Chapter 45 The Puppet King
AZRAETH'S POV
I don't remember my own name.
There's only darkness where memories should be. Emptiness where emotions lived. I know I'm standing, breathing, existing—but I don't know why.
A voice cuts through the void. "Azraeth. Look at me."
I turn toward the command. A woman floats in the air, power radiating from her like heat. Gold eyes. Black wings edged with silver. She looks familiar, but I can't remember why.
"Do you know who I am?" she asks, her voice breaking.
I search for the answer and find nothing. "No."
Pain flashes across her face. The emotion confuses me. Why would my answer cause pain?
"It's me. Mireya. Your bonded mate. We—" She stops, swallowing hard. "We love each other."
Love. The word means nothing to me.
Another voice—male, amused. "As you can see, the resurrection ritual worked perfectly. He's alive, powerful, and completely obedient to me now." The speaker steps into view, wearing my face but older. "Brother, kill the witch."
The command slides into my mind like a key turning in a lock.
I launch toward the floating woman—Mireya—my claws extending. She's a target. An obstacle. Something to eliminate.
She doesn't fight back.
I'm inches from her throat when her hand touches my chest, right over a mark I didn't know was there.
The moment our skin connects, something cracks in the darkness consuming my mind.
Memories flood back in broken pieces:
A blood moon. A summoning circle. "You summoned me, little librarian."
Teaching her to fight. "You're stronger than you know."
Her defending me to her sister. "He's more honest than anyone in our family."
Kissing her in the bell tower. "This changes everything."
Dying on a cell floor. "I love you."
I stumble backward, gasping. "Mireya?"
"Azraeth!" She reaches for me. "You remember—"
The darkness slams back down, harder this time. The memories scatter like smoke.
"Interesting," Cain muses. "The soul bond left an impression even after death. But easily manageable." He looks at me. "Brother, restrain her. Don't kill—not yet. I want to study how the bond residue affects the resurrection magic."
My body moves before my mind can protest. I grab Mireya's wrists, holding her in place despite her struggles.
Through the physical contact, I feel something—warmth where there should be nothing. A ghost of connection humming between us.
"Fight it!" she screams. "You're in there, I know you are!"
But I can't fight. The darkness is absolute. Cain's control is iron.
"Now then," Cain says, approaching with a blade. "Let's see what happens when I carve the soul mark off her skin. Will it sever the residue completely? Or will my dear brother's borrowed body simply break from the trauma?"
He raises the blade toward Mireya's chest.
The mark—our mark—pulses once under her skin.
And something inside me screams.
Not my voice. Something deeper. Older. The part of me that survived five hundred years of torture, that crawled out of the Obsidian Prison, that chose to love again despite every reason not to.
That part refuses to let her die.
I feel myself fighting Cain's control from the inside, pushing against the darkness with everything I am. It's like trying to move through concrete, every movement agony, but I force my hand to loosen—just slightly—on Mireya's wrist.
She feels it immediately. Her eyes widen. "Azraeth?"
"Can't... hold... much longer..." The words tear from my throat. "Run."
"I'm not leaving you!"
"Stubborn... woman..." Despite everything, despite the darkness eating my mind, I almost smile. "Always... so stubborn..."
Cain notices what's happening. "No. Impossible. The resurrection should have erased—"
I shove Mireya away with the last of my control, breaking Cain's hold for just a second.
She crashes into the far wall but she's away, she's safe—
The darkness slams back completely. Cain's rage floods through the connection binding us.
"You dare defy me?" he snarls.
My body goes rigid, every muscle locked. The pain is exquisite—worse than the Obsidian Prison, worse than the curse, worse than dying. Because this time, I'm trapped inside my own corpse, conscious but helpless.
"I was going to let you keep some awareness," Cain says coldly. "But clearly that's too dangerous. So instead—" He pulls out another vial, this one filled with something that writhes like living shadow. "—I'll erase everything. Your memories, your will, your soul. Until you're nothing but my weapon."
He forces the vial to my lips.
The liquid burns going down. I feel my mind starting to dissolve, memories fragmenting faster than before.
Mireya's face blurs. Her name slips away. The warmth I felt touching her fades.
But then—a miracle.
The Old Gods, still frozen by Mireya's power, speak directly into my fragmenting mind:
"DEMON KING. WE OFFER A BARGAIN."
I can't answer, can barely think, but they continue anyway.
"YOUR BROTHER PLANS TO USE YOUR BODY TO CLAIM THE GIRL AND COMPLETE THE BOND HE THINKS HE CAN STEAL. BUT THE BOND CANNOT BE TRANSFERRED—IT CAN ONLY BE BROKEN OR COMPLETED. IF SHE COMPLETES IT WITH YOUR CORPSE, YOUR SOUL WILL HAVE AN ANCHOR POINT TO RETURN."
Hope flares, then dies. She'd never—
"ALL SHE HAS TO DO IS CHOOSE YOU AGAIN. WILLINGLY. FREELY. EVEN KNOWING YOU MIGHT BE LOST FOREVER. IF HER LOVE IS TRUE, IT WILL CALL YOUR SOUL BACK FROM OBLIVION."
Why are you telling me this?
"BECAUSE IF YOU RETURN, YOU'LL OWE US A DEBT. AND WHEN WE BREAK FREE—AND WE WILL—WE'LL COLLECT."
Through my fading awareness, I see Mireya pulling herself up, blood running from her mouth but her eyes blazing with determination.
She's going to try something stupid. Something heroic.
She's going to try to save me.
And the Old Gods are going to use that love against us both.