Demon Sovereign: The Last Seal

Chapter 6: Lila’s Fragments 2

“Be quiet,” Asher said sharply, eyes never leaving his sister.

Lila’s voice faltered. “Why can’t I remember it all?” she murmured. “The memories slip away, like water through a broken cup.” Her breath came shallow. “I remember the cold. So many feet. The smell of iron. A child laughing, and a bell breaking.”

Yun Fei rolled his eyes. “Delusions. She’s gone, Kane. The sooner you let her die, the sooner you’ll be free.”

Asher felt something heavy inside him, anger, despair, fear, all tangled. “She’s not gone!” he shouted, surprising even himself.

Yun Fei only smiled again. “Then keep trying to save her. When she turns on you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He turned toward the door. “You will destroy yourself for her, and no one will weep.”

He left, his laughter echoing down the corridor. The room fell still again. Only the faint drip of water somewhere in the dark broke the silence.

Asher sat down beside Lila once more, his breath unsteady. “I’ll find a way,” he said quietly. “I’ll save you.”

The Sovereign chuckled inside his chest. “You cannot save her, Asher. You can only choose. Let her go, and rise. Or cling to her, and drown.”

He pressed a hand to his ribs, as if he could push the voice out. “You’re wrong.”

But doubt slid into his heart anyway, cold and sharp. He looked at his sister again. Her breathing had slowed. Her lips moved, almost too softly to hear.

“Asher,” she whispered, and this time the sound of his name was strange, like it came from far away, through layers of wind and water. “There will come a day when the line between you and him is gone. You will stand on a field of ash. Someone you love will hold a blade to your throat.”

Asher froze. “Lila, what are you saying?”

“You will be offered a throne of names,” she continued. “Power that eats the sun. But if you take it, everything ends.”

Then her eyes rolled back, and she fell into a deep, trembling sleep. The last words she breathed were so faint he almost thought he imagined them. “Find the other fragments, before he does.”

The room seemed to grow colder. Asher sat there for a long time, listening to her slow breaths, feeling the words hammer in his skull. Seven fragments. A throne of names. Before he does.

He thought of the Sovereign, of the whisper that never left his mind. If Lila was right, then others carried the same darkness. 

And if the Sovereign ever found them first, it could become whole again. He rose, his chair scraping against the floor. His body felt heavy, but his mind burned with new purpose.

He leaned over Lila, brushed a strand of hair from her face, and whispered, “I’ll find them. I promise.”

The Sovereign laughed softly inside him. “Good. Hunt them for me.”

He ignored it and stepped out into the corridor. Outside, dawn was breaking, pale light spilling through the narrow windows, painting the stone floors with silver. 

Bells rang across the distant city, calling the disciples to morning prayer, but as Asher walked, something shifted in the air.

A cold wind blew through the hall, carrying a whisper not his own. He stopped. From the far end of the corridor, a lantern flickered, then it went out. 

Another followed. One by one, the lights along the hall died, until only darkness stretched before him.

In that silence, a voice, not the Sovereign’s, spoke, low and cracked, echoing like something dragged from the grave. “One fragment has already awakened.”

Asher’s blood turned to ice. He spun around, searching for the source. There was nothing, only shadows that moved like smoke.

The Sovereign’s laughter trembled in his chest. “Too late, Asher. The hunt has already begun.”

And somewhere in the city below, a bell rang again, sharp, broken, the sound of something old remembering its name.

Asher stood in the dark hallway, the last of the lanterns dying around him, and he knew the world had just shifted. 

Lila’s warning was real. The fragments were waking. And one of them was already moving toward him.