The palace was always unnaturally quiet past midnight, especially in the western wing. But tonight, it felt different. There was something heavy in the air, thick with anticipation, pressing against his chest like a storm waiting to break.
Tharros leaned against a cold obsidian pillar, his arms crossed, every sense on edge.
He had felt it—the surge.
It wasn't a sudden, chaotic flare. No, it was subtler than that, like the quiet ripple of an ancient force stirring to life beneath the surface of the world. It thrummed in his bones, a familiar sensation, yet one he hadn't felt in years.
A ripple of power that could only belong to one person.
Adira.
The pull was undeniable.
He followed the invisible thread until it brought him here—outside her chambers.
Adira.
The Demon King.
His wife.
His tormentor.
His enigma.
It had been years since he'd stood outside her door with any intention to approach it.
Most nights, he had stood in this exact hallway, avoiding the summons she sent when she was drunk on power or wine, and trying to ignore the anger that laced her every word.
He had walked away more times than he cared to count, but tonight… tonight, something felt different.
Something had changed.
He reached for the door handle, his fingertips brushing the cold metal, but paused.
Inside, there was no sound—no screams, no moans, no words of command, no angry orders.
There was only energy. A hum in the air, so subtle at first that he almost didn't notice it. Then it grew, vibrating through the walls, like the beat of a drum calling him closer. It wasn't chaotic, though—it was controlled.
But it was powerful.
Not like the power Adira usually wielded, born from her need for dominance. This was raw, untamed, ancient, but it had a purpose. A rhythm.
And in that hum, he heard something—her voice.
Not the biting, commanding tone that had ruled his every thought for years. No. This was something different.
Adira's voice was strong, unyielding, but threaded with something else—something deeper. Almost… distant.
"…Liana…"
The single word was like a crack of thunder in the quiet hallway.
It wasn't fragile or pleading.
It wasn't weak. It was a command—soft, but undeniably powerful. A refusal. A rejection of something.
And that was enough to stop him in his tracks.
Tharros's heart slammed against his ribs as the word lingered in the air. He could almost feel the weight of it, the way it hung in the space between them.
Not one of her consorts. Not one of her servants. Not anyone from this world.
A ghost? A memory? Or a question she had never dared ask before?
Tharros's jaw clenched, and he stepped back from the door. His mind raced. He hadn't meant to speak aloud, but the words slipped from him before he could stop them.
"She's different," he muttered to himself, his voice barely above a whisper.
He hadn't known what to expect when he'd felt that pulse of magic. But it wasn't this.
The Adira he knew was a woman of fire and fury.
A master of manipulation.
Her voice was a weapon, and her gaze was a blade that could cut through the thickest of armor. She ruled with cruelty, her every movement calculated, her every word designed to wound.
But this… this felt like something more. Something raw.
Something human.
Tharros took a deep breath, forcing his mind to calm, but his chest still tightened. He had never seen her like this. Not once in all the years they had been bound by that twisted marriage. She was the Demon King, the embodiment of strength and control.
But now… Now, there was something underneath all that power. Something vulnerable, maybe.
Something he couldn't place.
He turned away from her door, the unease gnawing at him. The pull of the energy was still there, distant, but it had changed something in him.
He walked away before Ford caught sight of him, feeling the weight of the moment settle on his shoulders.
-
He didn't sleep.
The hours passed slowly in his quarters, his mind a storm of thoughts.
Tharros sat by the window, eyes fixed on the horizon, watching as the clouds gathered in the distance, dark and foreboding.
His fingers traced the scar on his side—a mark from Adira, one of the many she had given him over the years. Each one was a reminder of her cruelty. A reminder of the broken pieces of himself he had left behind.
He hadn't forgiven her.
Not for the pain she had caused, not for the way she had treated him and so many others. But tonight… tonight something was different.
Her power had felt like an earthquake in his chest, but it wasn't just the magic that had unsettled him.
It was her. Her words. Her voice. She wasn't the same woman he had spent years loathing. Not the same woman who had broken him, who had broken them all.
Tharros whispered her name to himself, a name he had said countless times but never with this weight.
"Adira."
The name felt strange in his mouth, like a relic of the past, something distant and almost foreign. He didn't know how to feel about it. But tonight, it had haunted him in a way he couldn't shake.
"Who are you now?" he muttered, his voice barely more than a breath in the quiet of the night.
The storm continued to grow outside, and for the first time in a long while, Tharros didn't know whether he should raise his sword or lower his guard. His thoughts were tangled, uncertain. There was something about her that had changed—something he couldn't put into words.
And now, the question lingered in his mind, refusing to fade.
Who was she really?
And who had he become in the process?
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