Chapter 29: The Demon Beneath My Bed

Chapter 29: Chapter 29: The Demon Beneath My Bed

The room stayed silent.

The girl remained on her knees. Every small tremor in her body made the chains on her wrists whisper against each other.

Theon studied her without hurrying.

Up close, she looked worse than his first glance had told him.

Torn fabric exposed bruises along her shoulders and arms. Dried blood clung to the sleeve she’d used as a bandage. The skin around her wrists carried old marks, the kind that come from chains tightened again and again over a long stretch of time.

She didn’t look dangerous.

She looked like someone who had simply refused to stop existing.

"Stand up," he said.

She flinched at his voice, as if the words themselves carried weight.

"I won’t run. I promise I won’t."

"I didn’t ask if you’d run. I asked you to stand."

She rose slowly, unsteady, her whole frame still curved inward, like she expected a blow the moment she was upright.

Ifrit sat by the door. Watching. Not blinking.

Theon folded his arms.

"Talk."

Her voice came out thin.

"I was being chased."

"They wanted to take me back."

"Who?"

Her mouth opened. Then shut.

Something crossed her face, quick and afraid, gone before he could name it.

He softened his tone. Just slightly.

"If you ended up in my room by accident, I need to know who was hunting you through my palace."

She stared at the floor.

"Bad people."

"That’s not an answer."

The chains rattled again as her hands shook.

For a long moment she said nothing.

Then, barely above a whisper

"Archduke Raven Nivaris."

Theon went cold.

"What did you say?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for something, as though the name itself might summon punishment.

His uncle.

A war veteran with more soldiers loyal to him personally than to the crown. A man whose reach stretched well past his own province.

Why would someone like that be hunting a half-starved girl through back alleys at night?

Before he could ask anything else, Ifrith spoke first.

His voice had lost its usual playfulness.

"You’re a demon."

Her eyes snapped open. She scrambled back until the bed frame stopped her.

"How did you know?"

"A Kin always recognizes another."

"You’re... you’re a demon too?"

He gave a single nod.

The room went quiet again.

Theon looked at him. "Ifrith. You knew she was here."

"Yes."

"This whole time?"

"Yes."

"And you didn’t think to mention it?"

Ifrit’s tail flicked once. "She was asleep."

"That’s not a reason."

"It’s most of one."

Theon pressed two fingers against his temple. "Give me the rest, then."

Ifrith glanced toward the girl before answering.

"She was wounded, drained, and hiding what little mana she had left. Waking her with an accusation might have made her panic hard before either of us understood what we were dealing with."

Theon frowned. "Panic hard how?"

The girl’s shoulders curled tighter.

"There’s a reason they want me at all cost."

"What is this reason?"

She hesitated so long he thought she wouldn’t answer.

Then, quietly:

"I can make people obey me."

The words landed heavier than she probably meant them to. Theon felt himself take half a step back before he’d even decided to move.

"Not like that," she said quickly, hands raised despite the chains. "Not fully. I can push people. Make them want to listen, want to agree with me. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like a choice to them anymore."

A pause.

"But I’m not using it now. I swear I’m not using it on you."

Ifrith kept his gaze fixed on her, unreadable.

Theon searched her face for the calm confidence of someone lying.

He found only fear. Real fear. The kind that doesn’t know how to perform itself convincingly.

"Does it work on everyone?"

"No. People with strong will, strong mana, they push back. Sometimes I can’t touch them at all."

Ifrith gave the smallest nod.

Confirming what Theon already suspected. She was telling the truth. Or close enough to it that the difference didn’t matter yet.

Theon let out a slow breath.

"Then tell me everything. Start at the beginning."

Her shoulders shook. For a moment he thought she’d refuse outright.

Instead, she looked down at her bound wrists and began.

"I was born in the Demon Realm. My mother and father raised me somewhere small, far from any demons. We didn’t have servants. We weren’t nobles."

Theon let her keep going without interrupting.

"My father gave up something important before I was even born. I don’t know what, not exactly."

"Try me."

"I’ll tell you later."

Something in her tone made it clear that *later* meant only if she trusted him enough to survive the telling.

Ifrith’s eyes narrowed at that. He held his tongue.

"When the war between demons and humans got worse, my parents decided we had to leave. They said staying wasn’t safe anymore."

Her eyes darkened.

"We crossed the border in secret. We thought we could just disappear."

Her voice cracked.

"But We were attacked."

"By Bandits," Theon said. More statement than question.

She nodded.

"They killed my father first. My mother tried to shield me, and they killed her too."

The room seemed to hold its breath along with her.

"They chained me and dragged me off. I didn’t understand anything. I was just scared, and angry, and I didn’t know what to do with either of those feelings."

A faint pulse of mana rippled outward from her. Unbidden.

"Ifrith," Theon said quietly.

"I see it."

She kept going, her voice shaking harder now.

"Then I heard them talking. Laughing about selling me. Talking about what they’d do to me first."

Her mana trembled again. Sharper this time.

"And something in me broke."

"What happened?" he asked, gentler than before.

"When I opened my eyes, they were all dead. Every one of them."

"You did that?"

"I didn’t even know how. I still don’t, not really."

A long silence passed before she went on.

"That’s when a man in a hood found me standing over the bodies. He smiled like he’d been waiting for exactly that moment. Told me he could help me get revenge on everyone who’d ever hurt me. Told me I’d never have to be alone again."

Theon already knew where this was going. He hated that he did.

"What did you do?"

"I followed him."

No excuse offered. No attempt to soften it.

"He sold me in the next city we reached."

"Sold you."

"As a slave. He told my first owner what I could do, and after that I kept getting sold again. Each time for more. Because each buyer found some new use for me."

Her voice had gone flat, hollowed out by repetition.

"Merchants who needed leverage. Nobles who needed a contract signed against someone’s better judgment. Eventually I ended up with Raven Nivaris ".

The room felt colder than it had a moment ago.

"What does he want from you?"

This time she didn’t hesitate.

"The throne."

Theon’s stomach dropped.

"That doesn’t make sense. He already has more power than half the court combined."

"It wasn’t enough. Not after word got out."

"What word?"

Her eyes met his properly for the first time.

"That the Seventh Prince had contracted something ancient. And that his sister had awakened something just as strong right after him."

Understanding settled over Theon slowly. It tasted bitter going down.

Raven’s own children had been the pride of the family for years, praised as the sharpest young mages the nobility had produced in a generation.

Then Theon had woken something the empire hadn’t seen in centuries. His sister, right behind him.

Every bit of attention Raven had spent years cultivating had simply walked out the door toward two children who hadn’t asked for any of it.

"He got desperate," she said. So quietly it almost didn’t reach him.

Theon looked away, thoughts churning faster than he could organize them.

This wasn’t a distant rumor about court politics anymore.

It had a face now. A name. And it lived in his own family.

Somewhere underneath all of it sat a colder question he wasn’t ready to answer yet.

If Raven was willing to use a girl who could bend other people’s wills just to buy himself more influence .

what wouldn’t he be willing to do to take a throne?

Theon said nothing for a long stretch.

The pieces were fitting together into a shape he didn’t like looking at.

Raven had always been ambitious. Everyone at court knew that much.

But ambition and treason lived in different rooms of the same house, and this girl had no reason to drag treason into a story that already cost her everything else.

Her bruises were real. The marks on her wrists were real. Nothing about the fear on her face looked rehearsed.

Ifrith broke the silence. "What’s your name?"

She blinked, caught off guard by the ordinary question after everything else.

"Lazeria."

He repeated it in his head.

Not fully human. Not fully demonic either. A name that belonged to neither world completely.

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

Something tightened in his chest at that.

Younger than he’d guessed. Somehow that made everything she’d just described worse.

Lazeria dropped her eyes again, clearly uncomfortable under two sets of attention at once.

Ifrith hopped down and circled her slowly, studying her the way he might study a puzzle box.

She stiffened. "What are you doing?"

"Thinking."

"That’s somehow worse than not knowing."

He ignored her.

Theon rubbed his forehead. "First thing, those chains come off."

She stepped back immediately. "No."

"No?"

"They’re tied to the slave crest. Force them off and it triggers the punishment built into it."

"What crest?"

She tugged the torn collar of her shirt aside, revealing a dark red mark burned into the skin below her collarbone. Thin lines branching outward like roots reaching for something to hold onto.

It pulsed faintly. Almost like it was breathing.

Theon felt something cold settle in his gut. "That’s not ordinary slave work."

"It isn’t," Ifrit said.

For the first time since they’d met her, all the mischief had drained out of her voice.

"That’s a divine grade crest."

"Meaning?"

"A normal crest is a leash. This is a curse someone carved straight into her soul."

Lazeria’s whole body trembled.

"If I disobey, or say something I’m not supposed to, or try to run too far, it punishes me."

"How badly?"

She swallowed hard.

"It can stop my heart."

Something in Theon went white hot.

He’d seen cruelty before. Nobles who treated servants like furniture. Criminals who deserved every ounce of justice they got.

But this wasn’t cruelty aimed at a body.

This reached past skin and bone into something people weren’t supposed to be able to touch at all.

"Can you take it off her?"

Ifrit hesitated a beat too long.

"Not safely."

"You can’t."

"I could destroy it. I might destroy part of her along with it."

Lazeria lowered her head further, as though she’d already made peace with that outcome long before this conversation started.

Theon’s jaw tightened.

No.

There had to be another way, and if there wasn’t, he’d make one.

"World Archive," he said inwardly. "Analyze the crest."

A pulse of mana left him. The mark on her chest flared brighter for a heartbeat.

She flinched. "What did you just do?"

He didn’t answer. Too busy reading the lines of blue text unfolding in front of him.

*Divine Slave Crest identified.*

*Origin: soul binding curse.*

*Removal probability: one hundred percent.*

"...What?"

Ifrit’s ears twitched.

" I can remove it completely."

Lazeria looked between them, lost. Ifrit’s eyes widened. "How?"

Theon read further.

"Pour compatible mana into the crest until the binding cycle breaks down."

"That’s the whole method?"

"That’s not a simple method," Ifrit said.

"It sounds simple."

"It sounds simple to you because your mana happens to match what it needs. That’s not the same as simple."

Lazeria’s voice shook. "Can it actually work?"

Theon hesitated, glancing at Ifrit, who answered for him.

"If the Archive says certain, I trust certain."

Hope broke across her face so fast it looked almost painful to watch.

Then her body jerked.

She cried out.

The mark flared crimson. She dropped to one knee, both hands clutching her chest, chains rattling against the sudden violence of her own trembling.

"What’s happening?" Theon demanded.

"He’s calling me back," she gasped. "He’s calling me back."

The lines spread wider across her skin. She screamed, and the sound cracked something in the air itself, pressure building until Theon felt it push against his own senses like a wall.

"It’s activating," Ifrit snapped. "Now. Do it now."

Theon didn’t stop to think.

He dropped beside her and pressed his palm flat over the glowing mark.

It burned like grabbing a coal straight from the fire.

She gasped under his hand, shaking harder.

He shut his eyes and let mana pour out of him. Just the raw current of himself, unshaped.

Nothing, for one long breath.

Then the mark fought back, twisting violently under his palm, something old and furious trying to keep its grip on her.

He pushed harder.

Silver blue light burst from his hand hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling.

The lines shattered like glass breaking underwater.

She screamed once more

then the glow died completely.

Silence swallowed the room.

The chains slid off her wrists and hit the floor with a soft metallic clatter.

Where the mark had been, only smooth, unmarked skin remained.

She stared down at her own chest like she didn’t trust it.

Ifrith stared at Theon like he didn’t trust him either. In the best possible way.

Nobody spoke for a long moment.

Finally Ifrith exhaled. "Of course you’d manage that on your first try."

Theon looked at his own hand, still faintly tingling. "That actually worked."

"Do you understand what you just did?"

"Removed a curse?"

"You unmade a divine grade soul binding with a single push of raw mana. People spend lifetimes failing to do what you just did in thirty seconds."

"When you put it that way it sounds impressive."

"It is impressive."

Lazeria’s hand flew to her mouth.

Tears slid down her face before she seemed to notice they’d started.

"I’m free," she whispered.

So quiet it barely qualified as sound.

The word hit the room harder than the scream had.

She began to cry properly now, shoulders shaking. Theon looked away, giving her that much privacy. Ifrith watched her without a trace of his usual teasing. Something almost gentle in his Golden-crimson eyes instead.

After a few minutes she wiped her face, embarrassed.

"Sorry."

"Don’t be."

She looked up at him. "Thank you."

He rubbed the back of his neck, unused to gratitude that sounded this raw.

"Don’t thank me yet. We still have a much bigger problem sitting in front of us."

Her face fell again. "Raven."

"If everything you’ve told me is true, this stopped being about a runaway slave a while ago. This is a conspiracy against the crown."

"He won’t stop looking for me."

"I know."

A witness who knew this much couldn’t be left wandering free. Not from Raven’s side of things.

"I can’t sit on this alone."

"Tell the emperor," Ifrith said immediately.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it’s my uncle."

"That’s exactly why you should."

Theon rubbed his face. "Walking in with a demon girl and a treason accusation is going to make Father think I’ve finally cracked."

Ifrith gave him a flat stare.

"You sneak out of the palace weekly, fight things that could level a city block, and stumbled into a hidden training chamber by falling through a wall. A demon girl barely moves the needle on how unbelievable your life already is."

Theon opened his mouth. Closed it.

"...Fair."

"Has it ever struck you as strange that nobody really stops you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You disappear constantly. Sometimes for days. And every time, the consequences are laughably light."

He thought about it, and the more he did, the stranger it felt.

Guards who somehow never saw him leave. Reports that quietly vanished before reaching anyone important. Servants who kept his secrets without ever being asked twice.

"You think Father already knows."

"I think Ragnar knows considerably more than either of us gives him credit for."

Theon glanced toward the window, unease settling low in his gut.

If that was true, how long had he been watched?

And why let it continue?

Lazeria looked between them, uncertain. "What do we do?"

Theon thought it over, then made up his mind.

"Get cleaned up. Find something to wear that isn’t falling apart."

She blinked.

"After that," he said, "we go see the emperor."

Ifrith’s mouth curved into something almost proud. "Good decision."

Theon wasn’t sure *good* was the word he’d have picked.

But for a moment since finding a stranger hiding under his own bed, he had the growing sense that whatever they were walking into went far past his uncle.