He stumbled through the darkness, clutching his arms close to his chest. His heart thundered in his ears, each beat reminding him it might be very well his last.

It shouldn't have been like this.

He had been a happy child—someone who shouldn't worry about carrying the sins of the world on his small shoulders. But he was. And now, he's going to die because of it.

His family had done nothing to stop it. His mother, an ever-sweet and loving woman, had only watched as soldiers from the Presteria dragged him away. He's going to be the next offering, the men clad in glinting silver armor said. He's going to save them from the wrath of the Demon Queen who controlled the Land of the Damned. To the Presteria, he was just one of the inconsequential children to be sent to the forest surrounding the kingdom. To them, he wasn't a life. He was condemned before he was even born.

He had grown up hearing stories. A long time ago, the Queen had almost wiped the humans out with her horde of dark creatures born from the shadows during moonless nights. It had been an all-out war but fragile human lives held no traction against the blatant strength of pure magic. The humans were almost wiped out. Those who survived surrendered and begged for mercy. The Queen, in her generosity, allowed them to live. She let them rebuild their civilization but there was a catch.

Every year, each town must offer all of their first-borns to her and she'd devour them. That's how the dark,dark woods she ruled and resided in was called the Land of the Damned. It's a place where those with the sins of the many on their heads go to receive penance.

That's where the Presteria came to be. Unlike the kingdoms of old who relied on Elders and flimsy governance, the Presteria ruled with nothing but principles. There was no government meant to tell people what to do. Each of the citizens in the Presteria was their own leader, bound by the laws and values left by the last humans from the Great War.

And now, the Presteria upheld that someone like him was to be sent to the Demon Queen That way, the rest of them could be safe from her legion of demons. That way, they could still survive one more night, drinking wine and merrymaking.

There was a huge festival in Mardegard every time the rest of the first-borns were gathered in one place before being shoved into the forest. It was both a feast for rejoicing and for grieving. But families rarely grieved. They treated their first-borns as nothing more than cattle to be traded soon after they were old enough to walk. After all, what's the use of loving someone who's bound to leave them just after a few years?

The wind picked up and rattled the brittle thorns hanging over his head. He flinched, stifling the gasp creeping out of his lips. No noises. That's what he told himself. Perhaps he'd survive longer than his peers. Who knew where they were now? It might be his fear talking but he heard an ear-splitting cry not too long ago. Was that the sound of a child perishing?

He clenched his jaw. Never be afraid. Fear was for children. At fourteen, he lasted the most in his town with his mother telling everyone he was her second-born. But they knew. They found out. Soon, the Presteria was after him. His mother would most probably be whipped on the town square for her lies.

Unlike all the other children sent in with him, his mother loved him. Perhaps a little too much. But who was he to judge that?

He grew up thinking he was a second-born as well, attributing the sacrifices of the elder brother that never even existed. Now that his whole life proved to be a lie, what else was he supposed to do?

Where would he go except maybe to die alone in this unforgiving woods?

"My, what a sight," a silky voice said from somewhere above him. "You should learn to walk with your head lifted high even when you walk into your doom. Die with dignity, at the least."

He craned his neck to the sky. There, seated on a twisted but brittle branch was a woman with spindly hair. A dark mass squelched and crunched at her feet. It took a while for him to realize the whole tree crawled with monsters. With demons.

The woman chuckled. "That's more like it," she extended her arms and shifted off the branch. The boy gasped, thinking she would fall. Instead, a dark snake tail wrapped around her waist. Ever so carefully, the tail spirited the woman down until her thigh-high leather boots touched the ground.

There, he saw her for what she truly was.

Clad in a tight corset to make her chest pop, she strode towards him with a grace reminiscent of a cat. Her skin-tight dark trousers gleamed against the meager forest light. Her blouse hugged her curves and plunged down her neck, exposing much of the skin paler than the moon. Red gildings covered every hem of her attire, lining the length of her long, dark sleeves in messy geometric patterns to imitate the splatter of blood.

She stepped forward, the shadows seemingly shifting around her face. Hisses and leaves rustling filled the landscape of darkness behind her. The smell of wet fur and bloody mud intensified with each step the woman took towards him. Then, a stray beam of moonlight caught her face and, for the first time, he knew what real fear was.

Instead of whites, her eyeballs were pure black, ringed only with bright yellow irises. They looked empty as those gold rings roved down his body in search of something. Short strands of straight, onyx hair hung over her forehead while the longer locks framed her small face. When her dark purple lips parted, he caught a glimpse of pointed fangs.

Curling from her ear were two horns similar to rams. Except hers gleamed amber and were probably harder than that.

The Demon Queen. There couldn't be any other.

Her beauty was lethal. Stare too long and one wouldn't even have eyes. So, he averted his gaze, instead forcing himself to be interested in a clump of grass with yellow, bell-shaped flowers. In a place full of gray and black, seeing that color did provide a brief reprieve.

"What did I say about hanging your head?" the silky voice said once more.

His entire body froze when a finger brushed against his chin. A subtle force forced his head to tilt up. His eyes unwittingly landed on the woman's. It took everything in him to not scream or wet himself. Tears started pricking at the corner of his eyes. Fourteen-year old boys do not cry but here he was, scared to his wits' end.

"Look at me while I'm talking to you, boy," the woman hissed. Still, her voice sounded sweet and lovely. There were myths of the Demon Queen using her sweet voice to lure unsuspecting people. Then, she'd sink her fangs upon them and chew their innards. Or something like that. Was that...was that his fate?

With painfully slow seconds, his eyes settled into the gold nothingness. They softened at the fulfillment of her behest. "You look like you can handle it," she muttered to herself, her assessment of him never really stopping. "All the ones those pesky insects sent died too early. I never should have asked for children. But then again, I did say only the first-borns. It didn't matter how old they were. How stupid can your kind be?"

He didn't answer. He wasn't the one she was talking to, anyway. The Demon Queen smacked her lips, bringing her gaze back to him. She hummed her approval. "You look like you can survive," she shifted her hold of his face to a full cuff of his neck. She didn't look like she was exerting any effort but her fingers wrapped around his neck like a tight vise. Maybe it was his fear or her grip. Nevertheless, he was choking. "Are you a survivor?"

Before he could answer or start clawing at her hands, she chuckled again. "Of course, you are," she said. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have reached this age. You would have been retrieved and sent to me earlier."

The Demon Queen squeezed, wringing his neck between her fingers. He gasped, hands flying to his neck to dislodge the block in his throat. It didn't budge.

"Stop squirming like a worm," the Queen hissed in an almost snake-like manner. "What's a few minutes without air for you?"

A lot, apparently. A thick, dark cloud crept over his vision and his consciousness. His hands continued fighting but they were losing their strength. He couldn't already feel his legs. They hung under him like a set of smoked sausages. The Demon Queen wasn't even struggling to keep him aloft a few inches from the ground. Their height didn't even differ much.

Finally, a hand flew across his head. It struck his ear, sending what's left of his wits scattering to no man's end. A soft sigh tickled his ears. "Cumbersome," the Demon Queen was muttering. "These heathens just can't walk to the castle without dying off so I had to go out and retrieve them. It's cumbersome."

As the darkness swallowed him, the last thing he remembered was the exchange of words using a gibberish language to discuss his fate.

Daphri never left the door even as His Queen left to haul the herd. Now, she strode past him, carrying an unconscious boy by its collar. Blood dripped from its left ear but otherwise, it was unharmed. A true rarity when it comes to His Queen.

She muttered under her breath as she went as she often did when she was preoccupied by something. Daphri closed the castle's heavy doors behind her and followed in her wake. Like all the times she brought back an offering, the laboratory was the next place she'd go.

So, he followed His Queen to the said room. A sense of fondness blossomed in his chest as they stepped into the very room he was born and given a name. The smell of decomposing bodies and freshly-spilled blood had become quite the nostalgia.

The laboratory now loomed over them, its high, domed ceiling marked with dusty murals of a kingdom long gone. Flecks of dried blood painted the stale blue stone walls, rivaling the faded tapestries that once hung in this room. Beds fitted with dark sheets formed a neat array. Each one contained a long-dead human, their eyes still staring at the murals in fear or perhaps in hopes that the dulling faces could save them.

It would be a matter of time before Daphri was commanded to haul all these bodies out to his lower kin for them to feast over. Unlike him, his other kin were not capable of speech nor had the same physique as the humans His Queen liked to play with. Still, he loved them like he loved His Queen and how she loved him.

A loud thud caught Daphri's attention. It seemed like His Queen had thrown the unconscious boy to the floor where it rolled for a few seconds before stopping. It has become so twisted now. Maybe it broke its neck?

Without moving from his rigid stance by the laboratory's door, he watched His Queen dump the boy's body into an occupied bed. A squelch rang in the air as the mushy flesh gave under the boy's added weight. Oh, Daphri should have cleared the room out before she came back. But...she hadn't given orders. She hated it when he moved without her orders.

Like the millions of times she had done it, His Queen drew a thin blade from her belt and slit her arm with it. Purple blood seeped through. It was the same blood that's flowing inside him, keeping him alive. Then, His Queen shoved her arm towards the boy's mouth.

Her precious blood trickled past his parted lips, traveling down his throat. As expected, the boy began convulsing, his eyes rolling backwards. His veins turned black against his brown skin. A scream was cut short when red blood gurgled out of his mouth.

The boy, in his seizures, fell sideways and into the ground. His Queen merely stepped backward, eyes trained at the writhing human. Blood sprayed from his eyes, his ears, and his nose. Red seeped out of every pore as His Queen's blood burned everything that's human inside him. It was the same with Daphri. Now, he couldn't even remember what pain felt like.

A certain pride swelled inside him as he watched the boy squirm and spray blood everywhere. No one had ever lasted this long with all their recent trials. All of them stopped moving within seconds of ingesting His Queen's blood. This one's a survivor.

The boy continued seizing up for a few minutes more. Then, he stopped moving. Did he die? They failed again?

"Daphri, come," His Queen beckoned. He had never heard her voice to contain such excitement and triumph since he opened his eyes to the world. "Watch."

He crossed the distance between them in a number of long strides. When he got there, the boy was already starting to sit up. His Queen, in her generosity and kindness, crouched down and helped the boy. Then, she smiled.

Daphri watched the boy's expression morph from a confused, dazed look to recognition of the woman who smiled at him.

"Look, Daphri," His Queen breathed. "This one will lead our army to victory. He's a survivor. I have good hopes for him."

Daphri bowed. "Your wisdom always amazes me, My Queen."

She turned to him as she straightened. "I know why my blood keeps getting rejected," she said. "The hosts are simply too young."

"So, now we will only take humans who are as old as him," she stepped past Daphri and began tapping her chin. Her heels clacked against the stone floor with an erratic rhythm. "Just like with you, they need the strength of age. We just need to find out which year will yield the highest chance of success. That way, we can easily raise more of your kin."

Daphri didn't bother hiding his smile. If His Queen was happy, then, he was too. Such emotions were only felt by her, anyway. She was only feeding them to him and his legions of kin. "Are you getting closer to your goal, My Queen?"

"Absolutely," she grinned, showing off her sharp fangs. "We'll conquer the world with this knowledge. Those who do not want to join us will die either by my children's mercy or by my blood's."

She clasped his shoulders in her excitement. Gave him a little shake too. "Can't you see?" she exclaimed. "Nothing can stop us now. Nothing can take this from me. Nothing can harm me anymore."

Then, she strode towards the only window in the laboratory. This one faced the endless stretch of the Woods that even they haven't scoured yet. She leaned against the sill and turned to him. "We can't stop now, can we?" she said. It was a question that wasn't meant to be answered. Daphri understood how His Queen was sometimes prone to ask those of him.

Daphri just placed a hand to his chest and bowed once more. "I will follow you to the ends of the world, My Queen," he said. "I owe everything I am to you, after all."

The Demon Queen smiled at him. Framed by the scant light from the moon, she was the most ethereal being to ever grace this world. Then, she tilted her head to one side. With the sweetest of voices, she said, "Let's not stop until this world bleeds purple."

And of course, Daphri would be there to witness it.

Because it's soon.