I was falling.
Not the normal dream-falling where you jerk awake. Actual falling, wind screaming past me, the ground rushing up at impossible speed.
No. Not ground. Fire.
I was falling into fire!
The heat was overwhelming, the kind that seared your lungs with every breath, that turned your skin to parchment. I tried to scream but the sound was lost in the roar of flames.
Then the scene shifted.
I was standing now. Not me, someone taller, broader, someone else's body, someone else's eyes.
A massive throne room, pillars of black stone stretching into darkness, the air thick with smoke and the smell of sulfur and something else. Something like blood but wronger.
Figures surrounded me, demons, my brain supplied, actual demons, not the corporate-suit-wearing kind. The wings and horns and nightmare-fuel kind.
They were talking. Arguing. Voices overlapping in languages I shouldn't understand but somehow did.
"...betrayal..."
"...cannot be allowed..."
"...his ambition threatens us all..."
Someone stepped forward, tall, regal, with eyes that burned brighter than the others. Authority rolled off them in waves.
"Azryth Valek," they said, and the name resonated like thunder. "You have been found guilty of attempting to usurp the infernal hierarchy, the punishment is exile."
"I sought only to strengthen our realm." The words came from my mouth, no, Azryth's mouth. This was his memory. His perspective. "To unite what you have let fragment."
"You sought power that was not yours to claim." The figure raised one hand. "You will be bound, sealed and imprisoned in the mortal realm until you learn humility."
"This is.."
The pain was immediate and absolute, something wrapping around his essence, crushing, suffocating, binding. Magic so powerful it made reality scream.
A betrayal, my mind whispered, this wasn't justice. This was…
The scene shifted again.
Darkness. Cold. Trapped in something small and tight and airless.
The amulet. He was in the amulet.
Time stretched. Days became weeks became months became years. Decades, centuries, trapped, conscious, aware, unable to move or speak or do anything but 'exist' in a prison smaller than a fist.
The rage was overwhelming, the helplessness worse.
Someone would pay, they all would pay. When he got free..
Then the memory shifted again, jumped forward, centuries compressed into moments.
Then, light. Partial freedom. Someone had cracked the seal, weakened it enough that he could manifest again, but not fully, never fully. The amulet remained his prison and his anchor both, freedom with chains still attached…. Until I broke the amulet completely and freed him from even those chains.
I jerked awake, gasping, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might explode.
The guest room was dark except for the city lights filtering through the windows, I was tangled in expensive sheets, drenched in sweat despite the cool temperature.
It was a dream. Just a dream.
Except it wasn't. That was a memory, his memory.
I looked at my wrist, the sigil was glowing brighter than I'd ever seen it, pulsing rapidly.
Across the hall, I heard movement, a door opening.
Then Azryth was standing in my doorway, backlit by the hall light, he was in sleep clothes, plain t-shirt and pants, the most casual I'd seen him. His hair was messed up, his eyes were wild.
"You saw it," he said, not a question.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
He leaned against the doorframe, something like exhaustion crossing his face. "I warned you."
"That was..." I swallowed hard. "That was real, that happened to you."
"Five hundred and thirty-seven years ago." He said it quietly. "Give or take."
Five hundred years, five hundred years trapped in darkness, conscious and aware and alone.
I tried to imagine it but failed, the horror was too big to comprehend.
"They betrayed you," I said. "Your own kind."
"They feared me." His voice was flat and emotionless. "I was too ambitious, too powerful and too willing to challenge the existing order, so they removed me from the board."
"That's... I'm sorry. That's awful."
He laughed, it wasn't a pleasant sound. "Are you actually sympathizing with your kidnapper, Riven?"
"I'm sympathizing with someone who spent five centuries in a magical prison the size of a jewelry box." I sat up, hugging my knees to my chest. "Even you don't deserve that."
Something flickered across his face, surprise, maybe. Or something softer that disappeared too quickly to name.
"The dreams will get worse," he said finally. "Stronger and more vivid, the binding is pulling us closer."
"Great. Can't wait."
"The offer still stands, shared sleeping arrangements would stabilize the connection."
"And invade my personal space even more than you already have."
"Your choice." He pushed off the doorframe. "Try to get more sleep, morning comes early."
He left, closing the door behind him.
I sat in the dark, the memory of his imprisonment still echoing in my mind, the rage, the helplessness, the absolute isolation.
No wonder he was so cold, so controlled. When you spent five hundred years with nothing but your own thoughts for company, you probably learned to lock everything down pretty tight.
The sigil pulsed once more, then settled.
I lay back down, but sleep didn't come easy.
When I finally drifted off, I dreamed of darkness and fire and the sound of someone screaming for help that would never come.
I woke up three more times that night.
Each time, I could've sworn I heard movement in the hallway, someone pacing, someone else who couldn't sleep either.
But when morning came, Azryth was already gone, and the penthouse was silent except for the distant hum of the city below.