Chapter 31
CHAPTER
—Ethalyn—
The doors to the throne room groaned open, each hinge screaming like a stuck pig.
The air inside was thick with smoke and sulfur, clinging to the back of my throat until every breath burned.
Shadows trembled across the high obsidian pillars, and firelight pooled at the feet of the dais like spilled blood.
And there he was, the Demon King.
He sat upon his dark seat as if the world itself bent to his will.
His crimson hair caught the light like liquid flame, and his eyes, had the same hue as Malakai’s when the demon side slipped through.
But the King’s were sharper, devoid of humanity.
The resemblance to Malakai hit like a physical blow, the same arrogant beauty carved into their bones but luckily that was where the similarities ended.
Malakai’s heat could consume you, while his father’s could unmake you.
Malakai might’ve been harsh at times, but he did things out of care. His father lacked empathy completely.
“Come closer, little flame,” he said, voice a deep purr that made the air itself vibrate. “I tire of shouting across rooms.”
I didn’t move. “Sounds like you’re getting old.”
He laughed softly, and the sound echoed off the walls. It wasn’t pleasant. It was the laughter of a tyrant who’d forgotten what mortals were.
In the corner, Zinlia stood like a statue, hands clasped neatly, her emotionless gaze tracking my every twitch.
Somewhere behind me, I felt Iris’s restless movement, energy coiled and cruel, eager for any excuse to hurt me.
She wrinkled her nose in disgust as I insulted their beloved King, waiting for a sign from him to allow her to repay the favor.
The Demon King rose, every motion deliberate. His clothing moved like curling shadows around him. “You burn brighter than the others did,” he said, stepping down from his throne. “No wonder my son finds you… fascinating.”
My jaw clenched. “You don’t know him.”
“Perhaps not,” he mused. “But I know what he is, and what he’s drawn to.
” His eyes swept over me, calculation evident inside them.
“Demons crave fire, girl. It’s in our nature.
You bring us life, warmth. My son’s obsession with you…
” A cruel smile twisted his lips. “Was inevitable. You were never a woman to him, only a flame he wanted to possess.”
I scoffed dryly, even as my blood began to boil. “You really think you can make me doubt him that easily?”
He smiled wider. “No, but I can make you wonder.”
The flames of the torches faltered, as if the room itself cowered in fear. He lifted one hand, and the fire in the nearest brazier bent towards him like it answered his call.
He wasn’t a fire-wielder… yet it listened to him?
“Do you know why there are no others like you left?” he asked, softly, almost gentle. “Why your kind are little more than whispers in old texts and bedtime stories?”
Unease knotted in my stomach. I had never questioned it; I simply thought that fire-wielders were uncommon. I remember Michlael and Nicron calling me a gem, because I was the first they had seen in a long time, but not that I was the only one. Perhaps the Demon King was playing with my mind.
“I know what demons do to mages,” I answered. “I guess they weren’t as lucky as me.”
He stepped closer, and I felt the heat roll off him, not comforting, not mortal, but suffocating, heavy and endless.
“No, you don’t. You think we only tempt your kind into bargains out of greed or devour you to survive.
But I have no need for that sort of inefficiency. I take something far more valuable.”
His hand shot out faster than I could move. The air cracked, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. It was as if his grip had found not my throat, but my soul.
Something hot and ancient yanked at me, my flames fighting their way out.
It tore through me like a hook dragging through flesh. My knees hit the floor the second his grip released me. I gasped, fire bursting from my palms in reflexive defense, but it only fed his power. The flames raced towards him, bending, twisting, betraying me.
He tilted his head, watching as light burst from my skin.
“Ah, there it is,” he whispered. “The spark that creates life. It births demons and also destroys them. Do you feel it leaving you?”
Pain lanced down my spine, blinding white. I screamed before I could stop myself, the sound echoing around the throne room.
But beneath the agony came something else, images. Flickers, faces I didn’t know.
A dozen, then a hundred.
Fire mages, their eyes wide and their bodies consumed in spirals of flame. Their magic bled into the same crimson light now threading towards his hand.
I saw them all. Every single one he’d taken.
“You—” I choked out, trembling. “You took them. All of them.”
“Creation requires sacrifice,” he said emotionless. “And you, my dear, are an exquisite offering indeed.”
I saw how my flames swirled, gathering in his palm. Shaping and creating, becoming a living demon before my very eyes.
It wasn’t large, the size of a watermelon at best. The fires formed into a humanoid body; its eyes opened with a scorching yellow color.
Rage flared hot enough to drown the pain. My fire surged, turning wild, no longer a weapon but a storm. It clawed at the ground, tore through the shadows, fought his pull with everything it had.
The room filled with burning light.
For a moment, I saw his eyes widen, not in fear, but in surprise.
“You think you can resist me?” he asked, though his voice had lost its silk. “Your kind always burns itself out first.”
I forced my head up, sweat and ash streaking my face. “Then watch me burn.”
I let go.
Fire erupted outward, tearing from my skin in a violent burst that shattered the braziers and sent waves of molten heat across the marble. The small demon he had created screamed an ear-piercing sound, before its fires merged with my own once more.
I had stolen his creation from him.
Zinlia shielded her face with an arm as I stumbled back.
The Demon King’s hold faltered. The flames raged between us like wildfire, consuming everything in their path, howling with all the stolen voices I had heard. For a heartbeat, I felt them with me, the other mages, the lost, the devoured. My fire was theirs now, and theirs was mine.
Together we pushed back.
Then the King’s pull on me snapped.
Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of dying flames. The throne behind him had melted into a molten ruin. Smoke hung thick in the air.
The Demon King stood there, utterly still. His dark clothing dripped with liquid heat, yet they were unharmed as if the flames never touched him. He looked at me as one might look at a mystery that had changed shape.
“Impressive,” he murmured. “You have a demon’s stubbornness. But you’re still just a mortal.”
He stepped closer, the heat radiating from him in waves, choking me. “And mortals break. All flames die eventually.”
“I’m not done burning yet.” My voice shook, but the words held steady.
He smiled again, the kind of smile that promised I hadn’t even glimpsed true pain yet. “We’ll see.”
He turned to Zinlia, who had moved closer, silent as ever. “Take her back, let her rest. She’ll need her strength when I decide to finish what I started.”
Zinlia bowed once. I wanted to pull away when she reached for my arm, but my body felt sore, each movement stinging, fragile and sharp. I let her guide me, though my eyes never left the Demon King.
He watched me go, crimson gaze alight.
“Tell me, little flame,” he called after me. “When you see my son again, will you still believe it’s you he wants, or only your fire that makes you useful.”
I stopped, every instinct screaming not to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
But I turned anyway.
“If all he wanted was my fire,” I said, my voice low, raw. “He wouldn’t have taught me how to make it burn bright enough to fight back.”
Something unreadable flickered across his face, annoyance, amusement, maybe even curiosity.
He waved a hand, dismissing me as if I were smoke.
Zinlia’s hand still gripped my arm when the sound came.
A deep, concussive slam shuddered through the floor and rattled the torches along the hall. The air itself seemed to crawl back in fear, waiting for the next strike.
Zinlia stopped mid-step. Even her calm fractured for a second, her gaze flicking to the doors at the far end of the main hall. The heat around us shifted, darker, hungrier.
Another crash followed, louder, closer, followed by the shriek of metal being torn apart, demons being ripped to shreds.
The Demon King turned, half-way across the throne room, crimson eyes narrowing.
“Ah,” he murmured, voice thick with interest. “It seems our guest has found the door.”
Zinlia’s grip tightened, a silent command to move, but the King raised a hand. “Bring her back.”
Before I could protest, Zinlia obeyed. Her hold was firm but not cruel as she steered me to stand once more before the ruined throne. My thigh burned, the wound pulsing intensely, black veins whispering against my skin, faintly hissing under the stress of magic in the air.
The great doors to the main hall shuddered again. One of them buckled inward, the ancient hinges shrieking.
And then, for a single heartbeat, silence.
Shards of iron and splintered stone screamed across the room as the door exploded. The air filled with crimson light, threads of liquid blood coiling and slithering through the dust like serpents. They sliced through what remained of the doorway, curling and retracting in elegant, lethal precision.
He stood framed by the ruins, every inch of him the storm I remembered.
Malakai.
Power radiated off him in waves, thick enough to taste. His jacket was torn, the fabric wet with blood, but his posture was relaxed, confident and unbothered. He looked like he’d stepped out of a battlefield he owned.