"Looks like you don't even know what you're after." On the stone table, a black‑haired girl and a white‑haired boy argued, sparks in a dry wind.

The heterochromic‑eyed Ego sat to the side, stunned like a statue, not joining their quarrel.

"How am I unclear?" The black‑haired girl glared at the boy, tone sharp as a drawn knife.

"Who are we?" the boy asked with a cold laugh, ice cracking on a river.

"Do you even need to ask? The Demon King's reincarnation, sovereign of the Demon Race." Her eyes narrowed, thin as blade‑slits.

"What do we seek?" His voice fell like a hammer.

"The Demon Race... revival." Expecting his next line, she turned her gaze aside like grass before wind.

"Sixteen years—seventeen, any day now. With you in charge, what have we done?" He smiled in scorn, thorns under silk.

She frowned and said nothing, a storm banked behind her lips.

"Want me to count for you?" he said, a sudden smile like a hook.

"I..." Her words snagged like cloth on a nail.

"Listening to idiot clerics preach and cramming lessons?"

"Or freeloading in human houses, cursing the Hero every day to no effect?"

"At best you probe the Demon Race now and then. What are you fleeing from, like a shadow before dawn?"

"I'm not." Her denial was thin as paper.

"Heh. I'm not in a rush, but I won't babysit your games. What, not convinced? Stay by the Hero, and your dependence on him deepens. Tell me, what part of that still looks like a Demon King?" He watched her with cold eyes, face dark as stormwater.

She glared at him, anger simmering like coals, yet words would not come.

Edlyn frowned as she listened to the Id. Something felt off, like a warped note. In her dreams, hadn't the boy and girl grown alike?

Why now? Like a river splitting midstream.

The black‑haired girl’s eyes lit like lanterns. She glanced toward Edlyn and smiled. "Thanks, host."

The boy kept a steady face. "Host, I didn't compromise. I just—"

"That's crap. You were there for all of it—don't pin it all on me." She smiled, calm as a still lake.

"Say what you want. If the demonic qi hadn't flowed back into the body, like floodgates closing, I doubt I could've kept you down."

He didn't argue. He stepped off the table and walked toward Edlyn, shrinking inch by inch like ice under sun. His features and frame drifted toward hers. Soon, a white‑haired little girl, Edlyn's size, stood before her.

"Either way, it's my turn next." The words clicked like a clock hand.

...

Eli scrambled to clear the demonic qi, like trying to sweep a tide. This unnervingly pure qi, from who‑knew‑where, kept flooding into Edlyn. Then it pushed out anything a shade inferior, a body rejecting smoke.

"Damn it." Eli bit his lip, a trapped wolf testing iron.

As helplessness piled up like snow, Edlyn suddenly opened her eyes on the bed. She sat up and scanned the room, puzzlement like mist in her gaze.

Eli blinked. "Ed-chan?! You're awake?"

She ignored him. She parted her lips and drew a deep breath. The scattered demonic qi all rushed into her like swallows to a nest. For the moment, her body stopped pushing any out.

She gave Eli a long look, loaded like a sealed letter. "It's fine."

Eli frowned and looked her over. "Ed-chan, tell me—where did that demonic qi come from? And that demon soul?"

"Ah. Hero, forget me—are you alright now?" Edlyn raised a brow at him, a leaf lifted by breeze.

Eli scratched his head, awkward. "Ahem. It's for the grand plan. The grand plan. Heh."

Edlyn lowered her gaze and chuckled. Then she shot him a peculiar look. "Hero, have you killed anyone— in this life?"

Eli shook his head. "Huh? Why ask that out of nowhere?"

"It's nothing." Edlyn laughed, then shook her head. Eli was still worried about the demon soul and was about to examine it. Just then, the Ninth Prince sent someone for him.

"Your Excellency Ostor, the counts have come with the First and Second Princes. Please be ready."

He had no choice but to shelve it for now.

Edlyn left him to it. She slipped into Angela's room and stroked the small head of the sleeping Angela, her gaze deepening like a well.

Some things needed preparing. She and the Hero did not walk the same road. If her identity as Demon King was exposed, her end might match that dream.

The Hero drew his sword and, with a mocking swing, cut off her head. The moment flashed like frost.

A cold dread ran through Edlyn. That sleep seemed to have cleared her mind; thoughts flowed like a thawed stream.

Leaving the Hero would tug with a fine thread of reluctance. But the Demon Race needed her more, like a drum calling across the dark.