"She doesn’t look..." I swallowed. "...bad."
"She is burning." I looked at Grayfia.
"Doesn’t look like it."
"That is because the burn is of the soul."
I turned back to Lilith, studying the perfect stillness of her face. "If she’s doing all this for me... why? I’m not worth—"
"Do not finish that thought," Grayfia said sharply, cutting me off.
I looked at her in surprise.
Her eyes—silver, cold, unwavering—locked on mine like she could wrestle the words out of my throat before they had the chance to crawl into the air.
I raised my hands slightly. "Alright, alright. Not finishing the thought. Consider it—" I mimed zipping my lips "—archived in the mental trash bin."
Grayfia’s gaze lingered on me a second longer, as if gauging whether I might try to resurrect that forbidden sentence later when she wasn’t looking. Spoiler: I probably would.
I turned back to Lilith. My... mother. A word that felt too large for my mouth to hold. She lay as if carved from moonlight and shadow, every curve of her body a sculpture, every breath—Wait.
I frowned."Is she... breathing?"
"Yes." Grayfia’s answer was too fast, too measured. "Barely."
I leaned closer, trying to catch the rise and fall of her chest, but it was like watching a glacier melt—imperceptible unless you stared long enough to lose yourself.
"She is sustaining herself," Grayfia continued, "with what remains of her essence. A human might liken it to burning the furniture to keep the house warm. Eventually... there will be nothing left to burn."
I chewed my lip. "So you’re telling me she’s running on her own soul’s equivalent of firewood, and no one’s thought to—what?—install magical solar panels? Hook her up to a demonic battery?"
Grayfia’s silence was a heavy, unimpressed kind.
"Oh. Right. You did say incurable disease. Just thought I’d throw in some creative problem-solving. That’s what sons are for, right?"
She didn’t laugh. Not even a twitch. I might as well have told a knock-knock joke at a funeral.
"Okay, so what was the purpose of showing me... her. I can’t possibly think of a reason to—"
"To remind you of the stakes."
Grayfia’s voice landed like a guillotine. No excess words. No cushioning. Just the clean, unarguable finality of truth.
I blinked at her. "That’s... dramatic. Even for you."
Her expression didn’t shift. "You have been asleep for a thousand years, my Prince. You do not yet comprehend what this world has become, nor how little time remains before the Seven tighten their noose around you."
The way she said the Seven—quiet, almost reverent, but with venom laced underneath—made the room feel colder.
I glanced back at Lilith. The "burning" she’d mentioned... it wasn’t visible, but I could almost feel it now, like the faintest vibration in the air, a tension between the soul and the body that shouldn’t exist.
My System window flickered at the edge of my perception—[Status anomaly detected. Subject: Lilith. Essence attrition: 87.3%]
I shoved my hands into my coat pockets, forcing casualness into my posture. "You’re telling me she’s in some magical coma. And has been. For a thousand years."
"Since the day you were born," Grayfia corrected.
There’s a certain kind of silence where your brain runs ahead of your mouth, building images you don’t want to see. I saw her holding me as an infant, perhaps smiling—though I doubted I remembered it—and then simply... never waking again.
"That’s... convenient," I muttered, but the humor landed flat even in my own ears.
"It is a curse," Grayfia said. "Not by spell, but by nature. Demon Sleep has no cure. All who fall into it... perish."
"Except her," Grayfia agreed. "Because she resists. Because she burns herself to resist."
Her gaze softened almost imperceptibly, the way granite might soften after ten thousand years of erosion. "She keeps herself here for you, Dominic. Even if she never wakes."
The words stuck in my throat. "...Why?"
"I have told you before."
"Yes, but telling me why someone would cut off their own metaphorical limbs just to stay in my orbit isn’t exactly a rational explanation. You do understand I’m not worth all this effort, right?"
Her hand was on my shoulder before I could backpedal, cold as frost and firm enough to make the bones underneath feel small.
It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t encouragement. It was a prophecy, and the conviction in her tone made the hair at my nape stand on end.
I glanced away, partly to break eye contact, partly because staring at Lilith felt safer. "So that’s it, huh? Show me my comatose soul-burning mother, remind me of the tragic stakes, and hope it lights a fire under my ass?"
Grayfia’s lips twitched—not in amusement, but in something close to frustration. "No. I also wanted you to understand that you cannot save everyone."
"Oh." I rocked on my heels. "That’s... not exactly the pep talk I was expecting."
"It is the truth. The truth you will face again and again. Even now, you are thinking of solutions. Ways to fix this."
"Guilty," I admitted.
Her silver eyes narrowed. "Good. That instinct is what will keep you alive. But understand—" she glanced at Lilith "—some fires cannot be extinguished without destroying the flame entirely."
"Let’s go, you need to rest. Tomorrow I will start your Physical training."
I tore my eyes away from Lilith. The room felt heavier without looking at her, which didn’t make any sense. Usually, when you turn your back on something terrifying, the air gets lighter. But here, it was like her presence had sunk its hooks into me and refused to let go.
"Rest?" I repeated. "You drop all this—" I waved vaguely at the soul-burning mother centerpiece of the room "—and think I’m going to close my eyes like a good little boy?"
Grayfia’s expression didn’t shift. "You will."
Her silver gaze slid over me slowly, in the way a predator sizes up prey it has already decided belongs in its stomach. "You will."
"...Right. Bed it is."
She turned and began walking out, her footfalls echoing against the polished obsidian. The urge to take one last look at Lilith was strong, but I didn’t. It felt like if I stared too long, I’d promise something I couldn’t deliver.
The hallway outside was colder. I wasn’t sure if it was the enchantments or just me leaving the subtle warmth of Lilith’s soul fire behind. Either way, the temperature difference made my skin prickle.
"You’re quiet," Grayfia said, not looking back.
"About how I apparently have a cursed mother, a prophecy I didn’t sign up for, and a personal maid who thinks my bedtime is a tactical maneuver."
Grayfia stopped. Slowly, she turned, the faintest quirk in her brow. "And your conclusion?"
"That I’m either the luckiest or unluckiest bastard alive."
The corner of her lips threatened to twitch into something resembling a smirk, but didn’t quite make it. "Sleep. We begin at dawn."
"Do demons even have dawn?"
"We have the concept. It is enough."
"I thought you were my yandere, I’m having doubts—"
The sound was soft, but the impact was... weaponized.
Her lips—cool, impossibly precise—barely brushed the corner of my mouth. It wasn’t the fevered press of passion, nor the clumsy warmth of comfort. It was surgical. Deliberate. The kind of kiss that carried meaning I wasn’t cleared to access.
Not because I was flustered (...alright, maybe slightly), but because my brain was trying to run several contradictory thoughts through a single mental doorway:
• Why did she just do that?
• Wait, was that for real or am I hallucinating?
• If that was for real, what level of trouble am I in now?
My mouth opened. My brain searched for words. My pride requested a lawyer.
Grayfia turned before the question fully left my lips, already resuming her walk down the endless obsidian corridor. "You needed to stop talking."
"That’s your method for shutting me up?!" I said, hurrying after her. "Ever heard of the finger-to-lips thing? Or maybe a stern glare? Or—I don’t know—a threat? That’s usually your go-to."
"I did threaten you," she said evenly. "In a way you will remember."
I wanted to argue, but unfortunately she was right. My brain was currently burning that moment into the mental archives with four different camera angles.
"Yeah, right..." I gaze, glued to that pair of bouncing bunnies as she marched ahead, her posture as rigid and imperious as always, which only made the sway of those "bunnies" an even more unfair distraction.
I wasn’t staring.Okay, I was staring. But I was doing it respectfully.
The corridor stretched on in that typical Hell-architecture way—endless, dark, and filled with enough subtle runic etchings that you couldn’t tell if you were walking toward your bedroom or straight into an ancient murder labyrinth.
My brain tried to refocus. Lilith. Soul burning. Demon Sleep. My supposed destiny. The Seven. The prophecy.
"Come, sleep with me."
So she can get flustered after all, then I did the most logical thing in this particular situation, which is to grin like an idiot.
Not a smug grin. Not even a cocky one. No, this was the pure, troublemaking, I-just-found-a-button-and-now-I’m-going-to-press-it-until-it-breaks grin.
Grayfia’s usually flawless composure cracked—not much, just the faintest hitch in her breath—but I caught it, and that was enough fuel for my ego to set up a ten-year lease.
"I meant," she said, each syllable measured like she was weighing whether to crush me with them, "this is your room. For you to sleep in. Alone."
"Uh-huh," I said, leaning lazily against the doorframe. "That’s one interpretation. My interpretation was warmer. More... companionable."
"Your interpretation is incorrect."
"History’s full of incorrect interpretations that turned out to be brilliant in hindsight," I said. "Maybe I’m just ahead of the curve."
"Y-You should rest. I will come wake you up when it’s time." And with that, she made a run for the door, her face crimson with blush so crimson I half-expected steam to hiss out of her ears.
The door shut behind her with more force than necessary, like she was sealing a vault that contained something dangerous.(Spoiler: me. I was the dangerous thing.)
I stood there for a moment, staring at the black wood, the faint echo of her hurried footsteps fading into the corridor beyond. Then I grinned.Not because I’d "won" — whatever that means with Grayfia — but because I’d just seen the unseeable: Grayfia Lucifuge, pinnacle of demonic composure, running away like a schoolgirl caught staring at her crush.
I filed that mental image in the Emergency Mood Booster section of my brain for future use.
The room behind me was big. Too big. The kind of big that made you feel like you were either in a luxury suite or a dragon’s feeding pen, depending on the lighting. Polished obsidian floors, high arching windows with curtains that looked like they’d been woven from night itself, a bed that could comfortably fit six people (which was a waste, considering Grayfia had made it clear I’d be the only occupant).
And quiet.So quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.Which was the problem.
Because with no Grayfia, no bunnies, and no banter, my mind started replaying the earlier scene in the chamber.
Lilith.The faint, imperceptible rise and fall of her chest.The invisible burn of her soul.Eighty-seven point three percent attrition.
I flopped back onto the mattress, staring up at the carved canopy. My System remained silent — as if it knew I didn’t want the reminder — but the numbers lingered in my mind like bad song lyrics.
Demon Sleep.Incurable.Thousands dead. No survivors.
Except her, who’d been burning herself away for me since the moment I’d existed.
"Idiot," I muttered. I wasn’t sure if I meant her or me. Probably both.