Page 22 of Bargain with the Demon King

She approaches with that horrifying grace—joints that don't bend right, muscles that flow instead of bunch. Up close, she's magnificent and wrong. Her breath doesn't fog. Her ribs don't expand. She exists in defiance of biology.

"She's beautiful." My hand rises without permission, stops inches from her neck. "And terrifying."

"The best things are both." His hand covers mine, guides it to the mare's neck. Her coat feels wrong—too smooth, too warm, like living shadow. "She won't hurt you."

"How do you know?"

"Because I asked her not to." He guides my hand to her mane. "Grip here. Not too tight—she needs to feel you trust her."

"I don't trust anyone."

"Trust that I won't let you fall. Just that. Nothing more."

He helps me mount—his hands spanning my waist completely, lifting me like I weigh nothing. My thighs clamp automatically, hands scrambling for the mane that moves independently under my fingers.

"I'm going to die."

"No." He stands beside the mare, one hand on her neck, the other on my knee. "She'll walk first. I'll stay right here."

The mare moves without signal, that flowing gait that shouldn't exist. I tense, certain death approaches, but Azzaron walks beside us, his hand steady on my leg.

"Breathe." His voice carries that particular calm that makes my spine straighten. "Feel the rhythm. Stop thinking."

"Thinking is all I have left."

"Then you have too much."

We circle the lake's edge slowly, Azzaron matching the mare's pace perfectly. His hand never leaves my knee, anchoring me to something solid while the world flows beneath me.

"Better?"

"Different. Not falling. That's something."

"Ready to try alone?"

"Absolutely not."

"Perfect." He steps back, removing his hand. "She knows what to do."

The mare continues her impossible movement, and suddenly I'm alone on a demon horse beside a lake full of broken souls. The metaphor is too obvious to acknowledge. But without Azzaron's touch, something shifts. The mare feels my weight differently, adjusts her gait to match my awkward rhythm.

"Oh." The word escapes soft. "She's listening to me."

"They always listen. Most riders are just too loud to hear it."

The mare picks up speed slightly. Wind I haven't felt in weeks whips my hair. The ground blurs. My stomach drops then soars.

And then—a sound rips from my throat, sharp and rusty. A bark of air that my own lungs don't recognize. It takes me a second to place it. A laugh. Small, broken, and utterly involuntary, but real.

The mare's ears flick back, and she extends her stride. Faster now, flowing across the impossible landscape while soul-lights scatter in our wake. Another laugh bubbles up, larger this time, pulled from somewhere I thought Chad had killed.

"I'm riding a demon horse!" I shout to no one, to Azzaron, to the escaped souls in the water. "I'm terrible at it but I'm doing it!"

"You're magnificent." His voice carries across the distance, and when I glance back, he's watching with an expression I've never seen before.

Like he's memorizing this. The exact pitch of that almost-laugh.

The way my body relaxed for ten seconds.

The precise moment something cracked in the numbness.

The mare slows, circles back to where Azzaron waits. When she stops, my legs shake too badly to dismount. He lifts me down, hands lingering on my waist, thumbs pressing into my hips.

"I laughed." The words scrape out raw, wondering. "I didn't think I could anymore."

"You did more than laugh. You commanded a Shadowsteed."

"Barely. Mostly I just held on and hoped."

"Most demons can't even do that much their first time." His expression suggests this surprised him too. "Can you walk?"

"Probably." I test my legs, find them functional. "Though I might count steps more carefully."

"An improvement over ceiling cracks."

We gather the remains of our meal as darkness deepens the eternal twilight. The walk back feels different—not lighter, but less dense. Like breathing through cotton instead of concrete.

"She listened to me," I say suddenly. "The mare. Even though I had no idea what I was doing."

"Most creatures recognize honest intent over practiced skill."

"Chad never listened. Not really. I'd talk and he'd wait for his turn to speak."

"Chad is an idiot."

"Chad is worse than an idiot. Idiots can't help themselves. Chad chose not to listen."

"Yes."

We walk in comfortable silence until the fortress looms. He leaves me at my chamber door, that careful three feet between us restored. But something shifted. The numbness has cracks now, places where other things might seep through.

My room feels smaller. The box on my nightstand draws my attention—Azzaron's gift from days ago, still wrapped in that color-shifting paper. My fingers find it without conscious decision.

Inside, nested in black velvet, sits a crystal vial no bigger than my thumb. The contents glow—not demon light but something pure. White. Familiar. A folded note rests beneath it, his handwriting sharp and precise:

You mentioned missing stars. Once. Barely a whisper over dinner when you thought I wasn't listening.

I went to your world last night. Stood in a field where no one would see a demon king playing with light.

Caught these from your actual sky—not memory, not illusion.

Real starlight from the world you knew. Keep it sealed.

Look at it when the twilight feels too heavy.

Proof that light from one realm can exist in another, even if it can't shine the same way. —A

My hands shake as I lift the vial. Stars. Actual stars. Trapped behind crystal so I can see them whenever the darkness gets too thick. Not for romance. Not for possession. Just because he heard me whisper about missing them and decided that was worth a journey between worlds.

The starlight swirls inside its prison, pure white against the black velvet, against the eternal twilight of my window. Proof that foreign things can exist here. That light doesn't have to die just because it's been transplanted.

I don't open it. Opening it would mean losing it, watching it dissolve into nothing. Instead, I hold it to the window, watch trapped starlight overlay demon twilight. Two impossibilities existing in the same space.

Through the wall, Azzaron moves. Pacing maybe. Or just existing in that careful way he's maintained since bringing me back broken. He doesn't know I finally opened his gift. Doesn't know what it means that he stood in my world catching light for someone too broken to properly thank him.

But something in me answers the light in the vial. Not healing. Not hope. Just the bare, grudging admission that broken things can still hold light. They just don't have to shine for anyone but themselves.

I set the vial on my nightstand where I can see it from bed.

Where trapped stars can remind me that someone paid attention to what I actually lost, not just what everyone assumes I lost. Tomorrow I'll go back to counting steps and avoiding mirrors and dying by degrees.

But tonight, a vial of captured starlight sits beside my bed, proof that some prisons are meant to preserve rather than punish.