Page 18 of Bargain with the Demon King

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 through court, 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, the protections 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 my arm. I feel a sharp, crystalline snap against my palm, a sound only I can hear, before the stone gives way completely.

Dust sifts through my fingers.

I stare at my empty palm, at the glittering remnants falling onto my untouched dinner. When did I—

The fortress shrieks. Every ward in my domain screams warnings in frequencies that make my teeth ache and my horns vibrate. The walls pulse red. The floor trembles. Soul-stones don't break. They're never destroyed. Never freed. What's mine stays mine—that's the law older than the realms themselves.

The dust settles on my plate, glittering like accusations, like promises, like the end of everything I've been for seventeen thousand years.

Crystal becomes dust. Her essence disperses into air, into nothing, into freedom. The bond between us shifts, changes, becomes something other than ownership. I still feel her—will always feel her after what we've shared—but the chain is gone. The claim released.

Once a soul is taken, it's never returned. That's the law older than my reign, older than the realms themselves. What's claimed stays claimed. What's broken stays broken. What's mine stays mine.

I just broke all of it. For her. Without even deciding to.

Adraya is free. She just doesn't know it.

I stand, gathering my untouched plate, and cross to the adjoining door. No knock. We're past formalities, she and I. Past pretense. Past everything except the truth that she's dying and I'm the only one who seems to care.

She's curled on her bed, still in the green dress from court, the fabric twisted around her thighs from lying in the same position for hours.

Her hair spreads across the pillow, gold turned amber in the twilight that filters through her window.

Even devastated, she smells of mortal warmth and lavender soap, that particular scent that makes my beast want to curl around her and never let go.

Her plate sits on the nightstand, food congealed and cold. The twilight necklace glints against her throat, the only color on her besides the dress she hasn't bothered to change. My claws itch to trace the chain, to feel her pulse beneath it.

"Seventeen." Her voice comes out rough from disuse. "There are seventeen cracks in that stone."

"Fascinating." I sit on her bed without invitation, the mattress dipping under my weight, making her roll slightly toward me. I set my plate between us. "Eat something."

"I'm not hungry."

"I didn't ask if you were hungry. I said eat."

She turns just enough to look at me, and the emptiness in her eyes makes my chest tight and my horns ache with the need to gore something. "Why do you care? Your court thinks I'm broken. Raziel's probably right—I'm dragging down your reputation. The mighty Demon King with his shattered mortal pet."

"Raziel wouldn't recognize spark if it set him on fire." My claws drum against my thigh, leaving small tears in the fabric. "Which I'm considering."

She actually almost smiles. Not quite, but the ghost of it flickers. "You can't set all your lords on fire."

"Watch me." I select a piece of meat, holding it out to her. "Besides, you're not broken."