do not want to be here. I want to be free. You know how I feel, right?"

Tears stung her eyes, but she edged the blade's tip closer to his chest. Let it dig into his flesh. Her hands shook harder. Her breaths turned jagged. She couldn't...she still couldn't do it. Why?

Why?

She screamed as she urged her hands to sink the blade into Mezo's chest. He was a demon—a filthy one. He deserved to die. He deserved to receive the sharp end of his fate for terrorizing humans. For the lives his people took. For the families they tore. For the children they made orphans of.

He didn't deserve to live.

But who was she to dictate that? When she was another soul to be judged?

With a gasp, she chucked the dagger away. The clatters it made on the stone floor bounced along the walls in hollow echoes until the darkness ate them up. She stumbled off the prince and wiped her tears with her forearm. "This isn't right." She shielded her face with her hands. "I can't."

She raised her tear-stained face to look at him. "I can't."

"This is your last test, Hesi," he answered, not rising an inch from the ground. "There will always be consequences for failing."

She shook her head and snatched the dagger, sheathed it on her thigh, and fixed her dress to conceal it again. Without ceremony, without a lasting look that tore her heart into a thousand pieces, she sprinted out of the prince's quarters. She didn't stop running, didn't stop the tears of regret and anger from burning a scalding trail down her cheeks. She ran, because it was the only thing she excelled at.

Never did humans end suffering and come home the hero. It takes a monster to kill a monster, and she has to become one if she wanted to succeed.

Hesi Renen was only human, and if Mezo was correct, she couldn't change or go against it.