The slayer's disciple did not sleep that night.
Not because he couldn't—but because every time he closed his eyes, he saw her.
Amelia.
The way fate bent toward her like a bow pulled taut.The way her soul flared when she touched him—too familiar, too intimate, too impossible.
He stood on the balcony of the ancient temple, moonlight spilling over the stone floor like liquid silver. His master stepped beside him without a sound.
"She's changing," the disciple said quietly.
"She's remembering," the slayer corrected. "And that is far worse."
A cold wind swept across the mountains.
"Her past life?" the disciple asked.
The slayer nodded once. "Not just her past life. All of them. The curse is waking everything she has ever been."
The disciple's jaw tightened.
"What happens when she remembers everything?"
The slayer's silence was answer enough.
Amelia wasn't sleeping either.
Not in the quiet room they'd given her.Not with her heart still echoing with the creature's words—
Your mother pledged your soul.
Her mother had always been gentle.Broken, yes.Tragic, yes.But a traitor?
Amelia felt the memory rise again, unbidden—a memory she should not have.
A woman kneeling in a circle of red light.Hands shaking.A voice whispering from the shadows—
Give me the child, and I will give you life.
Amelia yanked herself out of the vision, gasping.
No.
No, that wasn't real.
Was it?
Before she could steady her breath, a strange sensation rippled through the air—cold, metallic, angry.
A presence.
No…an intruder.
Shadows crawled across the room, gathering in the corner like spilled ink before rising up, forming the outline of a man with horns twisting beneath his skin.
Amelia froze.
"You," she whispered.
The demon smiled.Familiar.Mocking.
"Did you really think one slayer could erase me?"
The door burst open.
The disciple appeared first—lightning already crackling around him.
The slayer followed, sigils burning red across his palms.
But the demon…he didn't even flinch.
"Well," the demon purred, eyes sliding to Amelia,"it seems all the pieces are finally in one place."
The slayer stepped forward. "Azrael. You were destroyed."
"Destroyed?" The demon laughed, head tilting. "Master, you of all people should know—demonic bargains do not die. They simply wait for what is owed."
And then Amelia's blood turned to ice.
Because the demon wasn't looking at the slayer.
He was looking at her.
"You carry my mark, little reincarnate," Azrael murmured. "You belong to me more than you know."
The disciple moved first—fast, furious, reckless.
"DON'T TOUCH HER—"
But Azrael vanished, slipping through shadows like water.
His voice echoed through the room:
"Awaken, Amelia.Find the truth.Then come to me."
The shadows snapped shut.
Silence.
Her breathing shook.
The disciple turned to her, chest heaving, eyes wild with something between fury and fear.
"He wants you," he said, voice trembling. "But he doesn't just want your soul—"
"He wants the part of me that remembers him," Amelia whispered.
The slayer nodded grimly.
"And that means," he said, "your past life was far more dangerous than any of us realized."
Amelia lifted her chin.
Then with slow, dawning horror she asked the only question that mattered:
"Who… was I?"
The disciple swallowed.
Hard.
And whispered:
"Someone the demons were forbidden to touch…but touched anyway."
Her heartbeat faltered.
"Someone powerful enough to break fate."
Amelia's breath caught.
The slayer's next words shattered the quiet:
"You were their greatest threat."
And somewhere far away, in the ruins of a forgotten underworld,Azrael smiled like a storm about to break.
"Welcome back, my lost queen."