Aria's POV
I run through dark streets until my lungs burn and my legs feel like they'll collapse.
The Old Bridge looms ahead—ancient stone covered in moss, stretching over black water. Nobody comes here anymore. They say it's cursed. That spirits haunt it.
Right now, I don't care if a thousand ghosts are waiting.
I check my phone: 11:58 PM.
Two minutes.
My heart pounds as I step onto the bridge. The stone is cold under my bare feet—somewhere between the Grand Hall and here, I lost my shoes. My ceremonial robes are torn and dirty. I probably look insane.
"Hello?" My voice echoes. "I got your message. I'm here!"
Silence.
Just the sound of water rushing below and my own ragged breathing.
"This was stupid," I mutter, wiping tears from my face. "Nobody's coming. It was probably a prank. One more way to humiliate—"
"Not a prank."
I spin around.
A woman stands at the other end of the bridge. I didn't hear her approach. Didn't sense her at all.
She's beautiful in a dangerous way—sharp features, blood-red lips, and eyes that glow like embers in the darkness. She wears black that seems to swallow the moonlight.
"Who are you?" I take a step back.
"My name is Mira." She glides closer, her movements too smooth to be human. "And you, Aria Chen, are the most interesting thing to happen in centuries."
"How do you know my name?"
"Everyone knows your name after tonight's disaster." Mira's smile is cruel. "Spiritually dead. Rejected by every spirit. Abandoned by your family and fiancé. Quite the fall from grace."
Pain stabs through my chest. "If you came here to mock me—"
"I came to offer you the truth." Mira stops a few feet away. "Those spirits didn't reject you because you're weak."
"The crystal said zero. Everyone saw—"
"The crystal measured nothing because your power is so far beyond its scale, it doesn't register." Mira's eyes gleam. "You're not spiritually dead, little Chen. You're spiritually nuclear."
I stare at her. "That's impossible."
"Is it? Think about it. Why would the daughter of the legendary Chen bloodline suddenly have no power? Why would the girl who passed every preliminary test—who could see spirits since she was three years old—suddenly become nothing?" Mira circles me like a predator. "Someone very clever sabotaged your ceremony. But even sabotage couldn't hide what you really are."
My mind races back to the ceremony. To Celeste's triumphant smile. Her whispered words: Did you really think you'd win?
"Celeste," I breathe. "She did something."
"Your darling sister poisoned the ritual incense with spirit-repelling herbs. Clever girl. Temporary, but effective for ruining one very important night." Mira laughs. "But here's the beautiful irony—even without the sabotage, those spirits would have rejected you. Because none of them are strong enough to bond with you."
"Then what am I supposed to do?" My voice breaks. "If regular spirits can't bond with me, I'm useless!"
"Not useless. Unprecedented." Mira's smile widens. "There's only one being in existence powerful enough to match your spiritual energy. One entity who's been sealed away for 500 years, waiting for someone worthy enough to set him free."
Ice runs through my veins. "No."
"Yes."
"You're talking about Azrael. The Demon King."
"The very same." Mira's eyes glow brighter. "Your ancestor, the Exorcist Empress, sealed him in the Abyss because she feared his power. But she couldn't kill him. Nobody could. He's been waiting, growing stronger, calling out across the centuries for someone who could be his equal."
"He's evil!" I back toward the edge of the bridge. "We hunt demons. We protect people from them!"
"He's powerful," Mira corrects. "Good and evil are just stories the Tamer Society tells to control you. Azrael is raw power. Ancient, vast, and currently very interested in you."
"Why me?"
"Because your bloodline is his mirror image. Your ancestor could seal him precisely because she shared his strength. That power runs in your veins, concentrated, purified over generations." Mira holds out her hand. "He's offering a contract. Bond with him, and you'll have power that makes Xavier Kane look like a child playing with matches."
Xavier's name sends fresh pain through me. His cold eyes. His casual cruelty.
I can't marry someone with no spiritual power. You're nothing.
"What does he want in exchange?" I whisper.
"The same thing any contract requires. You become his Tamer. His anchor to this world. Your souls bind together—his power becomes yours, your life force becomes his." Mira's smile turns predatory. "Forever. No breaking the bond. No take-backs. You're his, and he's yours, until death."
"That's insane."
"That's power." Mira steps closer. "Imagine walking back into that Grand Hall with the Demon King at your command. Imagine their faces when they realize what they threw away. Xavier. Your father. That snake Celeste." Her voice drops to a purr. "Imagine making them all beg for forgiveness."
The image sends dark pleasure through me. All of them on their knees. All of them realizing they were wrong.
But contracting with a demon...
"The Society will hunt me," I say. "They'll call me a traitor."
"They'll call you powerful. And they'll be too terrified to touch you." Mira tilts her head. "Or you can refuse. Go back to the mortal world. Live as a nobody. Let Celeste steal everything that was supposed to be yours. Let Xavier marry her and forget you ever existed."
My hands clench into fists.
"Tick tock, Aria. Azrael's patience isn't infinite." Mira holds up a small knife, its blade gleaming silver. "All you need is blood and the right words. Call him up from the Abyss. Form the contract. Take back everything they stole."
I stare at the knife.
This is crazy. Dangerous. Everything I was taught says bonding with a demon is wrong.
But everything I was taught also said I'd be powerful. That Xavier loved me. That my family would stand by me.
All lies.
My phone buzzes. A text from Celeste: Thanks for the fiancé, sis! Xavier says last night with you meant nothing. You were just practice. XOXO
Attached is a photo of her kissing Xavier. He's kissing her back.
Something inside me breaks. Not the sad, crying kind of breaking. The cold, furious kind.
I look up at Mira. "What do I have to do?"
Her smile is pure triumph. "That's my girl."
She hands me the knife. The handle is warm, almost alive.
"Cut your palm. Draw a circle with your blood. Speak his true name three times." Mira's eyes glow crimson. "Be warned—once you start, you can't stop. The ritual demands completion. You call him, you bind to him. No second thoughts."
I press the blade against my palm. It stings.
"One more thing," Mira adds casually. "If your spiritual energy isn't actually strong enough to match his, the contract will burn you alive from the inside. Painful death. Very messy."
I freeze. "What?"
"Just kidding!" Mira laughs at my expression. "Mostly. There's like a five percent chance you'll explode. But that's practically nothing!"
"Five percent—"
"Aria. Do you want power or not?"
I think about Xavier's empty eyes. My father's disgust. Celeste's triumphant sneer.
I drag the blade across my palm.
Blood wells up, hot and red.
I kneel and start drawing the circle.
"Good girl," Mira whispers. "Now speak his name. AZRAEL."
My lips form the word: "Azrael."
The blood circle ignites with black flames.
"Again. Louder."
"AZRAEL!"
The bridge shakes. The water below churns violently.
"Once more. Mean it this time."
I pour all my rage, all my pain, all my desperate need into one final scream:
"AZRAEL!"
The world explodes.
Black flames erupt from the circle, shooting fifty feet into the sky. The ancient stones of the bridge crack and groan. Reality itself seems to tear open—a void of darkness and crimson light.
Something is rising from the Abyss.
Something massive.
Something that makes every instinct in my body scream RUN.
But I can't move. The ritual has me locked in place.
A figure emerges from the flames—tall, powerful, wrapped in shadows that writhe like living things.
Then the shadows fall away.
And I see him.
Azrael.
The Demon King is the most beautiful and terrifying thing I've ever seen.
Silver-white hair that glows in the darkness. Crimson eyes that burn with ancient intelligence. Features sharp enough to cut. And power—oh god, the POWER radiating from him makes me want to bow, to run, to scream all at once.
He looks at me.
And smiles.
"Well, well. The little Chen girl finally called." His voice is silk over steel, with an accent I can't place. "Five hundred years in that prison. I was starting to get bored."
He steps out of the circle, and I realize with horror that he's FREE. Completely free. The most dangerous being in existence, unleashed by my blood.
"You want a contract, little Chen?" Azrael circles me slowly, examining me like a predator sizing up prey. "You want power to crush your enemies? To make them all suffer?"
"Yes," I whisper.
"Then let's discuss terms." He stops directly in front of me, tilting my chin up with one finger. His touch is ice cold. "I give you strength beyond imagination. In return, your soul binds to mine. Forever. You'll share my power, my immortality, my very essence."
"Okay."
"I'm not finished." His eyes gleam with dark amusement. "You'll also share my hungers. My nature. The demon in me will bleed into you, slowly, changing you into something... other. You'll never be fully human again."
That should scare me.
It doesn't.
"I accept," I say firmly.
"Even knowing the Tamer Society will hunt you? That everyone you love will see you as a monster?"
"I have nobody left to love me."
Something flickers in his expression. Almost like... sympathy?
"Then we have a deal." He holds out his hand. "Speak the binding words, and the contract is sealed."
Mira appears beside me, whispering the ancient words. I repeat them, my voice growing stronger with each syllable.
Azrael's hand clasps mine.
Power SLAMS into me like lightning striking my spine.
I scream as energy pours through every cell, rewriting me from the inside. It burns and freezes and electrifies all at once. My veins light up with crimson fire. Glowing marks—contract runes—appear on my arms, my neck, my collarbone.
The bond snaps into place like a chain wrapping around my soul.
And suddenly, I can FEEL him. His presence in my mind, vast and ancient and amused. His power flowing into me like a river that never ends.
"Welcome to true power, Aria Chen," Azrael says as I collapse, gasping. "Now let's go destroy everyone who hurt you."
I try to respond, but the world tilts sideways.
The last thing I see before darkness takes me is Azrael catching me, his expression almost... gentle.
Then nothing.