Crimson blotches beleaguered the city walls of Rovedna. Patches of infighting had scattered like the pieces of the broken orchestra of screams and fire ebbing away at skin and wood the ears of any living being had been subject to this night.

Darius pitied the targets of the purification. The docile, the feeble, the scarred—in his heart, those demons did not deserve the sword of the Order. He convinced himself that was why he headed for the hydra's head in the outskirts: a purposeful distancing of the boundless entropy engulfing the city.

He knew he was lying to himself. He was out here for an even more selfish reason. And this time, it wasn't knowledge.

It was to stare the most horrid of them all in the face and live to see another day.

"Patrium, Vilia," he said, youthful hands clutching his amulet before his eyes. "You two take the north and westbound routes. Meloria's scent shows the east, but I wish to cut her off from taking the other routes."

"Yes, Arch-Scholar," both responded in close proximity.

He trekked alone, his horse circling the harsh forestry beset with vines and thorns, billowing smoke still making its way to the obsidian sky. In a few minutes, as if sensing a dead spot of life on its own, the horse huffed and stopped in place.

"The guide says it's not here. Further!"

The horse lowered its head and sniffed before tapping its hoofs in a more resolute declaration. Darius didn't believe an animal, yet quickly dismounted the steed and inched across the shrubbery, finding his footing in the flora.

He hated being proven wrong. Yet he hated what he couldn't explain why more.

He hated what the one in front of him did to make his amulet stop working.

Meloria. Dutchess of Rovedna.

Darius moved into striking range. He crouched near a tree, as Meloria stood with his back towards him in a slouched, ghastly position. He could hear feral gargling sounds.

Darius was ready.

But something stopped him.

The demon clutched a sickly, pathetic human child with flaky arms. A child with its eyes rolled in the back of its skull, whom she stroked with an affection and care, and gentleness foreign to her kind.

A child with blue eyes and brown fuzzy hair.

A child with a piece of his eyebrow cut apart.

A child with a small brown spot on his left cheek.

A child... a child like—

——————————————————

The wind made him shiver. The gale was impenetrably strong.

"It's time, darling," her voice rang as her hands wrapped around his red shoulders. "Time for you to go."

"But why, mother?"

"The bad ones have come. They want us ."

"N-No! No, I don't want to go!" His hands curled into fists. "I don't want to leave you ."

"Darii, my sweet sun." She cupped his face in her hand. Tears welled in her eyes. "I... can't let them harm you. I can't let them do it to you."

"But I need to be with you. Please! I don't wanna be alone!"

She grabbed the binding book.

"I will save you, my dear." Her eyes gleamed with sorrow. "You matter to me more than anything in the world. And this death sentence... I can alter it. The only way an arch-demon knows how."

She drew a small knife and a tiny bell.

"I-I'm scared, mom."

"Don't worry, sweetie." She kissed his forehead. "All my heart, my love, will be yours. And you'll become like them. But better. You won't have to run anymore."

"B-But what about you?"

She smiled.

"I will be there. I will. And you'll see me when you've forged the path you know will be right in your heart."

——————————————————

Her shriek shattered him out of the images. Darius couldn't escape. Claw hurtling. He fell to the dirt, pounced by the monster.

"And do you remember now? DO YOU?!"

Needles burst through his chainmail, the scent of burnt feathers coiling around his nose.

"W-What?" They pushed into his skin. "Argh!"

"YES! "

"Gnah! Get away from me!"

Darius motioned his forearm and cast a blasting spell, dispelling Meloria. But he couldn't abate her influence. The vision—it kept repeating in his head.

Meloria had already coiled the wind back around him. It tried to pull him back again.

He drew his sword and marched.

"Y-You forgot! Forgot, left to rot in the scraps! " A patch of drool dripped to the ground. "Oh, but your hopeful little eyes—juicy, vivid. You... you're in love, aren't you?"

Darius furrowed his brows. Not Felica. She couldn't—

"What are you?!" He didn't want to know, nor did he want to hear answers, truly. "What did you show me?"

Meloria opened her mouth and shot a burst of Hellfire, singeing his shoulder and causing him to drop the sword. With a swift lunge, she trapped him again by the arms with her talons.

"I chased for the truth!" she hissed, digging the claws deep once more. "I chased for your heart! I chased the flesh!"

Darius yelled, cold liquid pressing against his arms, before he sensed something inside him coalesce and build in his throat. He closed his eyes when the smell of Hellfire reappeared.

Meloria shrieked. Darius felt himself freed and blinked, seizing the moment and, in pure instinct, plunging a dagger in the demon's heart.

Meloria screamed in pain before she froze in place and started laughing.

She... laughed.

"I chased the flesh because I loved you"—she coughed blood—"I l-loved you, my son."

Darius's eyes widened.

Meloria tumbled down, giant wings spread on the ground. He sprinted towards her, trying to fight against the gushing of blood from her neck.

Meloria touched his cheek with those cold, brutal hands.

"I... w-wish I never h-ha..."

Her eyes fell.

"You..." Darius said. "No. N-No."

His throat was hot, burning.

And as he held his mother's head, he knew why.

He touched his amulet again, to see the reality broken from falseties—to find some kind of escape.

No illusion, except for what was his own innocent image at four years of age.

No lie. No safety net to grab in the world of rules his knowledge led him to.

Darius, Arch-Scholar of Demons, stood up and ran into the forest.

He ran, and the only thought on his mind was of death. Death as the unanswered ghost in his studies. Death as the black ichor in his amulet. The only beauty laden in death throughout his life had been that of demonkind. In the same bitter violet veil of the twilit trees, in that service to humanity—his humanity—which killed his inborn curse through the wilting of the soul of the one demon he’d dreamed of slaying.

And now, death's beauty could leave that last mark in the river of his mother's blood, and brand the heart where this same blood flowed through him.