They led me through corridors that twisted and narrowed, the palace breathing heat through its walls. The stone beneath my feet was smooth, worn by centuries of footsteps that were not mine. Every sound echoed too long, as if the place wanted to remember me.
I kept my head down.
Not out of obedience—but because I could still feel his eyes on me, even after I was taken away.
The Ash King.
I did not know his name, yet the weight of him pressed against my thoughts like a hand against glass. His voice lingered in my ears—steady, controlled, dangerous in its calm. I had seen judgment before. I had lived beneath it. But his had been different.
He had not looked at me as guilty.
He had looked at me as… unfamiliar.
The demons pushed open a narrow door and shoved me inside. The room was small but clean, carved entirely from dark stone. A single opening in the wall revealed a view of the land beyond—fire-lit skies and endless ash. No bars. No locks.
"Do not leave," one of them warned.
As if I could.
The door closed. Silence followed.
I sank onto the edge of the stone bed, my hands trembling now that no one was watching. My breath came uneven, sharp in my chest. Only then did I allow myself to think the word that terrified me most.
Hell.
This was hell.
And yet… it did not feel like the sermons had promised.
There was no screaming. No eternal torture. No fire raining from the sky. This place was ordered. Controlled. Ruled.
By him.
I pressed my palms against my knees and closed my eyes.
The moment I did, heat brushed my senses—not burning, but warm, like embers beneath skin. A strange pressure settled low in my chest, unfamiliar and intimate. It startled me so badly that I gasped and opened my eyes again.
The feeling vanished.
I stood abruptly, pacing the room. My reflection shimmered faintly against the polished wall—pale face, dark eyes too wide, habit stained with ash. I looked like a ghost pretending to be alive.
Why wasn't I dead?
Why hadn't he destroyed me?
Why had his gaze lingered?
A knock echoed once. Sharp. Final.
The door opened.
He stood there alone.
No guards. No demons. Just him.
The Ash King filled the doorway as though the space had been built for him and failed. Up close, the heat around him was undeniable—radiating, restrained. His eyes moved over me carefully, not as a predator, not as a judge, but as though he were confirming something only he could sense.
"You are uninjured," he said.
"Yes," I replied, my voice steady despite the storm inside me.
"Good."
The word unsettled me more than threat would have.
He stepped inside. The door sealed itself behind him without a sound.
"You do not belong here," he continued. "And yet the realm did not reject you."
I swallowed. "Neither did you."
A pause.
His gaze sharpened—not in anger, but surprise.
"Most souls beg," he said. "You do not."
"I've begged enough in my life."
Something flickered across his face. Too quick to name.
He circled the room slowly, his presence compressing the air. When he stopped in front of me, the heat returned—stronger this time. My skin prickled. My heart betrayed me, beating faster for reasons I could not explain.
"You are afraid," he said.
"Yes."
"But not of me."
The truth of it struck me so suddenly I could not deny it.
"I don't understand that," I whispered.
"Neither do I."
His hand lifted, hovering inches from my face. He did not touch me. He did not need to. The closeness alone made my breath hitch, made something deep inside me respond as if remembering a language I had never learned.
His fingers curled slowly into a fist.
"This changes nothing," he said, more to himself than to me. "You will remain under my watch."
"For how long?"
His eyes met mine fully now—ancient, conflicted, burning.
"Until I decide what you are," he said.
Then he turned and left, the door sealing behind him once more.
The heat faded. The room cooled.
But the feeling he had awakened did not.
I pressed my hand to my chest, my pulse racing beneath my palm.
I did not know his name.
I did not know his past.
But something inside me had already begun to reach for him.
And that frightened me more than hell ever could.