Mireya's POV
The knife feels heavy in my hand.
I stand in the darkest corner of Ashenvale Library, where they keep the books that shouldn't exist. My fingers shake as I pull the hidden paper from my pocket—the one spell Kieran didn't steal. The one that could change everything.
Or kill me.
Outside the tall windows, the moon bleeds red across the sky. Blood moons happen once every hundred years. Tonight is that night. And I'm done being the girl everyone walks over.
Six months ago, I had a future. A PhD. A man who said he loved me. A family who at least pretended to care.
Then Kieran took my three years of research—every word I wrote about summoning demons—and published it under his name. When I tried to prove it was mine, he told everyone I was trying to do real demon summoning. A crime that gets you executed.
My own family believed him. My perfect sister Celeste married him two weeks later.
The university fired me. My friends disappeared. And now I shelve books in the place where my dreams died.
But tonight, that ends.
I've spent six months planning this. The blood moon. The forbidden summoning room in the basement that everyone thinks is just a storage closet. And this spell—the most dangerous one in my research.
According to legend, it doesn't just summon any demon. It calls the one whose soul matches yours.
My research professors said that was impossible. That demons don't have souls. That the spell never worked for anyone.
But what if they were wrong?
I unlock the basement door with the key I'm not supposed to have. My heart pounds so hard I can hear it in my ears. The stairs creak under my feet. Each step takes me deeper into darkness.
The summoning room smells like dust and old magic. Candles line the walls—left over from university classes that stopped decades ago. I light them one by one. The flames cast shadows that dance like living things.
In the center of the floor, I draw the circle exactly like my research showed. The chalk glimmers strange colors in the candlelight. I pour salt at the four corner points. Then I place the ancient bowl in the middle.
My hands won't stop shaking.
This is insane. I know it's insane. Normal people don't summon demons. Normal people accept their boring, broken lives and move on.
But I was never normal. Kieran knew it. That's why he stole my work—because it was brilliant and he was just pretty.
I pull out the small knife I brought. It's sharp. Sharp enough.
The spell is simple but specific. Blood. Intention. And a name—your true name, not the one people call you.
I press the blade to my palm. It stings. Red blood wells up, bright against my skin.
For a second, I hesitate. Once I do this, there's no going back.
Then I remember Kieran's smug face at his book launch. My mother saying, "Why can't you be more like Celeste?" My sister in the wedding dress that should have been mine.
I let my blood drip into the bowl.
"I call upon the ancient pact," I whisper, reading from my research. "Blood to blood. Soul to soul. I offer myself to the one who matches my darkness."
Nothing happens.
My chest gets tight. Of course nothing happens. Magic isn't real. Demons aren't real. I'm just a desperate woman playing make-believe in a basement.
Then I remember the last part. The true name.
I close my eyes and speak the name I've never said out loud. The name that lives inside me where no one can see.
"Mireya the Betrayed. Mireya the Forgotten. Mireya who will burn them all."
The candles blow out.
All of them. At once.
The temperature drops so fast I can see my breath. Ice crystals form on the walls. The bowl in the circle starts to glow red, then white, then black—a darkness so complete it hurts to look at.
Oh God. Oh God, what did I do?
The circle cracks. Not the chalk—the floor itself. Lines of light spread out like a spider web. The whole room shakes. Books fall from shelves I didn't know were there.
I try to run, but my feet won't move. Something invisible holds me in place.
The darkness in the bowl rises up like smoke. It grows taller. Wider. Taking shape.
First, I see wings—huge, torn, terrifying. Then horns that curve like a crown. Then eyes that glow gold like melted fire.
A voice like thunder and silk fills the room: "Finally."
The smoke becomes solid. Becomes real.
Becomes him.
He's tall—so tall I have to look up. His hair is white as snow, his skin marked with black patterns that move like living tattoos. His wings spread so wide they touch both walls. And his eyes... his eyes look at me like he's seeing a ghost.
"After five hundred years in that hell," he says, his voice making my bones vibrate, "a little librarian breaks my chains."
I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't do anything but stare.
Because standing in my summoning circle, more beautiful and terrifying than anything in my research, is the Demon King from every legend I've ever read.
Azraeth. The World-Ender. The one the angels imprisoned centuries ago.
And he's looking at me like I'm the answer to a question I don't understand.
His eyes narrow. "Tell me your name, girl. Your true name."
Before I can answer, fire explodes across my chest.
I scream. The pain is like being branded with a red-hot iron. I claw at my shirt, tearing it open.
There, burning into my skin right above my heart, is a mark. Black and silver and glowing. A demon symbol I've seen in only one place—the oldest, most forbidden book in this library.
The Soul Mark.
The bond that can't be broken. The tie that legends say appears once in a thousand years between two souls that perfectly match.
No. No, no, no, this can't be happening.
I look up at the Demon King. He's clutching his chest, his face twisted in shock and pain. When he tears open his shirt, I see it.
The same mark. Right over his heart. Glowing just like mine.
Our eyes meet.
And through the mark, I feel it—his rage. His hunger. His absolute fury.
"Impossible," he whispers.
Then his hand shoots out and wraps around my throat.