The night air was cold when Corin stepped out of Lucien's small apartment. He lingered at the threshold longer than necessary, the faint glow of a single oil lamp still flickering behind the cracked glass window. He tightened his fraying coat around his thin frame, the faint smell of soup from Lucien's home clinging to him like a memory he wasn't sure he deserved.
His footsteps echoed down the narrow street, damp with the day's drizzle, the cobblestones glistening faintly under the lantern posts. His head was bowed, not out of shame, but because his thoughts weighed on him like lead.
Ten thousand silver coins. The number rang in his ears like a curse, a debt written into his very bones. His father had borrowed it in a drunken gamble of a life, squandered it with careless hands, and then cowardly ended himself with a rope around the rafters, leaving Corin with nothing but whispers of disgrace and a debt collector's shadow at the door.
Corin clenched his jaw. He had tried, gods knew he had. He had worked menial jobs, taken punishment from the streets, begged for scraps, fought when cornered—but ten thousand coins was more than a life's worth of sweat for someone like him.
And then there was the daemon.
His daemon was not something he spoke of lightly. Even thinking of it now made his breath tremble. It whispered when he was weak, it clawed when he was desperate, it pressed against the edges of his mind when he faltered. He was a contractor—though not by choice. He had once accepted the daemon's aid in a moment of terror, a night when knives gleamed in the dark and he had been left for dead. It had kept him alive, but at a price. Always at a price.
Sometimes he felt his mind split—the coward, the timid boy who trembled before jeers, and the other him, the creature that thrashed, tore, and craved violence. That was the daemon's touch, and he hated it. But it had saved him more times than he could count.
And then… there was Lucien.
He shivered. That man's eyes were something else. Lucien's gaze had no pity, no disgust, no hesitation. It was like staring into the void where fire should have been—still, unflinching, unmoved. Corin didn't know whether he feared him or sought him. There was something unnatural about how Lucien had instantly understood the nature of contracts, how he had seen through the cracks of Corin's soul as though he'd lived among daemons his entire life.
He wanted to trust him. And yet, a part of him knew—Lucien was someone not to be trifled with. Someone even the daemon in him regarded with unease.
The thought made his stomach twist as he finally reached his home.
If it could even be called that.
The shack leaned sideways on rotten beams, its wooden door barely holding together with rusted hinges. He pushed it open, the sound of creaking wood groaning into the night. He had barely stepped inside when a shadow surged forward.
"Got you."
A heavy weight slammed him into the floorboards. A rough boot pressed down on his back, forcing the breath out of him. Dust filled his nose, splinters stabbed into his cheek.
Corin's heart sank.
The debt collectors.
He coughed, trying to turn his head enough to see them. The dim lamplight from the street cast long shadows inside. Men in worn leather and steel crowded the doorway, their boots muddy, their faces smug with the cruelty of men who had power over someone weaker.
They parted. A larger figure stepped in, his presence filling the room like smoke. His coat was lined with fur, his rings gleamed in the faint light, and when he smiled, it was all teeth.
"My money," the boss drawled, his voice heavy with disdain. "Or your life."
Corin's trembling hand reached into his coat. His fingers brushed against the few silver coins Lucien had given him earlier that night. They were warm from his touch, far too precious, and yet utterly insignificant before this man's demand.
He dug them out, his hand shaking, and let them clatter onto the floor. The boss crouched, scooping them up with an almost delicate hand. He counted slowly, lips curling in a smirk.
A nod. A flick of his fingers. His men stepped back. The pressure on Corin's back vanished. He sucked in a breath, his chest burning, relief rushing into his lungs.
But it didn't last.
The boss squatted lower, his eyes narrowing, their cold gleam pinning Corin where he knelt. "This money…" he said slowly, his words dripping suspicion. "It isn't yours, is it? Where did you get it?"
Corin spat, his saliva striking the floor near the man's boot. His voice cracked, but he forced the words out: "Why should I tell you?"
The boss's smile vanished.
The floorboards groaned as the man surged forward. A massive hand wrapped around Corin's throat and lifted him like a rag doll. His feet dangled off the ground, his air cut off in an instant.
Corin clawed at the man's wrist, his lungs screaming, his daemon thrashing inside him like a beast in a cage. His vision blurred, his body weakened, and for a moment he thought this would be the end.
But then something inside him snapped.
The world tilted. His body went limp—then surged with unnatural strength. His nails dug into the man's arm. His eyes, once dull, gleamed with something feral. He wasn't the trembling boy anymore.
He was something else.
With a growl tearing from his throat, Corin lunged forward, his teeth bared, his hand slashing with a hidden blade. Metal flashed—then sizzled. The blade melted into nothingness against the man's skin.
Corin froze, horror flickering in his mind.
The boss grinned, and flames burst from his hand.
A searing torrent of fire engulfed Corin, the heat blistering his flesh. He screamed, the sound half-human, half-monstrous, the daemon's presence flaring with agony. The wooden beams of his shack caught fire instantly, the air filled with smoke and burning timber.
The boss roared over the flames, his voice cruel. "You think you can defy me, boy? This is what happens when you bite at lions!"
Corin writhed, his skin blistering, his breath ragged. And yet—through instinct, through desperation, through the daemon's whisper—he escaped.
No one saw how. Perhaps the daemon had pulled him through the flames. Perhaps he had crawled into the smoke like a rat. But when the fire died down, the boss saw nothing but ash, scorched wood, and silence.
He smirked, certain the boy had perished.
But far away, in a narrow alley beside a shuttered shop, Corin collapsed against the stone wall. His right arm was charred black, the flesh blistered and raw, pain lancing through his nerves with every heartbeat. His chest heaved. Sweat mixed with soot on his brow.
He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the cold cobblestones. His body trembled, his head pounded, and his daemon whispered with a hunger he could barely suppress.
Treatment. He needed treatment. But the thought of how much it would cost made his stomach twist. He had no money left. None.
For the first time in years, tears welled in his eyes. Not from the pain—but from the crushing, suffocating weight of it all.
His debt. His daemon. His weakness.
Lucien's unflinching eyes flashed in his memory, and something deep inside him broke further.
Corin let his head fall back against the wall. His eyes closed. His body slackened. The world blurred into darkness.
And like that, he drifted into unconsciousness, the city's night swallowing him whole.