He lay sprawled on a bed as smooth and clear as crystal, its surface shimmering faintly beneath him, refracting fractured glints of soft, iridescent light across the room's walls and ceiling. The glow danced like fireflies caught in a prism, casting fleeting patterns that seemed to writhe and twist when he tried to focus on them.
The world was still a blur.
Colors bled into each other violets, silvers, and deep ceruleans like a living oil painting smeared by an unsteady hand. His vision pulsed and trembled, a dull ache throbbing behind his eyes. The air felt thick, humid, clinging to his skin like a second layer of damp cloth. He tried to blink the haze away, but the effort only sharpened the pain, a needlepoint of discomfort that burrowed deeper with every heartbeat.
Then it struck him.
A white-hot avalanche of memory.
He clenched his eyes shut, trying to hold it back, but the pressure was unbearable. The water, the darkness, that… thing with the face and the eyes—those endless, swallowing eyes that seemed to peer straight through his soul. And the voice. That voice that whispered his name in the black, low and sibilant, curling around his thoughts like smoke. Belial… It had known him. It had seen him.
He gasped sharply, a cold sweat breaking out across his skin. His hand shot up instinctively, trembling fingers brushing across his temple. No blood. No wound. But the pain lingered there, phantom and persistent, like something lodged too deep to extract. His chest heaved as he tried to steady his breathing, to piece together the fragments of memory sliding through his mind like shards of broken glass. Each one cut deeper than the last.
The pond. The moonlight. The silence.
He had been bathing alone, hadn't he? The water had been cool, soothing, its surface rippling under the pale glow of the moon. He'd felt safe, for once. Unwatched. But then the darkness had come, sudden and suffocating, pulling him under. He remembered thrashing, clawing at the water, but it had been no use. The current had been too strong, too deliberate, as though the pond itself had turned against him.
And that face. Those eyes.
Belial's breath hitched. He forced his eyes open again, desperate to anchor himself in the present. The room was clearer now—an elegant space carved from glass and quartz, its surfaces polished to a mirror-like sheen. The walls glowed faintly from within, pulsing with a soft, ambient etherlight that seemed to breathe in slow, rhythmic waves, like the lungs of a sleeping beast. No torches, no fire. Just that strange, otherworldly illumination that made the room feel alive.
He was in bed. That much he could confirm. The sheets beneath him were soft, silken, but there was something else, something strange. His fingers brushed over the fabric, then over smooth skin. His brow furrowed. His skin felt… different. Firmer, colder, with a peculiar resistance beneath the surface, as though his body had been remade in his absence. He touched his chest, felt the rhythm of his heart. Slower than he remembered, but steady.
His hand moved up to his face. He was clothed now, in a loose tunic of fine linen that clung lightly to his damp skin. Someone had dressed him. Someone had brought him here. But who? And how?
His thoughts snagged on a familiar face.
The maid.
Right. She had been there before. Before the bath. His caretaker.
How long had she looked after him? The memories were vague, half-formed, like shadows cast by a flickering flame. But the image of her remained vivid, etched into his mind with unsettling clarity: hair the color of a raven's wing, so dark it seemed to drink the light; skin pale as moonlight on fresh snow; and eyes—bottomless and black, like obsidian mirrors that reflected nothing and everything at once. Emotionless, unreadable, yet not cold. There had always been a glimmer within them, a subtle ember that flickered just out of reach. Hope? Desire? Or something darker?
He had never asked. He had never dared. And now, what remained of her in his memory felt more like a ghost than a woman.
Belial swallowed, his throat dry and tight. He tried to sit up, but his muscles protested, weak and unsteady. He collapsed back onto the bed, his head sinking into something oddly warm. Too warm. Too soft. And… moving.
His breath caught. His fingers twitched, brushing against the strange softness again. It wasn't a pillow. It was—
Breasts.
His entire face went red in an instant.
He shot up, or tried to, but his body betrayed him, collapsing back into the warm softness before he could rise an inch. His eyes darted upward, wide with panic.
A face leaned over him.
Dark hair. Darker eyes. A flawless expression that gave nothing away, yet in its stillness was something strangely intimate, as though she had been watching him for hours, studying every flicker of his face.
"Ah… you're awake?" said the voice.
Belial's breath caught in his throat.
It was Rose.
Her features were unmistakable—ethereal, regal, with that calm, detached presence that made her seem like something out of a dream. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders in waves of midnight, framing a face that was both beautiful and unnerving in its perfection. Her eyes, those dark pools, held his gaze, unblinking, as though they could see straight through to the marrow of his bones. Her voice, too, was soothing, yet it carried an undercurrent of something unreadable. Amusement? Concern? Or something else entirely?
Belial struggled again, trying to put space between them, but his body refused to cooperate. His arms felt like dead weight, his legs distant and unresponsive. He was paralyzed by exhaustion—or perhaps something more deliberate. The realization sent a shiver down his spine.
"You're sick," Rose said gently, brushing a damp strand of hair from his forehead. Her touch was cool, almost clinical, yet it sent a jolt through him, as though her fingers carried a faint electric charge. "You drowned. Just rest for a bit."
Drowned.
The word echoed in his head, sharp and accusing. He hadn't told her. He hadn't even spoken. How did she know?
His lips parted, a question forming on his tongue, but the words didn't come. His voice was gone, swallowed by the fog of his exhaustion. He stared at her, searching her face for answers, but her expression remained serene, impenetrable. The ember in her eyes flickered again, and for a moment, he thought he saw something—pity, perhaps, or regret. But it was gone before he could be sure.
"How…" he managed at last, his voice a hoarse whisper. "How am I here?"
Rose tilted her head, her lips curving into the faintest of smiles. "I saved you from drowning," she said simply, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I Brought you back. You're safe now."
Safe. The word felt wrong, hollow. He didn't feel safe. He felt… exposed, like a moth pinned under glass. His mind raced, trying to piece together the gaps in his memory. The pond, the darkness, the voice. And now this—Rose, this room, the strange, unnatural vitality of his body. None of it made sense.
Was it all a dream? my memories are all messed up...
"Why?" he pressed, his voice gaining a faint edge of desperation. "What happened?"
Rose's smile faded, her expression softening into something almost tender. "You need to rest," she said, her tone firm but not unkind. "Your body's been through too much. Questions can wait."
But they couldn't. Not when the whisper still lingered in his mind, faint but insistent. Demon child… The words sent a chill through him, colder than the water that had claimed him. He wanted to fight it, to demand answers, to shake off the lethargy that pinned him to the bed. But the heat from Rose's body, the slow rhythm of her breathing beneath him, was pulling him back under—not into the depths of the pond this time, but into something far more hauntingly dangerous.
He closed his eyes, just for a second. Just to gather strength.
But as soon as the darkness crept back in, so did the inhumane whisper.
Demon child…
Belial woke with a sharp gasp, his chest heaving as if he'd been drowning in the dark. Sweat clung to his skin like a second layer.
Rose's voice cut through the silence, soft and soothing.
"Hey… you don't have to go back to sleep yet, if the nightmares are too much."
She spoke like someone comforting a child, or a lost cause.
"Yeah," he muttered, voice hoarse.
"If it's the pain… I know a healer at the Summit. She could help you."
"No. I'm fine."
Silence settled between them, warm and fragile.
"How did you end up in that forge?" she asked.
"I was on watch duty for Shun… fell off a ledge."
"And you survived… how?"
"The ground must've been loose, but gravity caught me the right way."
Belial chuckled faintly. "That forehead of yours must be made of crystalline to survive a fall like that."
Rose laughed, brushing her hair back. "Says the guy who probably bounced twice."
They stayed up a while longer, trading stories, their voices growing slower, softer, until finally, sleep took them, gentle this time.