Belial sat cross-legged at the base of the desk, the cold stone floor biting through his trousers. In his hands, he clutched the black notebook, its leather cover worn smooth by time or touch—he couldn't tell which.
It wasn't just ink on parchment, not a mere relic of someone else's thoughts. It was a mirror, reflecting pieces of himself he hadn't dared to face. Each page turned felt like peeling back a layer of his own skin, exposing something raw and achingly familiar.
Belial's fingers trembled slightly as he opened the notebook again, his eyes skimming the next passage with an urgency that bordered on desperation. The prince's handwriting was precise, almost mechanical, yet there was a pulse beneath it—a quiet rebellion in the way the letters curled, as if fighting to break free from their own perfection.
The entry began simply:
Today, I continued work on the CSS project. Crystalline Statue Soldiers.
Belial's eyebrows arched, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "CSS… wait a minute." The acronym was almost mundane, a nod to some bureaucratic designation, but the words it stood for carried a weight that made his pulse quicken. Soldiers carved from crystal, animated by magic or science—or both. He could almost see them, gleaming like frozen stars, their faceless forms marching in perfect unison. The image sent a shiver down his spine.
The prince's words flowed on:
I was appointed Head Scientific Architect for the program six cycles ago, and I still enjoy it. Ever since I came into being… well, ever since I woke up, I've had a fascination with construction—building things, solving puzzles, creating order from the unknown. I suppose that's what you do when you don't have a childhood. You build one.
Belial's breath caught. The line struck like a blade, slicing through the haze of his thoughts. I was never a child.
He leaned back against the desk, the wood creaking under his weight. His own past was a fractured thing—whispers in the ether, screams that weren't his, and the searing burn of a curse etched into his flesh. The birthmark on his shoulder throbbed faintly, as if stirred by the prince's words. He'd never liked calling the Witch of Calamity "Mother," but her genes lingered in his veins like a ghost, whispering that he was hers, in some twisted way. A creation, not a child.
The prince's script continued, pulling Belial deeper:
I've always been curious what it must feel like. To grow. To stumble around with scraped knees and missing teeth. To cling to a parent's sleeve with laughter in your breath. All I remember is opening my eyes inside a glowing vault, fully formed. No childhood. No first steps. Just… purpose.
And my "mother"—if I can even call her that—was the Queen.
Her face was beautiful. Radiant, white as light. Her smile could shatter despair. But it never felt real.
I knew, deep down, she was carved from divinity. But so was I. My soul had been sculpted from a shard of her own. I didn't come from her womb. I came from her will.
Belial exhaled, his breath a soft hiss in the quiet room. Another parallel, sharp and undeniable. He could almost see the Queen's face—cold, flawless, a mask of divinity that hid something unreachable. He'd never met her, but the Witch's shadow loomed in his mind, her presence a storm of power and expectation. Like the prince, Belial was a fragment of something greater, bound by a will not his own. The thought tightened his chest, a mix of recognition and resentment.
He turned the page, the paper whispering against his fingers. The candlelight flickered, casting jagged shadows across the text.
I was caught with the notebook today.
Belial's heart skipped. The shift in tone was abrupt, the prince's words tighter, more urgent.
Two of the crystal sentries intercepted me near the observatory when I dropped it. They questioned me—but they couldn't see the contents. Only blank pages stared back at them.
A faint smile curved Belial's lips. Of course. The enchanted pen—the prince had mentioned it earlier, a tool that rendered the notebook's words invisible without its touch. Clever. Ingenious, even. The kind of trick Belial wished he'd thought of in his own moments of rebellion.
The entry pressed on:
I lied, of course. Said it was an empty Souvenir from studying abroad They let me go.
Barely.
It seems even in a society of logic, fear runs deeper than reason.
They fear emotion.
They fear individuality.
And maybe that's why I'm starting to fear them.
Belial's shoulders tensed, the prince's anxiety seeping through the page like damp rot. He could feel it—the weight of a world that demanded perfection, that crushed anything that dared to deviate. The sentries, with their faceless crystal forms, weren't just guards. They were enforcers of order, extensions of a system that feared what it couldn't control. Belial knew that fear. He'd seen it in the eyes of those who whispered his name, who saw his curse as a threat rather than a burden.
He shifted, the cold stone numbing his legs, but he barely noticed. The notebook held him captive, each word a thread pulling him deeper into the prince's world. He read on:
After that, I went to my weekly swordsmanship practice.
It wasn't horrible.
Still, I'm far from threatening. My crystalline form may be cut from the purest shard, but that doesn't make me strong.
Not like the others.
Not like the Elite Forms who gleam like moonstone and split steel with ease.
The words hit Belial like a fist. He knew that feeling—standing in the shadow of those who seemed effortless in their power, their presence a reminder of his own inadequacy. He remembered training circles, his shadow long and crooked while others blazed with flame or roared with lightning. He'd always felt like a ghost, a relic of someone greater, someone he could never become. The prince's crystalline form, pure and radiant, was no different from Belial's cursed blood—both gifts that felt like chains.
He turned the page slowly, his fingers brushing the edge of the paper as if it might crumble under his touch. The next entry began:
Back to my lair.
That's what I call it—though it's really just the hidden lab beneath the northern peak. Quiet. Cold. Mine.
Belial's lips twitched. A lair. The word conjured images of a cavern lit by glowing crystals, a sanctuary carved from secrecy. He could almost feel the chill of that hidden lab, the solitude that must have been both refuge and prison.
The prince's words continued:
I resumed forging.
Today… something incredible happened.
I used the shard that the mysterious man gave me last cycle. He said it was a "gift," but I think he meant it was a test.
I didn't know what to do with it until today.
It responded to my thoughts, to my need a frequency.
And I was able to open… a portal.
Belial's breath caught, the air in the room suddenly heavy. A portal?
The prince's handwriting grew jagged, as if written in a rush:
Not a teleportation spell. Not a gateway spell. This was something else.
It bent the lines between space, but didn't break them.
It was like… peeking out of a window I wasn't supposed to open.
Belial's mouth went dry. The prince had stumbled onto something forbidden, something that defied the rigid order of his world. A window to somewhere else. Belial's mind raced with questions. Where did it lead? What did the prince see? And who was this mysterious man, offering gifts that felt like traps?
The entry ended abruptly:
Now was my time.
My time for freedom.
Belial lowered the notebook onto his lap, his hands trembling slightly. Freedom. The word echoed in his head, again and again, like a bell tolling across a dark sea. But something about it felt… off. This wasn't the desperate cry of someone fleeing forever. This wasn't exile or betrayal. It was exploration. The prince wasn't running from his world. He was peeking beyond its edges, stealing a glance at something more—a world that might prove he was more than a tool, more than a forged purpose.
Belial understood that desire. He'd felt it in his own bones, in the moments when the curse in his blood whispered of possibilities beyond the path he'd been forced to walk. The prince's portal wasn't an escape—it was a question. A dare to know what lay beyond.
"Damn," he muttered, his voice barely audible in the shadowed room. "This guy really just like me."
But not exactly. Not quite. The prince wielded power Belial could only dream of—command over armies, mastery of experimental sciences, the ability to forge magic from thought. Yet he was lonely, isolated, chiseled into perfection and then forgotten. A statue with a soul, yearning for something real.
And yet… he had hope. He risked everything just to look outside. Not to leave. Not yet. Just to know.
Belial closed the book slowly, his eyes lingering on the final engraved line.
Now was my time.
He stared into the dimming crystallite from the door, the shadows dancing like memories he couldn't quite grasp. For the first time since this journey began, he didn't feel like a player in a game.
He felt like a witness.
To something real.
To someone forgotten.
To a prince who might've just wanted to be free—if only for a moment.
And maybe… so did he.