The girl took the slap across her face stoically.

"You are worthless; you can't even clean a hovel right!"

This was her fourth master this past year alone, and he had been comparatively kind until she shattered his prized teacup on the stone floor. This one she had served for months, in gratitude for the evils he rescued her from.

She could take the censure. She would, for the safety of even a mediocre home.

"Get out of my house!"

But not that. There was nowhere to take her back, but places no child should be.

This hero had saved more than her, for a time. It stopped her from offering herself to the Wisp of the Woods.

And now it was time to make the sacrifice.

Into the woods, a stolen kitchen knife in hand, a short walk to the heart's tree. She slammed the knife's tip through the back of her hand, pinning her to the forest as she repeatedly called the name of her justice.

"Haures! I shelter myself at your feet, a servant!"

From the depths of the woods stepped a young man with eyes that smoldered in passion, a sneer firmly in place. "What do you want with me, daughter of man?"

"I've come to offer myself as a bride... for a price."

The man leaned towards the young woman, leering hungrily at all that she offered while being nailed to a tree. "And what is it you wish to ask of me?"

"Three masters in the village east abuse their maids, and a fourth has no care of what he rescued. The rest allowed the abuse."

"My dear," the man smiled kindly at the woman before giving his answer, "you are food."

The man bit into the side of her face, gouging out a cheek and part of the tongue, drinking his fill of her blood as she screamed in agony.

Each bite was the same, rending flesh from bone and nuzzling the fountain of agony that poured forth. Haures savored every scream as the finest wine.

But there is only so long a monster can toy with his meal, especially as starved as the demon usually is. His favorite point, where she would be just on the edge of consciousness, came all too soon.

"I will not destroy your village because they make such beautiful meals for me to devour at my leisure." Tradition then forced Truth's confession. "Your sacrifice was in vain, my dear."

Then came the realization of her failure, which she should have known from the first bite, but agony dims the mind.

Only then did he consume the whole of her.

Haures wiped her blood off his face and on the back of his hand, then licked it clean before pulling the now lonely blade from the tree.

There are never happy endings. Especially fate bound in the hands of demons.

But the world is never without hope, no matter how small. A single drop of blood remained, the first of three attempts to change this monster into a savior. It dripped off his chin.

Potent is human blood that travels across a demon's skin.

Alone, the drop flitted in the air like a seed, traveling for miles until it landed in the queen's garden. A flower sprang forth in the lonely hours of the night, and on its bed lay a young child—almost a swaddling newborn, save for being so tiny.

~~~

Like in many stories, the Queen was without a child, and the King began to look for her replacement. She begged the stars as piteously as did the servant on the very same night.

The next morning, the embittered woman spat out her window, cursing fate, having woken to a letter from her Lord. A trial would begin, one that could very well have her beheaded for consorting with the devil and left barren, anything but admitting that she had been faithful and still had not bore him a son. Even a daughter would do; it was just not preferred.

But she disturbed the small child into a cry, fat tears running down a tiny face, on a sunflower that leaned against her windowsill. The queen gave a shout of triumph as she plucked the babe from the petals, quickly checking into the swaddling to see that it was a girl.

It would be enough to save the queen's life.

She marched in to the hearing and publicly nursed the babe—something that any queen before her would have done, as there is no privacy on the throne. But the question of where the child came from is what consumed that hearing, one she gave scant attention to as the stars answered her prayer. The fool had her locked up and guarded, so the only source of the child was the queen herself or the gods. And the physicians couldn't be sure of birth, as one so tiny wouldn't take much to bring into this world.

The elderly king had a tiny heiress, one that could take the throne, at least in name. All he'd need to do was find a proper general or prince worthy of the monarchy, a chosen heir, with this Palica—a thumb-height child. That is, most humans were measured by hand-height, but some would be marked by their brevity of stature. The tiny princess was paraded in front of servants and rulers alike, only for celebrations; otherwise, she stayed alone in her mother's suite, as the King still held suspicions.

In due time, the child caught up to other children but never shed the name Palica, as she still appeared delicate. Around then, the Queen finally bore her King an heir, a child who took both their lives on the same night, leaving the near-grown princess as the ancient king's only hope.

The King had been a fool his whole life, and that didn't change in his last years: locking the child away from learning a leader's role, never settling on which young candidate would best suit his child as her consort. He was in the ground for three days, long after the people's public mourning, when the council came to drag this sweet child into their speculations.

A young general with an earnest face was one faction's choice, and a sultry prince with an over-generous mouth, often called The Frog, was the other's. Since either choice was a fair one, they left it to the young princess as they made their case. The Frog flirted the whole time, leaving his faction thinking that they had won, as what young miss would turn away from such a kingly visage?

Imagine a frog as king.

Of course, they couldn't understand why the princess frowned at him—even as she chose him over the general. They were worried about rushing through a wedding and double coronation—somberly, out of respect for the maiden's father.

There was no peace to think about her choice until it was their wedding night, complete with witnesses. They stayed long enough to make sure, but once their young king yelled at the servants to leave, they scurried out of their sight, dragging the bedsheet's evidence in their wake. Few truly liked an audience for such a private moment, so they understood the prince's ire.

Once they left, he did not return to his pursuit of his wife's bed. Palica shakily crawled out of bed to place a hand on his shoulder. "My King, what ails you?"

His response was brutal, shrugging her hand off his shoulder before whipping around and backhanding her hard enough to see stars. "My supporters well remember your mother's trial, bastard spawn. Do not dare touch me as an equal."

At this end of things, she thought about why she chose him as she cupped her stinging cheek. Of all the people who treated her like a lackwit, none had laid a hand on her.

He sighed and dug through his oddities until he unearthed a pill case, then grimly returned to his bride's side, offering her the contents of the ornate knicknack. "This will ease the pain, some."

She hesitated on the pills until he looked ready to strike her again, then she hastily dry-swallowed two. He didn't force her to take more. "Get back in bed."

She managed to swallow them just as her inability to breathe hit. Her throat felt closed off by the time he climbed in beside her—her poor mind didn't know what to call this. It was affectionate and brutally cold at the same time, but still she endured, wondering how far he would take his insult of her.

He cradled her to him as she started to see stars and whispered. "I will be known as the king who fucked his delicate wife to death on her wedding night. Your people will make excuse after excuse for what I will do to them as a grieving king. But you won't be here to see that."

Palica had been waiting for a confession and was glad to get one before he made good on the threat.

She dissolved into a sea of leeches and caressed him in the same manner he had her during their brief time together, bled him dry, and burned off the pills instantly. She slept fulfilled for the first time in her young life, relishing his whimpering cries of terror.

And the unofficial title The Frog thought would be his became hers.

The general was that morning's witness to the desiccated form of the man. He reached down to check for a pulse: wrist, throat, chest, before he caught the feeble fluttering that made him think that the princess' assessment of his health was wrong, until a frog burst forth through the ribs of this young king.

The general kept his own counsel on that part but attested to a normal death publicly, ensuring the new queen's claims were backed. They settled into a year where they pulled together fairly well—her as queen and he as adviser—when he finally felt comfortable enough to ask her about why she chose the prince instead of him, while walking the old queen's garden.

"Do you think I look like my father?"

"No, My Leige."

"How about my mother?"

"No...."

The young ruler paused underneath a window that was a whole head's height higher up the wall than her own stature. "My mother was facing death when she prayed to the stars for a child. A flower grew up to her window, and she claimed me. I'm no more a queen than I am their child, by all rights."

"The God's blessed can inherit, M'Lady."

"I don't think that's it either, Elfric." She sighed and took his hand in hers as she faced him. "I never told you, but he had poisoned me that night, hoping to gain the results I had in his death."

The young general went a little pale at that. "And what did you do?"

"I gave him the death he most feared, in the deepest recesses of his mind." She looked up at this earnest man's face and licked her lips, thinking about how he would taste as a lover, something she hadn't dared. "I think I was made for vengeance. I saw something lurking behind that face of his, and I wanted to consume it, but I didn't know why until he had me nearly dead in that bed. I don't think that whatever made me meant for me to be queen. What caused me to choose him is calling me to leave here, and I don't intend to outlast it."

"But your people need you, M'Lady."

"No, they need you. I've got the papers drawn up, and I leave in the morning. You will be Regent for the next sevenyear, and if I return, I will have you as my king, but if I don't... "

"Please don't do this, M'Lady."

So she kissed him where her flower once bloomed, as a promise to herself, then led him to her chambers and did what she wished she had done—that is, made this man her first and only choice. There were no witnesses, but this was a better marriage than the sham ones that had two useless kings buried next to each other in the temple.

And she left him with a necklace—the gold scarab made from her heart's blood—a reward for an honorable man.

On the road, she dressed as a child would, since her delicate frame favored youth. Now that she knew her nature and where her heart lay, she killed and blessed long before men's deeds were fulfilled. She left a wake of monsters dead and honorable men that could be found in a heart's beat if one knew how to use the scarabs. It was a ramble about the nation, dipping further out into other lands on occasion, but no place called to her until she'd made nearly a full circuit, deep into her fourth year of risking herself to kill.

Finally, she walked into a woodland she knew but had never seen. Deep towards the center, the heart's tree held scars from knives that spanned decades, still weeping the tree's blood. One such blade glinted in the filtered light at the base of the tree.

Palica picked it up and saw everything. She slammed it through her hand, pinning herself to the tree, and repeated the words of children, which shouldn't have been real. "Haures! I shelter myself at your feet, a servant!"

"What do you want with me, daughter of man?" From the depths strode her true father, a beautiful creature that was designed to be pure temptation.

Palica knew her nature would change toward his if she survived this.

But then, she was better fed than him. "I've come to offer myself in trade."

"And what is it you wish to ask of me?" His breath scattered raggedly across her cheek, reminding her greatly of The Frog.

"Vengeance." She waited for his lips to brush her cheek and for the first prick of teeth before she became a tarry substance that flowed down his throat, coating him. The beast thrashed, shrieking silently against her skin as she slowly consumed the monster who abused the fate handed to him.

He could have been a savior. He could have been a lover of women who needed the support of a monster. But no, he died in his own offspring's maw, feeding the justice he denied others.

She poured through her father's memories in that moment, sparking through how he had tainted the eastern village, shaping them towards monsters, not men. Once she had sated her vengeance on her father, she turned into a cloud of locust and devoured man and beast alike, leaving naught but innocence behind.

~~~

Palica made it home more a monster than a daughter of man—like Elfric cared. His queen ascended to her throne sated. Not long after, they were formally wed.

Even miracles take a little time. Especially fate bound in the hands of demons.