The Demon King Who Raised A Hero

Chapter 3

I couldn't sleep after what happened.

I sat on the floor until dawn, back against the wall, one hand pressed to my chest as I could physically hold the seal in place.

It burned so much.

Not like fire—fire was honest. This was pressure, slow and deliberate, as if something inside me was stretching after a long confinement, testing the limits of its cage.

King....The whisper came again, clearer this time.

I ground my teeth. “Shut up.”

The ember responded with a pulse that sent pain down my spine. My vision blurred for a second. I tasted iron.

This was the danger the gods feared. Not my strength but my control. Or rather, the moment I lost it.

In my past life, power had been instinct. Breathing, commanding armies, bending the land, silencing gods who thought themselves untouchable. I hadn’t needed to think about restraint because I’d already accepted the role they’d forced onto me.

Now?

Now I had something to lose.

A knock sounded softly at my door.

I stiffened. The ember flared again, eager and Hungry.

I forced it down, digging my fingers into the floor until the pain grounded me.

“Kael?” It was Eron’s voice hesitant and tired.

I exhaled slowly and stood. “Come in.”

He slipped inside, closing the door behind him. He looked worse than he had the night before—dark circles under his eyes, shoulders tense like he was bracing for a blow that hadn’t come yet.

“You’re bleeding,” he said immediately, staring at my hand.

I glanced down. Blood had dried along my palm, cracked skin reopening with movement.

“It’s nothing.”

He didn’t believe me.

“You say that a lot,” he said quietly.

The words hit harder than they should have.

I turned away, moving to the window. The city below was waking—bells ringing, smoke curling from chimneys, life going on like the world wasn’t balanced on a blade’s edge.

“I didn’t mean...” Eron started.

“I know,” I said.

Silence stretched between us, heavy and uncomfortable.

Finally, he spoke again. “The trial… what happens if I fail?”

I closed my eyes.

“You won’t,” I said.

“That’s not an answer.”

I turned back to him. He was looking at me directly now, no boyish excitement, no blind trust. Just fear—and something sharper beneath it as if he is suspicious about something.

“If you fail,” I said carefully, “they’ll say you weren’t worthy.”

“And if I succeed?”

“They’ll own you.”

He swallowed. “You’re saying that like it’s worse.”

“It is.”

Eron shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. The church protects people, they fight demons and everyone knows that.”

I felt something twist inside me, not rage, not yet but grief.

“That’s what they tell you,” I said. “And sometimes, it’s even true.”

“Sometimes?” His voice cracked. “Kael, yesterday when they froze me I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think, I was just… trapped.”

I stepped closer before I realized I was moving. “Did they ask your permission?”

He hesitated. “No.”

“Then remember that feeling,” I said quietly. “Because that’s what obedience looks like.”

His eyes searched my face, desperate for reassurance I couldn’t give him.

“You’re afraid,” he said suddenly.

The ember surged.

I forced it down hard, pain ripping through me like barbed wire tightening around my ribs.

“I’m cautious,” I replied.

“No,” he said. “You’re scared. Not for me but for yourself.”

The room went very still.

A thousand years ago, he’d looked at me like this too. Not with understanding but with certainty and with belief sharpened into a weapon.

I took a step back.

“You shouldn’t say things you don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me,” he shot back. “You keep warning me, training me, telling me half-truths. You flinched when the High Priest touched me. You cracked the stone just by stepping forward.”

His voice shook. “What are you hiding from me?”

The ember roared.

Images slammed into my mind—thrones of black iron, demons kneeling, cities burning, gods screaming as I tore their voices from the sky. Power surged, eager, violent, familiar.

Tell him, claim him, he is yours.

My vision darkened at the edges.

I grabbed the edge of the desk, splintering wood beneath my fingers. The seal flared white-hot, fighting me, fighting it.

“No,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Enough.”

Eron recoiled. “Kael?”

I straightened slowly, every movement deliberate, controlled. My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

“I’m hiding the truth,” I said. “Because the truth would destroy you.”

“That’s not your choice to make!”

“It is if it keeps you alive.”

He stared at me, breathing hard. “You don’t get to decide that alone.”

The words landed deep.

In my past life, I had decided everything alone with a strategy, sacrifice, and damnation.

And look how that had ended.

“I don’t have time for this,” I said, turning away. “The trial is in two days. You need to train.”

“Train for what?” he demanded. “To become their weapon? Or yours?”

I froze slowly, and I looked back at him.

“If I wanted a weapon,” I said quietly, “you wouldn’t be standing here arguing with me.”

Something flickered in his eyes—relief, tangled with doubt.

Before either of us could speak again, the air shifted with a Cold reminder, Pressure, and divine.

I reacted instantly, slamming my hand over the seal too slowly.

Light spilled through the window, thin and sharp as a blade. Symbols burned into the air, forming a circle around Eron’s feet.

He cried out, stumbling as the markings locked him in place.

“Kael!” Panic tore through his voice.

I moved without thinking.

The moment I crossed the circle’s edge, pain exploded through my body. Divine suppression crashed down, crushing, invasive.

My knees hit the floor, and the ember screamed. Let me out, let me burn them and blood fill my mouth.

Then I laughed Low and broken.

“Oh,” I rasped. “You picked the wrong moment.”

I reached inward and didn’t pull gently this time. I took the seal fractured, not shattered—fractured.

Power flooded my veins, violent and intoxicating. My vision sharpened, colors bleeding too bright, too real. The pressure lifted as it had never existed.

The divine circle around Eron flickered.

It cracked, then shattered and the light vanished.

Eron collapsed, gasping, and I caught him before he hit the floor.

The room reeked of ozone and scorched air.

I stood slowly, power coiling tight beneath my skin, barely contained. My reflection in the window startled me—eyes glowing faintly, shadows clinging where they shouldn’t.

And it was too much, this was already too much. Far above, I felt it.

There was attention, a presence turning its gaze.

I shoved the power back down, slamming the seal shut with sheer will. The backlash sent agony tearing through me. I staggered, barely keeping my feet.

Eron clutched my sleeve, trembling. “What… what did you just do?”

I looked down at him.

At the boy who had felt my power and hadn’t recoiled in disgust.

Not yet.

“Saved you,” I said.

Footsteps thundered in the corridor outside and I heard voices and shouting.

It was the Church knights and they were too fast.

Eron’s eyes widened. “They’re coming.”

“I know.”

I straightened, wiping blood from my mouth.

The door burst open.

High Priest Valther stood there, white and gold blazing, divine attendants at his back. His gaze locked onto me instantly.

And for the first time, he stopped smiling.

“You,” he said slowly, “are far more dangerous than we were told.”

I met his stare, heart hammering, the ember restless and furious beneath my ribs.

“Then you should have killed me when you had the chance,” I said.

Valther raised his hand.

Divine power surged, thick and crushing.

“Seize the elder son,” he commanded. “Alive if possible.”

The knights advanced.

Behind me, Eron whispered, voice shaking but fierce.

“Don’t touch him.”

Valther’s eyes flicked to him very calculating, and then he smiled again.

“Oh,” he said softly. “This will be very interesting.”

The seal inside me cracked once more.

And this time—I wasn’t sure I wanted to stop it.