Sylvanis leapt up from the floor. She whirled around in panic and hope and looked fast upon the shadow now sitting on the King’s bed.

The thing looked larger now, here in the wide open. Its towering form flickered with the torches and candles in the room.

“Shadow…” the girl breathed. A hundred feelings coursed through her.

“It seems as though you might benefit from me,” it said with a smile. “What tonight is your wish?”

“Save my love,” the girl said with raspy words. “Shadow I beg of you: save my love. I do not care what happens to me any longer. I do not care what I have traded or will trade. Please save him.”

The demon sat and flickered. No expression appeared upon his dark, eyeless face. His ghostly arms folded, and after a moment he spoke.

“Your love is slated to die,” the demon said grimly. “Such is his destiny.”

“And thus why I have asked you to save him!” Sylvanis finally snapped. “You useless, frail thing! Your first gift cannot break locks on doors, your second absent when I need it. Can you not even save my love from his fate? Is that, too, beyond your power?”

“It is within my power,” the shadow said, ignoring this time the girl’s chides. “Yet do you understand its cost?”

Sylvanis froze.

Anger and frustration left her in an instant. What remained of her feelings, of her terror and anxiety, coiled into a knot in her stomach.n

She looked upon the shadow with fear.

“Indeed, little witch,” the shadow said.

“You would take my life in turn for his?”

“A life for a life; that is the way of the world. And so the decision falls to you, maiden. Would you give your life for your love?”

Sylvanis looked to the floor. Her hands cupped her bare shoulders, and her nails dug into her skin. She felt no pain, and grit her teeth, let thoughts run wild in her head.

“And what is the difference…” she finally whispered. “To be stuck here, with that evil man, feeling only cold and painful things? To be a plaything and not a person? I have traded everything to save my Deyus from his fate, and I am good as dead already.”

“Do not be so sure, little witch,” the shadow replied. “For your own fate is undetermined, and with cost could your wish free you from his clutches. You yourself might live, though your love may die.”

“To what end, shadow?” the girl asked. “To live out my days in cold torment? To wander the wilderness for the remainder of what life I have left in me? No. No, I am too tired. I have traded so much for this single, precious wish. I only wish I’d done so sooner, and spared myself the torment.”

“You would offer me your life to save your love?”

“I would,” Sylvanis said. “And at this moment I might do so gladly.”

“I would ask you again little witch: are you certain? You would give your life to me?”

“Must you torment me?” Sylvanis asked. “Must you make my resolve waver? Kill me and be done with it, that I might go knowing my Deyus will be safe.”

Then the chamber lights dimmed.

The candles extinguished, the torches went out, and the demon sprung forward.

Sylvanis felt a wave of rushing cold. The thing reached out and touched her scalp, placed a dark bone hand upon her head. Sylvanis closed her eyes.

Then the lights reappeared.

The torches relit, the candles flickered, and Sylvanis opened her eyes. The demon had vanished. She stood alone in the chamber.

“You will find your love outside the gates of the city,” the demon’s voice echoed. “There you may be with him, and love him, until it is time for me to take you.”

Sylvanis stood. She looked around the chamber, then to the door, and walked to it. She pushed it open, stepped into the hall, and found the guard by the door dead and bleeding. Then she walked out into the castle hall resolutely, free of anxiety, free of worry, free of feeling.

Sylvanis, at long last, felt nothing.

For the dead have little to fear.