"You lie." He didn't even phrase it as a question. "No, worse. You lie with a conviction so weak you can't even convince yourself." He crouched, bringing himself to my eye level, a move that was both graceful and deeply unsettling. "You ran from a warm bed and a locked door to sit in a swamp. Why?"
The question hung in the air between us, heavy and charged. He wasn't just asking why I was in the boat. He was asking why I was me. Why I was so fragile, so weak, so… human.
"I needed to think."
"A task for which you are ill-equipped." He shifted his weight, the boat rocking gently with the movement. "Your mind is a cluttered room of trivialities and perceived slights. There is no space for thought."
"Do you actually want me to answer you, or do you want a dartboard?" I shoot back, my voice cracking from exhaustion.
"Bravery is a liability in a weakling." A slow, dangerous smile touched his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes. "My memory is long." He reached out, not to touch me, but to trail a single, elegant finger along the gunwale of the boat, leaving a faint, shimmering trail in the wood. "I've never met a being so lacking in any sort of survival ability. Even your pathetic fraud of a guide has more survival instinct than you." He flicked a contemptuous glance in the direction of the inn. "He's at least smart enough to hold his tongue." The smile vanished, replaced by that familiar, cold fury. "Unlike you."
He stood, breaking the spell of the quiet night. "Get out of the boat." The words were not a request. They were a command. The golden chain around his neck flared with a soft, warm light, a silent threat that pulsed in the darkness.
"Why? So you can push me into the swamp and claim it was an accident?" I asked, my anger finally bubbling past the exhaustion.
"When you die, it will not be so merciful. Get out."
I glared up at him, a knot of defiance tightening in my chest. He wanted to break me, to bend me to his will, to make me another one of his subjects. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. I scrambled out of the boat, my movements clumsy and stiff from the cold and the lingering magical drain. I stood on the dock, my arms crossed over my chest, a pathetic, damp barrier against the night and against him.
"Has your flickering of wit finally died? The silence is almost a mercy." He gestured toward the inn with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "Return to your pathetic hovel. Do not make me fetch you again."
"Or what?" I asked, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. The exhaustion was making me reckless, tearing away the filter of self-preservation that had kept me alive so far. "You'll follow me like a lost puppy and complain about it?" I pointed at the necklace, at the golden links that bound us. "You're stuck with me, King. The real question isn't what you'll do to me if I disobey. It's what you'll do if I don't."
I expected rage. I expected a flash of crimson light, a fist, a threat that promised a slow and painful end. He didn't move. He just stood there, a statue carved from moonlight and fury, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face.
He took a step closer to me, and it felt as if he towered ten feet above me. "You have a misconception about this. You think you hold power. You think this...inconvenient spell is a check on me. It is not." He was no longer looking at my face. His violet gaze went to my throat. He reached out, not to choke me, but to let the back of his knuckles brush against the sensitive skin of my neck. The contact was a feather-light touch, a jarring intimacy that made my own breath catch.
"It is time you learn the lesson you refused earlier."
I grit my teeth and clench my fingers into fists.
The memory of Angus' earlier warning about the necklace's limits flash through my mind. But...I don't walk back anything I've said. Or flinch.
I almost-
It's not exactly peace that I feel. Just an unhinged sort of bravery that only exhaustion and an endless state of fear for days can summon.
His hand left my neck and he...
Walked past me. Not into the inn, but towards the town, towards one of the small houses built on stilts at the edge of the water. I watched him go, my heart a frantic, trapped bird in my chest. I didn't move. I didn't follow. I was frozen to the spot, my feet rooted to the damp wood of the dock.
He stopped in front of one of the houses. It was a small, simple structure, much like the others, but a single, flickering candle burned in the window, a beacon of light in the darkness. He looked up at the window, then back at me, a slow, deliberate movement. He was making sure I was watching.
Then, he raised a hand. His motion was...delicate. simple. A knock on the door. "Open your door," he says, though there's no one on the other side but him. "A lost traveler seeks shelter from the swamp's chill." His voice was a silken, purring thing, a stark contrast to the harsh, commanding tone he usually used with me.
It was a performance. And I was the only audience member who mattered.
I heard a shuffling sound from inside, then the creak of a floorboard. The door opened a crack, a thin slice of yellow light spilling out onto the dock. A woman's face, pale and wrinkled, peered out into the darkness.
"Who's there?" she asked, her voice a nervous whisper.
The demon king smiled, a slow, cruel curve of his lips. He gestured to the door, a silent invitation for her to open it wider. He was still looking at me.
"What are you doing?" I hissed, my voice a strained whisper. "Stop it."
He ignored me.
The woman, her curiosity apparently overriding her fear, opened the door a little wider. She saw him then, a tall, muscular, half-naked man standing in the darkness. Her eyes widened in shock, then in something else—fear, or maybe a strange sort of awe.
"Let me in," the demon king said, his voice still that silken, deceptive purr. "I mean you no harm."
"Leave her alone!" I commanded, my voice cracking with desperation. The words felt clumsy, useless, but they were all I had. The golden chain around his neck flared with a soft, warm light, a silent reminder of the bond that should have held him, that should have forced him to obey.
He didn't even flinch. "Your command is noted," he said, his tone flat, dismissive. "And ignored." He took a step toward the door, toward the terrified woman who was now trying to slam it shut. "I told you. You are too weak to make the leash bite."
His hand shot out, not to strike the woman, but to grip the edge of the door. The wood groaned, splintering under his fingers as she pushed against it from the other side. He wasn't using magic, not yet. He was just stronger. A lot stronger.
The woman let out a choked sob of terror. "Please! Go away! I have nothing!"
"I have no interest in your paltry possessions," the demon king said, his voice a low growl that carried on the still night air. "I am interested in a lesson. Rejoice that you have, by chance, become worthy of my attention."
His hand lanced out to grab her by the neck.
His lips curled into a far more sadistically cruel smile, then.
"Or, perhaps, despair." He said, as he wrapped one powerful hand around the throat of the terrified old woman. She made a choked, gagging sound.
He lifted her in the air, over his head.
"You see..." His voice was...bored. Under the circumstances, t was far more mocking than his usual condescending tone. "This magic confounds my ability to allow that woman to die. But it must route so much of its power to doing so...obedience is...an afterthought." He squeezed. The old woman's eyes bugged out, her hands feebly pulling at the wrist that held her.
"Stop!"
I didn't even know I was moving until I was already between them, my hands pressed against his chest. My palms tingled where they met the hard, warm skin, the contact sending a strange, jarring vibration through my entire body. "Let her go! Please!"
"Where is your confidence now, Summoner? Where are are your endless, insipid quips? How shall they save this woman, and then this town, from me?" He squeezed. Again. The woman gasped, her legs kicking uselessly in the air. I could hear a wet, gurgling sound. "How many will die before this necklace forces me to stay my hand? Let us find out. Together."
There was a sickening crackle.
A small, insignificant sound, but one that made my blood run cold.
I scream. It's a raw, ragged thing, torn from my throat. The sound is lost in the night. I'm pushing against him with all my might, but it's like trying to move a mountain. He doesn't even seem to notice. He's just watching me, a slow, cruel smile spreading across his face.
And then I feel it.
A heat in my chest. Not a warmth. A searing, all-consuming heat. The hollow ache from the roof, the empty void left by his draining, was being filled, filled to bursting with a raw, untamed power. It was a wildfire, a raging inferno that threatened to burn me from the inside out.
I don't think. I just act.
I focus on that heat, that power, and I pour all of it, all of my fear and my rage and my desperation, into it.
Into just one word. I shout.
I shout loud enough to make my throat raw. "STOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!" The word is a force of nature, a physical thing that blasts out of me and slams into him. The effect is immediate and devastating.
The golden necklace around his neck erupted in a blinding, golden light. It was a miniature sun, a searing, holy light that filled the night. It didn't just glow; it burned. The light washed over him, and he let out a roar of agony that was equal parts fury and pain. He dropped to one knee, his hands clutching at the necklace, trying to tear it from his skin.
And I collapsed.