Chapter Two: Bound by Shadows

Elara’s mind drifted back to the nights she wished to forget, memories clawing their way out of the shadows as she tried to find sleep. The silence of the devil king’s castle felt foreign, too cold, too vast. And in that void, the past crept in.

She remembered the damp smell of her old home, a small room with peeling wallpaper stained yellow from the endless nights her father spent smoking and drinking. The slurred shouts would start just after sunset, the stench of cheap whiskey thick on his breath. Her mother’s voice would follow, sharp and cruel, their words tearing at each other until they turned on her. Elara had learned to become invisible, to make herself small. But sometimes, she wasn’t fast enough.

One night stood out among the others—a night when the rain pounded on the roof, matching the rhythm of her father’s fist as he pounded on the table. She hid behind a threadbare curtain, hoping the shadows would swallow her whole. But her father’s bleary eyes found her anyway.

“Get out here, you little rat,” he snarled, yanking her from her hiding spot by her hair. She bit back a cry, knowing it would only make it worse. Her mother watched from the doorway, arms crossed, a cigarette dangling from her lips. She never intervened. If anything, she seemed to enjoy it, a twisted smile playing at her lips as she watched Elara struggle against her father’s grip.

“Maybe if you weren’t so useless, he wouldn’t have to do this,” her mother said with a cold laugh, the smoke curling around her like a snake. Elara’s stomach twisted as her father’s hand struck her cheek, sending her crashing to the floor. She lay there, tasting blood on her lips, wishing the darkness would take her. It never did.

The memory faded like a storm pulling back from the horizon, leaving her breathless and aching. But this time, when she opened her eyes, she wasn’t in that rundown house. She was in the chambers of the devil king’s castle—a place filled with shadows of a different kind.

The air here was thick with a strange warmth, the walls made of dark stone that seemed to hum with some hidden power. The devil king's presence lingered everywhere, a constant reminder of the bargain she had struck. In exchange for protection, she would serve him, a task she didn’t fully understand. A maid, he had called her. But she suspected there were strings attached—strings she couldn’t yet see.

She rose from the plush bed, an opulent thing with velvet sheets, so different from the cot she had grown up on. The castle’s silence stretched on, interrupted only by the occasional crackle of fire in the hearth. As she dressed in the simple black uniform that had been laid out for her—a reminder of her new role—she couldn’t shake the feeling that the devil king was watching, even when he wasn’t there.

Descending the spiral staircase, Elara arrived at the grand hall, where he awaited her. He sat upon his throne, shadows gathering around him like an obedient flock. His crimson eyes gleamed with an intensity that made her skin prickle. Yet, there was something else there—something hidden beneath that gaze, a softness he quickly buried whenever she met his stare.

“You’re late, Elara,” he said, his voice a low murmur that echoed through the chamber, sending a shiver down her spine.

“I’m here to serve, aren’t I?” she replied, forcing herself to meet his eyes, even as a part of her quailed under his dark presence.

He tilted his head, a ghost of a smirk touching his lips. “Yes, you are. And you would do well to remember the terms of our agreement.”

Elara clenched her hands into fists, her mind flashing back to that night when she had stood on the edge of a cliff, with nothing left but the taste of salt air and desperation. He had found her there, offered her a deal she couldn’t refuse. And now she was his, bound to this castle, to this man—or whatever he was.

But as he rose from his throne and approached her, the shadows trailing in his wake, Elara realized that she wasn’t just afraid of him. She was afraid of the darkness within herself—the part of her that felt a twisted sense of relief being here, far away from the past she could never escape.

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