I jumped up and down in place and shook my hands loose, wishing the stones of this weird place in the Twins' city would give under my feet just a little like the boards of the dueling boxes in the Coliseum. The unyielding, ethereal cobbles might as well have been bedrock instead. That little bit of spring from the wood in the arenas we'd used in the Rising Stars Tournament had made me feel like I could move a little faster, be a little more responsive, and I was wishing for every edge I could get right now. I'd bolted out of the competitor's box as fast as I could when Rakkoden had called for me. I didn't wait to speak with Afi or the others. They were all celebrating over Basil and Esmi's surprise marriage, and Twins bless them for it, but I was nothing but jitters and anger. This was it. If I could beat the big purple bastard, we'd won the city. It wouldn't matter who took top honors so long as they were human. The Primarch was our last real hurdle. I'd hoped it would be me facing him, and now I hated myself for it. Tricks, strategies, and tactics flooded my mind in a jumble. What Mother had told me got all mixed up with the advice Edaine had shouted out to us during her ill-fated match against the brute. I couldn't keep my thoughts straight. A tiny, grim voice inside me kept saying This is the part where you die, and I couldn't figure out any way to tell it to shut up and bugger off.

The ground shuddered rhythmically, and I looked up to see great Aaxes, Primarch of Demons striding into place from his glowing tunnel. He'd taken his time arriving, and a slow, satisfied smile on his face said he knew I'd been stewing over this fight. He knew I was scared. He knew I wanted it over with, and he'd held off descending just to make sure I was keyed up and out of sorts before we even started.

Well, fuck him. Two could play that game.

"How you feeling, fungus man?" I said, giving him my snottiest smile. "Eat any good cards lately?"

His pleased look vanished. An uneven mottling of mushrooms now sprouted from his shoulders and neck. "You will share in the punishment I have in store for your mother," he growled. "You will linger for centuries weeping and reaching for a death forever denied you."

"Feeling touchy are we, Pacchus?" I sneered. "What happened to finding truth through conflict like a good demon should?"

"There is no truth in either of you," he intoned. "Your tongues will not join you in the long suffering that awaits."

Our cards had come and gone, and since he had an empty Mind Home, only my Sucking Void appeared as ante. I put up a Nether as soon as I drew it. Surprising exactly no one, the Primarch didn't bother with Source or cards. He just came straight at me. Don't let him hit you, Mother had said. The arrogant bastard had avoided the Twins' gifts as much as he possibly could, refusing to develop abilities, Attack power, or anything that might link him to their system, so while he would hit like a mountain falling on me, there was no Fated damage involved. He was just fist-brawling like any old tavern drunk in the Lows. The only thing he hadn't been able to avoid accumulating over the aeons was a mind-boggling amount of health. His card said 1000 Health, though Mother had said the infection he'd taken on by eating her sneaky little Fae card would reduce that considerably. So, maybe he only had 500 instead? It was still a hopeless number.

He was far too fast for a being of his size. I threw myself aside, tucking into a rough roll as his fist smashed into the translucent cobbles with a boom. I drove an elbow into his side as I popped back up and then skittered to a safe distance. It felt like poking a brick wall, and he didn't so much as grunt. I'd done my 4 damage; he just didn't care. He might not have even noticed.

"Is the Demon Realm really so great that you have to turn my city into a copy of it?" I asked as I played my first card. Him preempting my go-first turn allowed me to play a second Source, and by happy chance it was my unique one that let me devote for 3 Nether.

"You wouldn't like it if we showed up and took a shit on your front porch, right?" I continued. "How about you return the favor and go home?"

I'd had to mulligan hard to get the Talisman, but since Mother had said that my Relics were probably safe from his card-eating ability so long as he didn't lay hands on me, it was a good place to start. I'd worked too hard to collect my little squad of demons for this son of a bitch to go gobbling them into raw magic.

"You rebel against your very nature," he said, sounding disgusted. "Have you ever even seen the place you seek to guard against?"

"I have," I shot back, turning around and unabashedly running to the far side of the arena as he tried to rush at me again. "Little me spent some time there with my mother, though I'm only just now able to remember it." The image of the Homestone, centerplace of the Unyielding Court, reared up unbidden in my mind. It had been beautiful in its own brutal kind of way. Endless ranks of demon nobility – distinguished only by their capacity to kill and win, not by any bloodline – striving to unseat each other and have dominance over fiefs, lands, and princedoms. Mother had danced circles around them all, fighting when she must but more often leaving her opponents misdirected or even converted to her own side long before they ever came to blows. It had been a good year and a half we'd spent there before she'd brought me back to Treledyne in the hopes that Hestorus might take me – and thus her – back in. These flashes of memory kept coming at me since I'd merged with little Hull, catching me off-guard. I didn't have time for them.

"It's a place I wouldn't mind visiting again," I told him, yanking myself away from the image. "But it's not so perfect that I need every single other place to be just like it." With my Talisman in place, it was time to start doing some real damage.

Both the Spell's bolt and the redirected damage from the Talisman thudded into him. He opened his mouth and tried to snap at the energy from the Unstable Rift, but it was there and gone too quickly for him to consume, leaving him scorched and huffing. I felt quite pleased with myself until I did a quick bit of number-wrangling in my brain and realized I had just done – at most – damage that amounted to 2% of his total health. Twins. This is going to take a while.

I cycled through my deck, keeping my distance and pelting him with Spells and reflected damage without ever letting him come close. Once I had my Iron Maiden Plate in place I started pecking away at him at the end of each turn, using the armor's self damage to trigger my Talisman.

The Primarch made the occasional too-fast dash to try to catch me, but he never seemed to get too angry when I escaped to dribble away a little more of his pool of Health. Instead, he seemed to be using our duel to try to convince me that he was in the right.

"Tell me, if any honestly remains in you, that the silly, capricious rules of these Defilers do not grate on your soul," he said. "Can you do it?"

I grunted sourly. "They're right there," I said, gesturing upwards. "Literal gods right over our heads, and you want me to complain that they don't do everything the way I please? How stupid do you think I am?"

"Not stupid," he countered. "Just cowardly. There can be no shame in speaking truth, especially when those to whom you speak it have the power to eliminate you with a thought."

"You gonna tell me you started making this noise about Defilers and all that when you were still weak enough for them to stomp?" I laughed. "Who's speaking truth now?"

I risked bringing out Yveda the Endless.

I didn't let him rush in to attack until he'd doubled to about a dozen copies or so, and I instructed him to always keep his first copy directly behind me. From watching Edaine's match I knew that while the Primarch could and would eat copies, they didn't give him as much raw-magic juice as a full card would, and when he ate a copy it didn't destroy my original so long as I still had one. On each attack the big guy would snag one or two of the Yvedas and munch them, but he took damage from all the rest at the same time, and they were doubling ferociously. The panic in my heart started to ease ever so slightly. I was doing some real damage now.

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"They imprison all of us," he said relentlessly in between fending off waves of Mythic copies. "If I knew how to be rid of the card they smuggled into my soul without dying, I would do it in a heartbeat. What good to be trapped in panes of glass and forced to do another's bidding for thousands of years? And all the while, they siphon off the total free magic of all reality, sequestering it into tiny personalities and useless abilities. I wish I could show you the swirling mists of creation that hover off our shores. You wade into their midst and your very thoughts express themselves into wild magic. It is a beauty beyond imagining."

"Plenty of us think that working for someone else after we die is a fair trade-off for getting to continue as thinking, feeling beings," I said. "And somehow I don't think if I show up in your Nether Realm you're going to show me the pretty lights on the shore. Wasn't there something about tearing out my tongue and making me suffer for centuries? I could have sworn I heard that."

He finally gathered enough of his gray nimbus of energy to send out a blast of destructive energy in a ring, catching the Yvedas all in a go and crumbling them to sparkling dust – all except the one who I'd made hide behind me, who cowered shamelessly and immediately got back to doubling himself. It took a few more turns before I had enough of him to start attacking again, but we were playing the long game. I was starting to huff and pant with all the running and dodging I was doing, but I kept a couple of other Yvedas in reserve to take a hit for me now and then so I could take a breather. Aaxes was covered in bleeding cuts and gashes, but he hadn't slowed in the slightest.

"Do you not wish to be in control of your own destiny?" he asked me. "To win or cease to be by the merit of your own prowess?"

"Only somebody who's been too damn powerful for too damn long could ever say that," I responded. "I spent my whole life eating out of trash heaps and sleeping in the cold. I've never had control of my destiny. So what if it's the Twins in charge? Somebody's gotta be, and it sounds to me like you're just pissed off it isn't you."

"You fail to understand the beauty of freedom," he said, shaking his great head sadly even as he tore apart the Yveda copies and gathered his gray magic glow.

"I saw an old woman dancing with her dead husband's card once," I said. "That was beautiful. I got to meet my younger self and merge with him, and he was beautiful too, the little shit. Keep your wild magic. The Twins may be assholes, but I like the world they've created." I hefted my weapons. I had the Hateful Hammer in one hand and my Vampiric Blade in the other so I could keep the Spells coming back even after I'd used them. I didn't dare get close enough to the Primarch to hit him, so every now and then I'd spear an Yveda, much to his annoyance. The card was forced to do its 3 damage to me in return whenever I did, but my Plate blocked the damage."These gods set it up so I can break things in every possible amazing way. Quit trying to convince me, you wet turd. I'm good." I sent in a fresh wave of Yvedas to make my point.

"Then only death will persuade you," he sighed. Raw power burst from him again, shattering the Yvedas who had been clawing at him. At the same time, he dashed forward in that too-fast way he sometimes had, swiping at me with his great claws. I dove desperately to one side, but the single Yveda who had been hiding in my shadow wasn't prepared, and he let out a squeak as the Primarch crushed him. I felt a wrenching in my head, and a green-bordered card appeared in the great demon's hand.

"Finally, the pest is finished," he boomed. He lifted the card to his lips.

"That's mine!" I howled, swinging my Hateful Hammer directly at the demon's hand, pumping nearly all my Nether into myself to power the blow. I hit him for a massive 13 damage, slamming the purple hand to the ground. The Mythic card skittered out of his grasp as he grunted in pain. Not bothering to follow up, I ran after the card, scooping it up from the ground and immediately jamming it behind my ear and safely back into my Mind Home. Too close. He's done playing around.

It was time to step up my attacks. No more Souls. I popped my Legendary Spells and waded in on the attack.

I got in another decent hit, and the Primarch growled in pleasure, glad to finally be coming to grips. When his massive blow clanged off me harmlessly, the growl turned to displeasure.

"Is this true power?" he asked. "Hiding behind Spells?"

"It kind of is," I said, hitting him again, using the Vampiric Blade to empty my discard back into my deck.

"And if I do this?" he inquired, darting forward and wrapping one great hand all the way around my torso, heedless of the damage I inflicted as he successfully pinned my arms to my sides.

"Feel free to try to crush me," I laughed, hiding my discomfort at being restrained. "Won't work." I dismissed my weapons, unable to use them and worried he'd pluck them away and eat them. I kept an eye on him. I didn't think he could pull the Plate or Talisman off of me, but if he made the slightest move toward them, I'd dismiss them immediately.

"I don't need to crush you," he rumbled. "I just have to wait five turns."

I used all my strength to push against him and achieved exactly nothing. Alarm bells went off in my head. I peppered him with two more Unstable Rifts and the Talisman blowback. "Really think you can last that long?"

His sharp teeth showed in a vicious smile. "Oh, yes."

I started to panic. I needed to break free of his grip. I couldn't think straight. I had to get free. I felt like a fox gnawing at its own leg in a steel trap. My breath whistled in my teeth, and my head felt hot. It was as if he was crushing me already, even though I knew I was still protected by the Sucking Void.

Two more turns of blasting him in the face with Spells, and I was in a full-on panic. I had a hand full of Souls, and I wasn't ready to die. I summoned the one I needed.

"Pick us up and throw us as hard as you can!" I screamed as soon as it appeared, looming high over us both.

"Destruction is delicious," the enormous demon purred, picking the Primarch up like one might a child and slamming us both into the ground.

I bounced free and careened to the far side of the arena, gasping wildly, nearly sobbing with relief. It hadn't been rational, that feeling. I might be a far better duelist than I'd started out as, but I'd lost my head. I couldn't do that again.

The move cost me. I turned back to the Primarch to see that he'd hit the Night Terror in return, taking the Oversize damage in order to land a killing blow. The Mythic card was in the bastard's hand, and I was too far away to do anything about it as he crunched down, sighing with pleasure as a great surge of gray power washed through him.

"Delicious indeed, little Segruval," he said quietly. "In death you finally serve your rightful master." His eyes locked on me. "Like so."

A bolt of energy like a falling star streaked across the arena at me. I watched it come. I'd learned not to devote all my Nether at once. I might have lost my head for a second, and I might not have the crazy Health this beast of a Legendary soul did, but I had a new soul ability that I'd barely gotten to put to use yet, and now was the time.

The gray glow surrounded me as I devoted a single Nether. I felt it pulse weirdly all around me. It felt different than other damage I'd ever taken – fresher, deeper, more alive. Maybe there was something to be said for this wild magic he kept talking about. Either way, I wasn't going to keep it. The light doubled in intensity and shot back at him as I activated my Best Served Cold ability. It hit him square in the face, knocking him from his feet.

I stalked forward, feeling a fresh power surge through me. "I don't need Spells or Souls," I told him. "We're just gonna beat the shit out of each other with our bare hands. Any hit you land will turn back on you. You can choose not to hit me, of course, but it'll just be a slower death. You tried to steal my city. You sent demons to kill folks in the Lows. I let your daughter walk away from our match; I'm not doing the same with you."

"I don't want you to," he said, rising to his feet with a majestic dignity. "Come, demon. Let us finish this. Perhaps there is value in you after all."

Five minutes later, my eardrums aching from the thundercracks of our blows back and forth, I struck him with an overhand blow that broke off one of his great horns. It wept black blood. The crazy Primarch laughed and wielded the fallen piece of himself as a club.

Ten minutes later I kicked out his knee and it ripped off his left lower leg, sending it spinning away in a wash of gore. My hands and feet felt as heavy as a mountain, and I was gasping with weariness. Still he tried to get back to his one foot and fight on.

"No," I said, pushing him onto his back. "This is over."

He fell back, his smile as wide as ever. "I stand defeated by one worthy to follow me."

"I'm not going to follow you!" I shouted. "Your plan is dead. Your goals are shit. I'm not gonna be some demon king, asshole."

His teeth were stained black with his own blood. "You say this, but the magic has claimed you. Look how you have changed." He raised a clawed finger to point at me. "It speaks."

He was pointing at my face. At my head. I felt at my own face out of a sudden, morbid curiosity. "What–"

Then I felt it. Them. Two short, sharp horns curving up from the hairline at my forehead.

"It is enough," he whispered. "I am content."

"Eh," I said, "I guess I can live with it too."

With all my remaining strength I put my heavy fist through his face, and it was over.

How long I stood there in a haze of exhausted relief I didn't know, but when I looked around, the tunnel back to the competitor's room had not appeared.

A BOON, a great voice echoed in my head. ANY BOON FOR THIS GREAT VICTORY.

I was down a Mythic. I could ask to have my Plate elevated. That'd be a win. I sure as shit wasn't going to ask to marry Afi just yet. She was pretty damn great, but she was no Esmi and I was no Basil. We'd figure it out on our own time. Fix the Lows, I almost said, but that felt like my responsibility too.

Then a tired kind of certainty came over me. We needed to secure our city. We needed to defeat the ones who wanted to destroy and undermine us. All of them. We'd never be safe unless we finished the job.

My work was not yet done.

"Bring Yveda the Fluid back onto the field," I said in a loud voice. "No tricks and no Flee abilities. I want to face her fair and square.

"For my boon, I want you to let me fight my mother."

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