Damien blinked. "What do you mean by 'those words were true'?"
Dominic didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he took a breath—slow, deliberate—as if unsealing something long kept in shadow. His eyes, when they met Damien's again, held not just calculation, but memory. And underneath it, the kind of weight that came only from stories soaked in blood and history.
"The Demon King," Dominic said.
The words landed like a falling blade.
"Demon king?"
"Yes, Demon King…."
Kael stepped back to the side, arms folded again. His silence wasn't passive—it was permission. He would let Dominic tell it.
"He wasn't a king in the political sense," Dominic continued, his voice lower now. "Not a ruler of territory. He never sat on a throne. But the title stuck because no one could call him anything else. He didn't take land. He claimed reality. And people followed—out of fear, awe, or madness."
Damien's eyes narrowed slightly. "When?"
