Because nothing in my training prepared me for a demon who chooses mercy.
--------???--------
That night, long after the fires died, I sat in my room in silence. The mark pulsed faintly under my skin.
And I whispered to myself, like a sin:
“He saved her.”
I was trained to see monsters. But no one warned me what to do when one saves a life instead of taking it.
Seori
Eyes That Burn
The air still smells like smoke and salt. The Guild hall is ash and ruin now, patched by hurried wards and nervous apprentices pretending everything is under control. But I can feel it. The crack under the surface. The unease crawling beneath our skin.
They’re shaken. We all are. Especially me. I keep hearing the girl’s scream.
Keep seeinghim— Rheon — throwing himself into fire for a child who would’ve slit his throat if she’d known what he was.
No demon should have done that.
But he did. And that’s what haunts me.
I slip outside into the courtyard long past curfew. The shrine candles are snuffed. Fog curls low across the stone floor like something alive.
And then I feel it — a ripple through the air. Not magic. Something worse.
Fallen grace.
Jisoo.
I turn slowly. He’s leaning against the stone gate like he’s been waiting all night.
Dark suit. Messy hair. Wings long gone, but theechoof them still radiates from him like static. He’s beautiful in that dangerous, untouchable way — the kind of pretty that makes you forget your guard until it’s too late.
He claps slowly. Mocking. Soft.
“Congratulations, Hunter,” he purrs. “You made him bleed and blush in the same week.”
I don’t answer. My hand finds the dagger hidden in my sleeve. He lifts his hands in mock surrender.
“Relax. I’m not here to hurt you. If I wanted that…” — he tilts his head — “you’d already be screaming.”
“You were part of the raid,” I say.
He nods, unapologetic.
“And I’d do it again.”
“Why?”
Jisoo steps closer, boots echoing on stone. His eyes burn gold, like dying suns.
“Because that man you chained? He’s not just my prince. He’s the last thing holding the bloodlines together.”
I blink.
