The clarity provided by crystallization is

  not unlike the first taste of blood.

  At least, for certain animals.

  It’s a permanent change. It doesn’t matter

  how kind, or how gentle the beast once was.

  It will want more.

  —Stevie Robinson, “An Introduction to Hedron"

  The crunch of the crystals was surprisingly soft. More like grinding sugar than shattering glass. Derek didn’t even turn to see what Violet was doing. She wasn’t sure if he’d heard anything at all. But it was clear he was too ashamed to look her in the face again, even if he had. So she crushed another. And another, and another. She destroyed every last one of them, icy eyes locked on her supposed protector’s back the entire time. He was going to fight with her, whether he liked it or not. Violet would have control, even if only over her manner of death.

  She couldn’t reach all of them. But what she’d done would surely be enough—if the Lancers had been honest about their effects. The hedron was just across the road, after all. And if they hadn’t been, well. Violet wasn’t going to sit around and wait. She pushed herself to her feet and wrapped the cable loosely around her left arm. She followed it to the opposite end, where Derek had tied it to a machine. The steel it was cuffed onto looked old and rusty, and she thought she might have a chance at pulling herself free.

  She tested it a few times, pulling at the thin cable to no avail. It would slide up and down the bar it was chained to, but the bar itself refused to budge. With a click of her tongue, she unraveled a couple of feet of the cable. She ran it around the back of the bolted-down stool in front of the machine, then coiled it around the lever on its side. As she pushed her weight against the handle, the leverage created pulled the bar with far greater force than her first attempts had carried. She heard the groaning of weary steel as she struggled, and redoubled her efforts.

  The bar was bending, just a little at a time. Unfortunately, the lever and the stool were made of the same rusty metal. For every centimeter that Violet bent the bar she was tied to, the stool and lever bent with it. This didn’t ruin her plan, but it required far more effort than she’d hoped. She’d seen Alex bend newer steel with far less effort. She was so tired of being so much weaker than everyone else. She was exhausted with it. She pulled, and she pulled. Steel groaned, but she was far from free.

  And then she heard it.

  The sounds of fighting. The cracks of Stephanie’s lightning spell. Shouts and commands. Orders to maintain formation. Shattering glass and crumbling stone. They’d planned to be gone when this monster attacked. They’d planned for Violet to face it alone. Instead, she could hear panic in their voices, even if the words were too muffled to make out.

  The hedron was close. She could hear the discordant sounds of what might have been a roar, or even a loud groan. She’d never seen a hedron in person, and the crystals growing in their throats made every sound almost mechanical. It almost sounded like the crying of cattle, save for the pain in it as another crash of thunder revealed one of Stephanie’s attacks.

  Violet was chained down. She was powerless. One of the beasts of every child’s nightmares was fighting outside, only a long line of glass doors separating her from death. If it weren’t for the thick mauve mist pressing against the doors, she’d likely be able to see it. It had killed two of the Lancers when the fight was five, and then four, against one. At least three of the five had been yellow Lancers. They weren’t going to succeed in fighting the beast off forever.

  Violet had been brought there to be sacrificed as a distraction, and by all accounts, she was minutes from death.

  As she desperately put what little strength and leverage she had into breaking the cuffs, she found herself giggling quietly. It was vaguely surprising to her. It wasn’t because she wasn’t afraid. It wasn’t because she enjoyed the adrenaline; she really didn’t. She was terrified. She’d lived a powerless life and could hear a nearly powerless death approaching. She was sick with the thought. She hadn’t snapped under the stress, either.

  Still, she laughed softly to herself as she struggled. Even as she gritted her teeth and pulled hard enough that the cuff around her wrist cut into flesh. The sound surprised her, although she did understand it. Because even as she fought to save her own life, the man who’d meant to let her die to protect his own was doing the same. They were fighting for their lives at the same time, and he would likely die first.

  It wasn’t much.

  But it was some level of control, and that made her laugh.

  She felt that same sensation she’d gotten from Alex the day before. That same hint of a calling she’d felt trying to claw its way out. She pulled, and she pulled, and even as she forced her way through the pain, she could see the bar bending. The link to the cuff was shivering under the force. Escape wasn’t impossible.

  The sound of shattering glass broke her focus, and she paused to look up. The mist was pouring in through the now-broken doors, and her throat was already burning as she saw her first hedron.

  She’d seen pictures of moose before. Artwork in children’s books. Photos in textbooks. Enough to recognize what the beast had once been. She hadn’t expected it to be so large. It was nearly seven feet tall, with thick fur separated by and caked with lime green crystals. The larger clusters of crystal had flesh growing on and into them. It looked like the crystal hadn’t been attached to the creature, but had grown from it. The most impressive and jagged of the crystals grew from massive antlers, some even dangling off the bone structures. This created a threatening curtain of razor-sharp green on the front of the monster.

  Well, green and red. Fresh blood trickled down the right antler, dripping onto the moose’s head and off the side of its long face. The source of the blood struggled to his feet, shattered glass falling from body armor as he held a hand out to the side, for some reason. A spear of yellow crystal materialized in his palm, even as he coughed and nearly stumbled under the weight of his own injury.

  The hedron was unimpressed. Even as Derek brandished his spear and tried to lunge at the monster, the moose charged forward, ignoring the weapon entirely. Yellow shattered against green, and the furious beast moved its head to one side, swinging it back and catching Derek with its bloodied antler. It barely had to move, and Violet’s strongest “protector” was thrown dozens of yards across the casino lobby. Derek collided with a collapsed and rotting wall, debris, and steel, which buried him before he’d so much as scratched the monster.

  It was heading straight for Violet. What little amusement she’d had was choked by her already-considerable fear. She started uncoiling the cable from her arm and ducked behind the machine she’d been chained to. She hadn’t escaped in time, but she hadn’t given up yet.

  “At least that asshole ate shit,” she grumbled as she tried to force her hand out of the cuff. It scraped at her skin, and blood ran down her arm. She tried breaking her thumb, but it wasn’t as easy as it sounded in the stories. At least, not while being charged by a violent monster that could crush her and barely notice she’d been there. Well, at the time of her death, anyway. When it calmed and got hungry, it would certainly find her and give the other Lancers the distraction they wanted.

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  She couldn’t escape. She was too weak. She was powerless. She wasn’t in control, and it hurt. The sounds of cracking crystals and hooves on ancient carpet grew louder with each breath, until it was nearly on top of her. Mere seconds had passed. Just before the monster collided with the machine, crushing it and Violet on the other side, she dove out of the way. The moose’s crystals had torn through the spear so easily, a spear of a yellow lancer’s magic. Violet figured such a thin cable would snap like a loose thread against the same thing. It had the potential to badly injure her.

  As the hedron was barreling past her, she pulled the cable as hard as she could so it would be taut when it connected with the crystal on the monster's legs. She anticipated a sharp pull on her arm when the moment arrived, possibly strong and sudden enough to do more than a little damage. But it would be an injury she chose, and even in the worst case, “dying” was better than “dead.”

  She did feel it, when the moment came. The sudden stinging in her wrist as more force was applied to her arm than she should have been able to bear. But it only lasted for a fraction of a second. Her body was pulled forward, and something steel cut through cloth and flesh on her leg. But before she even felt the pain, her plan worked. The cable snapped before she did, caught on a particularly sharp crystal. She fell to the ground quickly enough to leave a raw and bleeding rug burn on her face.

  But she was free.

  Her heart pounded as she pressed her hands into the carpet, aching arms pushing her to her knees. She needed to run. She needed to run before the hedron managed to stop and turn around. She had no chance of fighting it. She would die if she tried. Her best bet was finding a place to hide. Finally, she managed to regain her footing.

  But it was too late.

  As soon as she looked up, she saw it. The monster had somehow already turned back, and it was already charging her again. She tried. She tried to run to the side and avoid it again. But she was, perhaps, the slowest and weakest creature it had ever hunted. She couldn’t tell which bones were breaking and what flesh was tearing open as it swerved and its body collided with hers. All she knew was that she was off her feet, she was in pain, her vision was fading, and she wasn’t in control.

  Violet was surprised to wake up at all. She was certain she was dead. She hadn’t lost consciousness for more than a minute or two, even if she didn’t realize it. But even that should have been enough. She should have been a meal for the newly-carnivorous monster. But as she gripped the wall she had collided with and pulled herself to her feet, she couldn’t see the creature anywhere. She heard something, but she couldn’t make out what.

  She was in pain, but more than that, she was angry. Angry at the hedron. Angry at the Lancers. Angry at her own traitorous body. She hadn’t lasted a single minute against the beast that had come to kill her. The beast she had called, in a way. She’d won tiny victories. Made minuscule acts of defiance. She’d ruined the Lancers' plan, and possibly gotten all of them killed. But it wasn’t enough. As the ringing in her ears stopped, that was what she realized.

  She was tired of tiny victories. She was exhausted with having just enough control to not be the only person suffering. She was sick of lying to herself. Partial victory was not victory at all. Just a little control was control over nothing. If anyone could hurt, or betray, or order her to do anything at all, that was the same thing as complete powerlessness. And that knowledge boiled in her like acid, burning her from the inside out.

  Because there was nothing she could do about it. She only managed a little control over her life, and only by allowing herself to be broken and tossed aside. That meant she was powerless. She wasn’t in control.

  And it fucking hurt.

  “...H-help… m-me,” Derek pleaded. Violet’s heart beat a single time in her chest like a gong had just been rung. “Help me…” he begged again, and her heart started beating faster. She clung to the wall as she searched for the source. Her arms and her legs convulsed, taunting her. Denying her even the authority of her own mind. She could barely see. But Derek was alive, and he was asking for help.

  She pushed forward. She was angry. She was in pain. She was powerless. She moved forward. She stumbled and she scowled. Derek called for help again.

  With each step she took, her heart raced further ahead of her. Derek’s pleading voice struggled to draw her in, and adrenaline rushed through her as it did. Her breathing grew heavy and deep, but quickened at the same time. As she walked, she heard something else. The beast that had broken her. The monster who took her control away. She could hear its steps in the creaking of strained floorboards on the floor above them. She didn’t care. Derek called her, and she was going to answer. She was getting closer, and the pain faded as she did. Her vision finally started to focus as the throbbing in her head began to subside. And she could see it, even if it looked like the world through baroque glass. Steel beams had collapsed in front of her, and they obstructed her route to the desperate voice. Violet pressed both hands to the wall and tried to lower herself. She hadn’t the strength to maintain a steady pace, and as soon as her knees bent just a little too far, she collapsed the rest of the way. She crumpled to the ground in a broken pile of blood and hurt.

  She still wasn’t in control.

  She set her jaw and let a deep breath out, planting her palms on the wood. She ignored the splinters that dug into already-raw skin, and pushed herself to her hands and knees. She’d have to crawl to make it to Derek. The idea tasted like spoiled fruit, but the voice was calling. And so she crawled. The steel was decorated with rust, and it tore at her clothes and back as she tried to force herself through. More wounds. More blood.

  She still wasn’t in control.

  But she was moving, and the words changed.

  “V–Violet. You–You’re alive,” Derek coughed. Violet kept crawling. There wasn’t much space under the rubble—she had to crawl over his arm to reach him. “Violet, that–that hurts. You need… you need to lift the beams, please,” he begged. And she stopped, just as her face made it within a few breaths of his. Her eyes dilated as she focused on the pain and hope in his eyes. Her heart was beating like a wounded deer’s, and her jaw shook with each breath.

  He could die. The man who was supposed to keep her safe. He would die, without her help. He was so much stronger than she was. Gifted in ways she had never been. In ways everyone but her had been. If one of them was going to survive, reason demanded that it should have been him.

  But now, he could die. Or, he could live.

  Either way, Violet was in control.

  It ached to try and speak. Something had fractured inside her, and trying to summon her voice sent agonizing sensations through her entire abdomen. Even so, the words that came out were perfectly clear.

  “I’ll save you,” she assured. “I’ll get you home safe, I promise.” His eyes widened at the words. Violet didn’t stop to think about what she was doing. She didn’t worry about the consequences, and she didn’t ask herself if she would ever be the same. She didn’t need to. She was in control. This man had tried to sacrifice her. He’d served her up to the monster he now wanted her to save him from. He had robbed her of the little life she’d managed to claw for herself.

  The trailing cable was still cuffed to her bleeding wrist. Now that she’d made it into the debris, she found room to sit up on top of him, even if she had to hunch to do so. She grabbed the loose cable in her other hand and started wrapping it around Derek’s throat. Once, then twice. After the third, she’d run out. She looped the frayed edge around nearby debris, tying it down so she only had to pull from one side. Derek tried to summon a weapon, but his arm, pinned under Violet’s weak leg, wouldn’t move. None of his limbs would. Something had broken in him, too.

  “W-Wait, Violet, you can’t,” he begged, desperation returning his voice to him, “If you hurt me, they’ll—” started, but Violet pulled the cuffed end of the table toward her chest, using both hands to apply as much force as possible and cutting him off.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did I do something wrong?” Violet asked. She put everything she had into it. The wrapped cable bit into the flesh of Derek’s neck, and he started to bleed. His body was eerily still, even as his head struggled and convulsed. Violet felt energy rushing into her like water from a broken dam. “I just thought this whole expedition would be easier on all of us if we tried to be friends, right?”

  His eyes bulged and he tried to beg, but he couldn’t form the words. He had no air. Violet pushed beyond her limits, and the energy kept coming. It took longer than she’d expected. Agonizing minutes of exerting force her battered body was in no shape to use. But somehow, she didn’t grow tired. Instead, her head cleared. She found deeper reserves of strength. She pulled harder, and the cable cut deep enough for blood to spurt from the wound. She pulled, and she pulled, and Derek slowly died, a look of terrified horror on his face.

  The beast could still be heard roaming the building. The other Lancers were nowhere to be seen. Derek lost all hope as the pain overwhelmed him and he stared at Violet’s face. He stopped struggling. He had nothing left. After nearly five minutes of fighting to hold on, Derek had been murdered.

  Violet didn’t realize it. She’d been too focused to worry about her expression or putting up some fa?ade. She wouldn’t realize until days later that Derek had died as the first person to see her actual, genuine smile.