Page 39 of Bargain with the Demon King
Chapter 14
Azzaron
"Your pet has lost her spark."
Lord Vex delivers the observation with theatrical concern, lounging in his council seat with studied casualness. His antlers catch the soul-light, casting twisted shadows across the chamber walls. The other lords murmur agreement, vultures circling what they perceive as weakness.
"Such a shame," Lady Morinth adds, her collection of human ornaments kneeling silent at her feet. "She was so... entertaining before. Now she's just another broken mortal. Perhaps it's time to put her with the servants? Or my collection could use—"
"Finish that thought."
The air doesn't just chill, it thins, becoming hard to draw into the lungs. Frost crackles out from my claws, racing across the obsidian table like a hungry thing, not just spreading but actively consuming the warmth. Their wine goblets crack from the cold, black liquid freezing solid.
"Please. Give me a reason."
The council chamber goes silent. Not quiet—silent. The kind of silence that exists before avalanches, before executions, before worlds end. My claws sink into the obsidian table, leaving grooves that hiss with heat despite the frozen air.
"Your Majesty," Raziel attempts diplomacy, though his scarred throat makes the words rasp. Ice forms on his lips as he speaks. "We merely express concern for your... reputation. A king's strength is measured by his possessions. A broken toy reflects poorly—"
"My possessions are not your concern." The gold threads in my eyes burn bright enough that Vex flinches, actually flinches. "Neither is my reputation."
"But the court talks," Lord Vex presses, too arrogant to notice the frost creeping up his chair legs. "They say she no longer speaks. No longer eats. That she throws things at servants and stares at walls. This isn't the vibrant creature you claimed. This is—"
"Mine."
The word cracks the marble floor. My beast pushes against my skin, reshaping bone, lengthening claws that score deeper into stone. "She remains mine. Broken, whole, silent, screaming—mine. Your opinions on her state are as irrelevant as your continued existence."
Vex's mouth snaps shut. Even Morinth's pets sense the danger, pressing so low they merge with shadow. My horns extend another inch, sharp enough to pierce reality itself.
"Dismissed."
They flee. Robes catch on their own feet, dignity abandoned for survival. The frozen wine shatters in their wake, leaving black ice scattered across stone. The chamber empties except for shadows and the eternal pulse of soul-stones in the walls. Thousands of essences keeping time to heartbeats that no longer exist. All except one.
I remain seated after they're gone, watching frost melt from the table, studying the grooves my claws carved. Three days since I took her to see Chad. Three days of watching her light extinguish breath by breath. She still shadows me throughcourt, stands in her designated place, moves through the motions of existence. But she's disappearing. The woman who named soul-stones love stories, who found beauty in demon markets, who brought her dinner to my chambers because she thought I was lonely—that woman is dissolving into nothing.
Her silence is obscene. Wrong on a fundamental level that makes my horns thrum with a low, violent frequency and my beast pace restlessly beneath my skin. She should be chattering about cloud shapes in the canyon. Asking if demons dream. Insisting that somewhere, somehow, Chad must be grieving. Instead, she counts. Counts steps, counts stones, counts breaths. I know because I count with her, tracking each number through our bond, feeling her use mathematics to avoid thought.
The irony tastes like copper and ash. They think she makes me weak, but they're wrong. Her breaking is what threatens to unmake me. Every day she fades, something in me responds with violence I haven't felt in centuries. The urge to tear apart the world that did this to her. Starting with Chad and ending with myself.
I return to my chambers as night deepens the eternal twilight. My horns scrape the doorframe—they've grown since she went quiet, responding to rage I can't properly express. Dinner waits—exotic meats that bleed purple, wines aged in shadow, bread that steams without warmth. All untouched. I haven't eaten properly since she stopped joining me. The ritual feels wrong without her curious questions, her persistent brightness, her stubborn insistence that I needed company.
She was right. I do need company. Specifically hers.
My hand moves without conscious thought, reaching into nothing, pulling through space that shouldn't bend. The soul-stone materializes in my palm—I don't remember retrieving it from the vault. Don't remember the walk there, theprotections bypassed, the conscious choice to hold her essence. It simply exists in my hand now, as if my body knew what my mind wouldn't admit.
Her stone is unique among the thousands I've claimed. Where others glow steady, hers pulses with living rhythm, matching the heartbeat I memorized while she slept. Where others are rough crystal, hers swirls with internal patterns that shift when I turn it. White and gold spiral through the core, occasionally flickering with something that might be rose, might be dawn, might be the exact shade her cheeks turned when I bought her that twilight necklace.
Beautiful even fragmented. Beautiful because it's hers.
The weight of it feels wrong tonight. Too heavy for something so small. Too permanent for something so bright. She sold this to save someone who was already betraying her. Traded eternity for a lie so complete she never questioned it. The unfairness of it makes my beast snarl beneath my skin, wanting to hunt, to punish, to make Chad understand exactly what he destroyed.
But Chad isn't here. Only Adraya is here, dying by degrees in the next room, and I'm the one who brought her to see the truth that's killing her.
The stone warms in my palm, responding to my touch the way all soul-stones do. But hers also... reaches. Stretches toward the wall that separates us, pulling gently toward her presence. Even trapped in crystal, some part of her seeks connection. Even shattered, she reaches for something beyond herself.
My hand clenches harder as the memories flood me—her naming every soul-stone a love story, her insisting they gossiped, her making me laugh. The pressure in my grip is an answer to the wrongness of her silence. A tremor runs up myarm. I feel a sharp, crystallinesnapagainst my palm, a sound only I can hear, before the stone gives way completely.
Dust sifts through my fingers.
