“We’re home. Not going to open the door and take a look?” Ugillian smiled, warmth like a winter sun that didn’t quite thaw the frost.

Edlyn faced the two familiar doors, and silence pooled around her like still water at dusk.

She didn’t even know what she felt. Excitement sparked, but fear curled like a cold wind under her ribs.

Ugillian read her mood at a glance. He patted her shoulder with a steady hand, a harbor light in fog. “Relax. They’ve been waiting for you a long time.”

She bit her lip and stepped up, palms stroking the door that had once slammed in her face like a judgment.

The phantoms woven on the surface thinned like mist at dawn, and the door’s true skin came clear.

It was a pair of bronze doors that seemed to lock space itself, runes etched across them like a night sky dense with unknown stars.

At her touch, the bronze shifted from dark moss to deeper shades, like a lake taking the color of a storm.

Black fog spread from her hands like ink in water, eating at the metal with a quiet, patient hunger.

As she poured power into the door, the veil hiding her Demon Race traits peeled back like shed skin.

Horns, long as a mountain goat’s, unfurled from her crown; bat wings unfurled from her back; a thin tail slipped from her skirt and flicked nervously in the air.

She kept biting down and kept pushing, stubborn as a sprout splitting stone.

Her white dress took on the gray-black of demonic miasma, starlight drained as if clouds smothered a moon.

When the miasma soaked the whole door like rain soaking earth, she finally drew her hands back.

She half-knelt and panted, breath rough, like a bellows feeding a forge.

Ugillian smiled with relief, then turned away like a shadow leaving the threshold. “Go on. This is your world. It doesn’t welcome an old, spent Fiend like me.”

Edlyn shot him a startled look, then drew a long breath like a swimmer before a plunge, and set her hand to push.

Screee— The bronze doors opened slow, a long cry like gulls over cliffs.

She stood on the threshold and let a familiar scent rush her like spring wind. She blinked, then strode into the portal corridor beyond.

Ugillian glanced around, eyes sweeping the quiet street like a hawk. No one. He nodded once.

He raised index finger and thumb to his brow, a small gesture like setting a seal.

A terrible ripple of soul-force spread from his head, dark waves rolling across a still sea.

It carried a storm of curses and raw anger, then arrowed toward some far point in the starry dark.

He’d hurled Eli’s soul into the sky of stars; protection was the price of that throw.

So he left on Eli a soul mark he’d learned in the Far East, a thin red thread tied across the void.

Through it, he could watch Eli’s state from here, like an eye set in a distant lamp.

He had to, or the fool might get pressed flat by Stellar Power like a moth under a stone.

Heaven only knew what got into him earlier—tone-deaf, bellowing songs whose words meant nothing, a wild rooster greeting midnight.

Ugillian’s mood cratered like a landslide.

To make the brat sit still and absorb Stellar Power like a decent disciple, he’d have to use a heavy hand.

...

“Sigh. Being a soul is great. You can sing and never get tired.” Eli grinned, crooked as a fox.

With Zero’s tip, he used the strange power he’d absorbed lately, and held the endless dark at bay like a lantern in night.

The tearing pain on his soul eased, like claws lifting off raw skin.

But Zero’s passed-on memory held nothing on how to slip this star’s grip. No map out of this gravity well.

To leave this uncanny star with a pull like a black tide, he’d have to figure it out himself, pebble by pebble.

He’d been here long enough to admit it: he was dead. His soul was caged in the starry sky like a firefly in a jar.

What he could do now was call, and make the jailer-power feel his voice, faint as wind through reeds.

Whoever held that terrible strength could tear open the gravity field like ripping silk.

When that passage opened, he’d hitch a ride on the rip and slip free like a fish through a broken net.

But pride stuck in his throat; begging wasn’t his style. So he came up with a trick, shameless as a street performer.

All he had to do now was wait for that presence to come, like a hunter waiting at a game trail.

He didn’t expect this: the old headmaster who’d raised him couldn’t stand his method one bit.

Ugillian had shepherded Eli’s soul for centuries, waiting on a rebuilt body, and the brat had shaved years off his patience like sand off a pillar.

So, when Eli tried the same old stunt, Ugillian had had enough. He decided to give the kid a little payback, a winter slap to a summer cheek.

While Eli basked, grinning, waiting for rescue, a vast crack split the sky above like ice breaking on a black river.

He gathered every bit—no, every soul-bit—of Stellar energy, ready to seize the chance and dart out like lightning.

The force shattered the whole firmament like glass, then dropped straight onto Eli’s forehead.

Thunk— A solid temple-bell note.

Eli’s eyes crossed like a startled rooster’s, and he blacked out, falling into night.

That force, braided with Ugillian’s anger, surged into Eli’s soul like a flood down a narrow gorge.

In the dark, he saw her.

The little girl he pined for stood before him, solemn as moonlight on water.

She let out a slow breath. “I’ll tell you a story.”

Eli blinked. “Huh? A story? Edlyn, what are you—hey, let me hug you—”

His arms passed through her like fog. He froze, and his face dimmed like a lantern running low.

Well… dead’s dead, he thought, a bitter smile like salt on the tongue.

Edlyn seemed not to see him, and went on, voice even as a steady drum. “Once there was a man, a clan chief. His people faced the worst crisis in their history. For survival, and for an obsession he held in his heart—”

Eli squinted. An illusion?

He frowned, stepped closer, and reached again.

His hand slid through Edlyn’s cheek like a hand through a pond’s reflection. He grimaced and turned.

Behind him stood a man, quiet as a cliff.

Eli arched a brow. “You?!”

The man ignored him, listening to Edlyn like a stone drinks rain.

This was Edlyn’s past life—the Demon King, Pandora, in his former shape.

Edlyn continued, voice weaving like a banner in wind. “He looked to a world not far away, to grow his grand ambition.

“War followed like wildfire, and it didn’t stop.

“Luck, or fate—his people were born for battle. Their blades sang like winter, and the ground drank deep.

“Corpses carpeted the fields where they passed. They fought without end, until even iron grew weary.

“Then the chief found a way. He would rule those in that world who bowed, and bind other species as vassals.

“He granted them a portion of his people’s power, and a thrall’s name. It worked, like a key turning an old lock.”

Eli tilted his head, half laughing, half sighing, like a man hearing an old tune. Sounded like an empire drafting conquered tribes into its banners.

Edlyn’s voice didn’t slow. “With clan and thralls, he set out again. That world was flimsy as paper in rain.

“Where their iron hooves went, kingdoms fell and people perished. His ambition swelled like a storm-fed river.

“But he won too long. He stopped seeing the world’s people as people. He treated his own thralls like worn tools.

“At his height, a sword appeared among mankind. And a man.

“He moved like a savior, and broke the legend of an unbeatable army, one battle at a time.

“Where he stood, the chief’s troops broke and scattered, like shadows at dawn.

“The chief was amused. At last, a worthy foe. He raised a host to hunt him.

“That man was sunlight, and he drove off the dark the chief had spread, ray by ray.

“He was the nemesis written in his stars.

“The war turned. The world rallied and rose. The chief began to lose ground, step by step.

“In the last battle, his people and he were defeated. He died there, sudden and hard, like a candle pinched out.

“When he opened his eyes again, he was a newborn girl of a race he despised.”

Edlyn paused, a heartbeat held like a note at the edge of song.

Eli smiled at her, interest blooming like a fire catching dry grass.

She looked off at nothing, then continued, voice low. “Stripped of power, she had to bow to this world.

“She learned centuries had passed since her people fell. Many had forgotten their terror.

“She swore to reclaim it all, one debt at a time.

“She grew. She met someone who looked exactly like that man.

“And from his lips, she learned that the greatest enemy of her past life had already died.”

Eli stared, doubtful, a wry twist on his mouth. Did she just skip a huge chunk? Her childhood? Sure, she was still a kid—but what about when she was even smaller?

He had a wicked little thought, like a cat batting a curtain.

Then—he woke.

He flipped over and sat up, breath catching like a fish thrown on deck.

He looked up. The rift that presence had torn in the sky had sealed like a wound under ice.

He hadn’t found a chance to bolt. He’d used it to snag a nap instead, like a fox curled in a hollow.

And he still had no method to break out. That being had simply ripped it open with brute force, like claws through silk.

The illusion cut off right where he wanted more. Figures.

Eli rubbed his head hard, as if he could knead sense from fog. “I— I— You’ve got to be kidding me. Are you all messing with me?!”