There is a saying in the demon lands.
"The first bargain is always blood".
I didn't understand it, until the day I met Lord Varun.
The Demon King sent me south, to the Scorched Cliffs. A place of ash winds and rust-colored skies. A place demons whispered about and never visited unless forced.
Lord Varun ruled there.
He was a warlord, half-shadow, half-serpent, with four arms and no soul in his eyes. His legion was strong. Unruly. Dangerous. But they hadn't joined the central court in years.
The king wanted them back. He sent me to make that happen.
No army. No escort. Just me, and a scroll sealed with the king's flame.
It wasn't diplomacy.
It was a test.
Varun's fortress wasn't built, it was grown. Bones curved like spires, pulsing faintly. Everything breathed. Even the walls.
I was led through screaming halls by a silent girl with no mouth. At the end, Varun waited, sat on a throne of scales and skulls.
"So", he hissed. "The king sends a little human girl to beg for obedience?"
I bowed slightly. Not low. Never low.
"He sends a strategist. Not a beggar."
He laughed, a dry, slithering sound.
"You don't command. You don't bleed. What do you offer?"
I stepped forward.
Unrolled the map I had hidden in my sleeve.
"Your lands are dying", I said. "Your borders shrink each moon. And your men fight each other more than they fight the enemy."
His eyes narrowed.
"And you think you can fix it?"
"No. I know I can. But only if you let me."
He leaned closer.
"And if I don't?"
"Then your legion rots, your name vanishes, and you die forgotten", I smiled coldly. "You've ruled ashes long enough. Why not try fire?"
He tested me.
Like all of them.
He offered me poisoned wine. I drank it, and swallowed the antidote first.
He challenged me to a duel. I chose his own champion. Then told him exactly how I'd bribe him to throw the match.
He asked me for a strategy that would win him three towns in five days.
I gave him one that took two, and saved lives.
By the end of the week, his legion followed my orders.
He signed the king's banner with claw and flame.
And as I left, he said, "You do bleed. But not red."
When I returned, the court looked at me differently.
Even the Demon King.
He didn't speak when I entered the throne room. Just watched, as his generals whispered behind clawed hands.
I knelt this time. Just enough.
"Lord Varun swears fealty. His troops now march with ours."
The king's voice slid through the silence.
"And what did you trade?"
"Nothing we couldn't afford."
He studied me.
Then...
"Rise, Ayaka Rin. From this day, you are not prisoner. You are court."
The mark on my chest burned bright. Then dimmed.
Not gone. Still binding. But less cruel.
Freedom was a ladder.
And I had climbed a step.
That night, I stood in my quarters, looking over maps.
The human kingdoms were quiet. Too quiet.
Something was coming.
I saw it in the numbers. The way their troops shifted. The sudden ceasefires. They were planning something big.
But I wasn't afraid.
Not anymore.
Now I had power.
I had alliances.
And I had plans.
The next day, I called my first war council.
The generals expected a puppet. They got me instead.
I pinned a map to the wall, marked with red lines, blue circles, black knives.
"This is where they'll strike", I said, tapping the border.
"You cannot know that", one growled.
"I do", I said. "Because I would strike there."
The room went quiet.
I laid out the entire campaign. Week by week. Route by route.
Then...
"And here", I said, tapping a cliff near the river, "we set the trap".
Some of them doubted. Some sneered.
But the Demon King entered, without warning, and listened in silence.
Then, to everyone's shock, he said, "Follow her plan. Every word."
And just like that, they obeyed.
The campaign began.
It was brutal.
But I was colder than steel. Sharper than swords.
Every move they made, I had seen before.
Because I had fought beside them.
Because I knew them.
I was human once.
Now I was their nightmare.
Three towns fell in one moon.
The enemy lost a thousand men in a canyon they thought safe.
And when the trap I set snapped shut, a prince was taken alive.
A prince I once served.
The first human I would face… since my betrayal.
He looked at me through the bars of his cage. Pale. Bruised.
"Ayaka… why?"
I smiled.
"Because you taught me that I didn't belong there."
I turned away.
But not before he saw the mark on my chest.
The flame. The chains. The curse.
Yes, I had bled. Yes, I had bargained.
But now?
Now, I commanded.
And soon… the world would learn what a villainess truly was.