Private Tales Pact of Flame

[Azrakar]

His hand snapped up. His fist closed around the shard. The chasing caught the slight as it dangled from his hand.

"Hmm what are you..." he thought out loud.

"It seems it does not want to tell me," he said. His voice was tinged with frustration.

"No matter," he lied, "it does not matter how the prophecy came to be, only that you are here."

After all the fire and rage that he had forced her to accept, Azrakar was now a frustratingly solid wall against her pain and frustration.

"Come," he beckoned. "Rest on the bed if you will not eat."

The glass, he thought to himself. There was likely enough there for her to make a shard to slit her own throat.

That was going to be a problem. It would take so much time and energy just to keep her alive.

 

[Saeris]

Saeris gave a hollow, humourless laugh that rasped in her dry throat. “Prophecy,” she repeated, the word thick with scorn. “If you think I have anything to do with this bullshit prophecy of yours, you are fucking delusional.” Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. “You have it wrong. You have me wrong.”

She turned her face away from him, shaking her head as if trying to rid herself of the sound of his voice, of the weight of his calm. After all the rage he’d unleashed, his sudden stillness and composure felt worse. It was a wall she couldn’t scream through, couldn’t reach, couldn’t even dent.

When he gestured toward the bed, her eyes flicked to it, betraying her for just a heartbeat. The blankets looked impossibly soft. The thought of sinking into them, of easing the ache in her limbs and letting her exhaustion claim her, nearly undid her restraint. Her body screamed for rest, for mercy.

But mercy from him was another kind of trap.

Her jaw set. “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” she muttered, dragging her knees closer to her chest. Her fingers trembled slightly as she wrapped her arms around herself, refusing to move toward the bed even as her body leaned that way without her consent.

The firelight wavered across her face, catching the hollow of her eyes and the defiance that still burned there. “You can keep your bed, your food, and your prophecies. I want nothing from you.”

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar stood in silence for a long moment, the kind of silence that filled a room rather than emptied it. The word delusional still hung between them, brittle and trembling.

His gaze didn’t soften; it simply deepened, studying her as though she were a riddle he’d already solved but enjoyed watching struggle against its own meaning.

“Wrong?” he echoed at last.

“No, Saeris. I know exactly what you are. The only mistake I made was thinking you would see it sooner.”

“Prophecy is not belief. It is inevitability. You do not have to want it to make it so. Do you believe in magic? In curses? That is all this is. The route to unpick a curse that has kept me deep in this mountain.

When her eyes betrayed her - that flicker of longing toward the bed - he saw it. He did not smile, though something almost like victory glimmered behind his stare.

Instead, he turned away, his tone cool and matter-of-fact. “Then choose the floor, if you wish. But you will rest all the same. The body yields before the will.”

He crossed to the hearth, poured another cup of wine, and took a measured sip before setting it down beside the tray of food. “You will take what you need when I am gone,” he said without looking at her.

He looked at the glass again and tossed it into the fire. It was a waste and overly dramatic as he let her see his mild irritation.

“Defiance will not fill your stomach, nor keep you alive when the shard hungers.”

With that, he moved toward the door. His parting words were quiet, almost thoughtful, though they carried the iron weight of a promise.

“You may hate me. You should. But before this ends, you will understand why you were chosen. You seem to be under the impression that this is the worst state you could find yourself. It is not. I only need keep you alive. It is remarkable what the body can suffer and still work.

The door closed behind him with a loud thud, leaving her alone again with the firelight, the scent of roasted meat, and the echo of the demons anger.

 

[Saeris]

The silence was a living thing, oppressive and suffocating. It pressed against her ears until she could hear nothing but the ragged thud of her own heartbeat.

“I believe in curses,” she whispered. Her gaze fixed on the hearth. “That is exactly what this is. What you are.”

Her quiet voice shook, not from fear but fury, the kind that lived too deep for shouting. She sat rigidly, watching the tray steam in front of her. The scent of roasted meat was heavy in the air, making her stomach twist painfully, but she would not touch it. She would not give him that victory.

Her fingers dug into her knees until her nails left crescent moons in her skin, eyes lifting to him as he stood at the door.

His words, that iron promise, settled over her, and she stared daggers into his retreating back. Her pulse hammered harder. Her throat felt raw from holding back the scream that trembled in her chest.

The door slammed shut, and the sound cracked something open inside her.

The scream tore free, broken and furious. It ripped through the quiet and echoed off the stone until it dissolved into a choked sob. Then, without thinking, she grabbed the tray of food and hurled it against the closed door.

It hit with a metallic crash — plates splintering, fruit rolling, meat smearing against the dark wood. The sound was brief but violent, filling the chamber with the chaos he had left her to drown in.

Breath heaving, she slumped forward, trembling, her palms pressed flat against the cold floor. He wanted her alive, and she’d make that as difficult as she could for him.

She looked for anything, whatever she could use to wound herself badly enough with, whatever she could wrap around her neck tightly enough. Fuck his prophecy.

 

[Azrakar]

Sleep came for her eventually. Somewhere between rage and exhaustion, she must have slipped under. When her eyes opened again, the fire had burned low and the light in the room was dim and gold.

For a heartbeat, she would not know where she was. Then she would feel the warmth beneath her cheek, the softness of the mattress, and the heavy weight across her ankle of the chain.

Azrakar was there, lying beside her. The faint sound of his breathing filled the silence, slow and steady, as though he hadn’t a care in the world. The chain that tethered her wrist stretched across the sheets, its links coiled between them.

That warmth that might have felt comforting at first, was coming from the bulk of the demon that now haunted every waking thought.

But there was also opportunity. There was just enough slack in the chains to try and get them around her neck, if she had the strength of will to try.

 

[Saeris]

When Saeris’s eyes fluttered open, the world seemed blurred by smoke and shadow. For a heartbeat, she thought she was home, that the warmth beneath her cheek came from sunlight through her window. But the heat was too steady, the air too heavy, and when she turned her head, the truth carved itself cleanly back into her mind.

He was here, vast and still as he slept beside her, his nearness radiating an oppressive heat that clung to her skin, that made her stomach twist with revulsion. The chain around her wrist stretched across the sheets, a cruel, glinting reminder of what she was now, whose she was now.

Her throat tightened. She looked down at the links where they caught the light, her mind tracing possibilities that felt like ghosts of choices rather than real ones. There was a bitter poetry in the thought, to end this here, in his bed. It would be of some satisfaction at least..

For a moment she let the idea live, breathed in its cold, terrible comfort. The thought steadied her, or maybe it hollowed her out enough to stop the trembling. Tears welled in her eyes. She had accepted death already. She wouldn't endure this place. Him.

The chain between them clinked softly as she shifted like she was underwater, a careful precision to every inch she moved, fearing he might wake. Carefully, she lifted the chain around her neck once, and then once more for good measure, feeling it tighten, cold against her throat. The tears fell as she turned herself away, as far as the restraint would allow, knuckles white around the chain as she pulled for dear life.. for dear death.

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar woke to the soft rasp of metal against stone.

For a moment, he did not move. The chamber was quiet save for the low burn of the hearth and the faint sound of her breathing. It was uneven, trembling, stubbornly alive. His gaze shifted, finding her where she had turned away, the chain pooled taut between them.

He sat up slowly, his movement deliberate, the bed creaking beneath his weight. His eyes traced the curve of her shoulder, the rigid line of her back, the tremor that betrayed her exhaustion. She was fighting against the chain.

There was no anger in him, no fury or frustration. Only the slow, steady tide of thought.

"You will fall unconscious and start breathing again," he told her.

“You would rather end yourself than defy the prophecy,” he murmured, his voice quiet, almost contemplative.

He stood, his shadow stretching across the bed, across her. For a heartbeat, he lingered there. It was not out of concern - as she gasped and struggled - but study. It was as if her act had revealed something to him that all her words had failed to show.

Then he reached for her, wrapping one hand over her shoulder and drawing her back from the brink.

 

[Saeris]

Saeris’s body shook with the effort of what she was trying to do. Not an act of will, but the attempt to end all will entirely. Her lungs burned, her vision blurred, her mind a chaotic chorus of enough, enough, enough and stop stop stop..

Blackness crept in at the edges of her sight. Her heart thundered in her ears once, twice, then faltered.

And then hands were on her.

Azrakar’s grip was iron around her shoulders, dragging her back into the world she had tried to flee. Air rushed into her lungs all at once, a violent gasp that turned into a cough. She choked on it, the pain of breathing raw and searing as if her body hated her for obeying instinct.

Her legs kicked weakly at him, her tears hot and wild. “No!” The word broke from her in a voice that cracked apart halfway through. “No, no, let me go—”

The chain rattled as she struggled, all fury and grief and shame. Her cries turned to hoarse sobs until the sound fractured and died in her throat.

When her strength left her, she sagged against the sheets, still trembling, still weeping. Her breath came in ragged gasps that refused to steady. She didn’t look at him, she buried her face into the pillow and screamed, hating him, hating herself for still breathing.