It was probably... impossible.
What little I knew about demon summonings and contracts didn't include the art of willfully undermining them just to replace it with another. Elementary techniques of loophole navigation, sure — my grandmother made certain I knew at least the most basic of basics just like any little girl brought up in a witch community should. Emergencies happened, after all. Normal human children learned things like stop, drop, and roll, and stranger danger. Little witch children had their own crop of must-knows.
But none of that helped me now as I threatened to willfully sabotage an Infernal contract. Extend an overlapping, conflicting contract to Mammon, Prince of Greed? Sure. I could. Hypothetically, if his magic was overwhelmingly stronger than Lust's, he might really manage to free me. Maybe.
But it was most likely going to kill me before that could even happen. One didn't sabotage their contract deliberately, not even for noble reasons. Even double-crossing a weak little imp without proper insurance had its consequences. And me, a dead-magic daughter of a witch, no spells, no tricks, threatening to unilaterally terminate an agreement with a whole-ass Prince of Demons?
Yeah. I was definitely dead. The magic would stop my heart in the blink of an eye.
But I wouldn't want to live with myself anyway if I let Lust and Greed massacre these people. I wasn't a fucking monster.
So why not gamble my life for it? Why not see where it got me?
I was crazy anyway.
Bring it.
... And the gamble paid off.
I didn't know who attacked first, Asmodeus or Mammon. I only knew that one moment, everyone stood frozen. The next — both demons were locked in savage combat, bladed tail arcing and carving so fast it was just a fanning blur as it stabbed and sliced at the top, bottom, middle, top again — too fast! I couldn't see it anymore. And there was Mammon, too, the great black wolf with all the blood of his prey dripping from his muzzle so thickly that every time he swung his head to sink his teeth into another part of Lust, crimson rivulets streamed and sprayed onto the snow underneath both of them. The snow had already been dyed red with the blood of all the monks. Now streaks of glowing silvery-black splashed on top of it and bathed everything and everyone. Steam hissed as heat melted the snowy drifts at breakneck speed.
But that wasn't all. Malevolent power flooded me at the same time, fountaining from my wrist and lunging inward again to surge back into my body, burning every vein with an invisible fire so hot I thought I was dead. I had to be. No one could endure this and live. But then the pain doubled, and only the living could suffer like this. I wasn't dead yet.
I couldn't even scream through the pain. I rolled over and opened my mouth to let out the groan trapped in my throat, but it refused to come out. The unseen fire raged, bursting and flaring and scorching, until I realized: I wasn't cold anymore. And it wasn't just because I had become numb to it. The snow around me steamed gently and melted too, just like the snow surrounding the fighting Princes. Heat thawed my muscles and skin, and although it still hurt, now there was something else, something new under the pain.
Strength?
So much! I could even get up and move right now if I tried, no problem. I lifted my head to test how easy it was, then effortlessly jumped to my feet. Sarina was still on her knees as she swayed back and forth, and I caught her shoulder before she could flop over.
This power rushing through me was foreign, definitely not mine. The sensation came from the mark on my wrist, so it must be Lust doing this — remotely, somehow. But I had just threatened to betray him. Why help me? Keeping me alive was one thing. He could have just barely thawed me and sustained my life if that was what he wanted. But like this, I could do anything. Anything!
This was it. My chance. Everyone's chance.
"Get up!" I barked. My throat had thawed too by now, and my voice came out sharp and sure. "Sarina, get your people out of here! The Princes are fighting each other for now, but I don't know how long they'll stay that way. And some of your people are way too close, they'll get caught up in it! Get them all out!"
Her skin, normally a warm tan hue, was bloodless and faint. Magical exhaustion? Or was she hurt somewhere that I hadn't noticed? But there was no time for that! Even if she was hurt, she had to get up and do this. She was the only one who could.
I reared back, arm out — and slapped her across the face.
The crack of my palm against her cheek should have been a lot louder, but the bloody fight between the Princes had become so brutal that the crunching of bone and the tearing of flesh muffled everything else. But even if the sound of the slap was stifled, the pain of it wasn't. A glowing flash lit up Sarina's eyes as she jolted hard and returned to her senses, body jerking under the grip I had on her shoulder. She looked up at me in momentary — horror? Confusion? Shock? All three and more.
"You... You're pitting them against each other... to distract them?" she asked.
"Obviously! Now can you shut up and get everyone out! Are you stupid! Why are you wasting time asking questions! Your people are dying!"
It was the adrenaline from the power spiking inside me that made me grab her other shoulder and shake her like a rag doll. This was life or death. Life and death. People were already dead. There was no way they could have all survived. Within seconds — lives lost, blood everywhere, Princes on the loose, and me at the bottom of it all. What was she doing, wasting time? Couldn't she see how narrow of a window we had?
Then she stood, though she had to grab my forearms and haul herself up with my help. She was still shaking and her face still pale, but she squared her shoulders and pulled her robe back into place. If it weren't for the haunted shadow lingering in her eyes, she would have looked the same as ever, the gentle but firm, unflappable Sarina who had rescued me from the mountain's wintry storm.
"You've betrayed my trust," she said, "but I see there are things I don't understand yet. Don't disappoint me, Witch Solaria. Or your blood. And keep the Indra's Net. You'll need it more than I do if you're truly trapped between two Princes."
She pushed me aside and shouted. No idea what she said. It must have been in her language. But the monks understood. They had been advancing and circling the Princes, trying to find a way to interfere and disable them both, or maybe they had been wondering if they should do anything at all. Now they all retreated as one, though the bravest of them first darted in closer to grab the bodies of the fallen to take with them.
I didn't look too closely. I didn't want to know if they were dead or not. Wouldn't help me now, would it? I crouched and picked up the braided weapon that Sarina had used to tie me up moments ago. Now the handle rested in my grip, slender and pretty. The old symbols and designs carved into it shone when I read them, a strange little glimmer that sent a shiver through me from head to toe, but that was probably just the weapon's power. Magical artifacts did that, right? Or maybe it was the cold, who knew? Either way, Sarina had said this was mine now, and I wouldn't turn down a gift that gave me even a sliver of a chance in this crazy jungle I had recklessly hacked my way into. Didn't matter if I knew how to use it. Something was better than nothing.
The monks moved so fast they were already disappearing down the mountain's slope in the next eyeblink. Sarina was the only one left, but she also turned away, ready to bolt.
Just before she made her escape, though, she shot me a hard look.
"You will probably die, witch. I already lit the Beacon long before I came here, as soon as I realized you disturbed the wards and the prison seal underground. There were two Coven witch teams garrisoned in the neighboring temples to the east and west. They'll have already begun summoning a trap to enclose you and this entire pass. And they're powerful enough to do it."
My eyes widened. "Warn them! Tell them not to come here!"
"You're worrying about the wrong people. They won't come, they'll wait for reinforcements. And it's far easier to trap Princes than to kill them, so don't dare to hope they'll fail. We imprisoned one, too, for a long time. Then, when the Coven brings the fight, even if the Princes survive, you won't. So find a way to slip through before it's too late. I know you have some trick you've been hiding. You couldn't have appeared here in the mountains so suddenly otherwise. Use it again and escape before the Coven closes the trap's bounds around the Kunlun Pass."
But that 'trick' to escape hadn't been mine. I had no spells, much less a teleportation one. That had all been Lust, when he transported us to safety before the Coven enforcers could catch us.
To get out of here, it was all on Lust once again. Lust, who was embroiled in a fight that only became bloodier and more violent by the second. My mouth went dry.
"Thank you for warning me. Now go! Hurry!"
"You might have only seconds left," she said as she backed away. "I meant to stall all of you until the trap was completed. I failed. Take advantage of it. And be quick!"
Sarina had changed her mind. Again. I didn't realize until now how much it had hurt that she had looked at me like I was evil, especially when she mentioned my mom. Maybe I was doomed no matter what I did and this was where it all came crashing down for good, but at least there was one person back on my side that wasn't a demon.
Thank you for helping Sarina, Mom.
If I ever get the chance, I'll make her glad she passed it forward to me.
If I ever get the chance...
I'll try to make you proud.
Only seconds left, Sarina had warned, and maybe it was too late to escape already. How would I even know if the trap to enclose the pass was complete or not? But I had to hope we still had time, or I was fighting for nothing. No, thank you. I was alive. That was all I needed to take the next step forward.
But to where? And how? Lust's magic warming me against the snowstorm might not even last once I ran far away enough. I'd freeze as soon as it wore off. And ha! As if I could possibly make it out of the bounds of the imminent trap seal in the first place. I could sprint thirty seconds at full speed on a flat treadmill at best. I would be lucky to get even a hundred meters down the mountain. And two Coven teams working in tandem? That could be dozens of witches, depending on the size of each team. With that number, they could make a trap big enough to surround an entire city. I'd never outrun that.
Well, I'd already thought of the brilliant idea to provoke Lust and Greed into fighting each other so they would leave the monks alone. I needed my brain to cough out one more good idea. Just one! I would literally take anything that was better than pure shit.
I tightened my hand around the Indra's Net as I turned in the snow, crunching it under my bare feet. There they still were, both Princes, tearing at each other like crazy, rabid animals.
But just then, they jumped back from each other, putting a few meters of distance between them as they panted and bled. They prowled in a circle, moving quickly as they measured each other's condition. Were they done fighting? Were they too tired or hurt to go on? Was this my chance!
Mammon opened his maw. Not to howl or snarl, though. The joy in his glowing red eyes was too taunting and smug for that. Funny how I could read the emotions of a demonic wolf monster, but here I was. Yep.
His tongue lolled out between his teeth like a dog panting in thirst, but there was no panting. Just the glint of a long, glasslike shard balanced on the tip of his extended tongue.
No. Not just a shard.
The Shard.
The one containing a portion of Lust's power, a piece of him. Mammon had it after all, just like he said, and now he goaded the other demon with it. It glinted again in the light.
... No.
No, I couldn't possibly be thinking what I was thinking right now. That would not only make me crazy, but fucking crazy, like licking your fingers when you had knives for hands kind of crazy.
... Eh. Okay. Might as well.
I ran straight at Mammon, full-tilt.