Ashvale's open market was a tangled braid of colors, shouts, and smells. Overripe oranges, cracked pottery, singed herbs, and the sharp scent of roasted onions clung to the air like gossip.
Elias had hoped for a quiet outing.
He should've known better.
"Can I get the blue one?" Rhea asked, standing on tiptoe to point at a lumpy, cobalt-painted object sitting in a wicker tray. Her hood sagged back slightly as she stretched, revealing a few stray strands of silver-blonde hair.
Elias squinted at the offending item. "That's not a fruit. That's a decorative gourd."
"It still looks tasty," she insisted.
"You said that about a glowing beetle last night."
"It was tasty."
He didn't want to think about that.
The marketplace churned around them—children darted past with sticky fingers, a bard strummed an out-of-tune lute under a tapestry tent, and the woman at the pastry cart was arguing with a goat that had eaten three of her cinnamon rolls.
It was supposed to be a short trip. Bread, cheese, maybe a few berries. Nothing flashy. Nothing weird.
Since the Marek incident, Elias had done everything he could to stay under the radar. He'd patched the cottage roof. Paid extra for quiet deliveries. Even declined three offers of "spiritual cleansing" from local priests. Still, the rumors kept mutating.
Some said a rogue spell had backfired. Others claimed a spirit child had been summoned. A few whispered about a cursed cabbage that screamed at people.
Unfortunately, the cabbage story had stuck.
Rhea tugged on his sleeve as they passed a cart stacked with woven bracelets. "Can I get one with skull beads?"
"No."
"What about this one? It's got thorns."
"That's wire."
She made a thoughtful noise. "Still cool."
He gently pulled her hood lower before it slipped again. The streets were too crowded. Too watchful.
"Okay," he muttered. "We grab what we need. No flaring eyes. No levitating fruit. And definitely no dramatic speeches."
"I never make dramatic speeches," Rhea replied, straightening her posture with mock indignation.
"You literally told a grown man, 'No one hurts my Elias,' while summoning a ring of fire."
Rhea tilted her head. "It was poetic."
"It was terrifying."
"It was effective," she added smugly.
He sighed and steered her toward the fruit stalls.
They passed a man selling pickled eggs from an enchanted jar, and Rhea briefly tried to pet a monocle-wearing ferret sunning itself on a blanket. She nearly bought a pink-tinted love potion because it "smelled like strawberry sadness," then yelped when a hovering fish snapped at her finger.
By the time they reached Garlan's fruit stand, Elias was already calculating escape routes.
The stand looked normal enough—rows of pears, apples, plums stacked into near-perfect pyramids. But the man behind the crates was Garlan: broad as a smith's anvil, bald as a river stone, and just as talkative. His arms crossed the moment he saw them.
Elias offered a neutral smile. "Morning."
"You again," Garlan grunted.
Elias blinked. "Uh. Yes?"
"You're the one with the hellspawn."
The words landed like a slap. Rhea, beside him, stopped mid-step.
"She's a child," Elias said quietly, placing a small basket of sweetberries back onto the table.
"She melted half the plaza," Garlan said, voice rising.
"She startled someone. Cracked a few cobblestones."
"She floated."
"Which isn't a crime."
Garlan's glare hardened. "Demon freaks always snap. Doesn't matter how small. Always blood and fire, eventually."
Rhea's fingers curled tightly into the edge of her sleeve.
Elias moved to shield her. "We'll take our business elsewhere."
Garlan didn't let it go. He reached across the stand, fisting Elias's collar. "You think you can walk around like nothing's wrong? You're putting everyone here in danger!"
"Let go," Elias said flatly.
"Or what?" Garlan sneered. "Gonna sic your little devil on me?"
The air changed.
At first, it was nothing—just a silence between heartbeats. But then Elias felt it. A pressure behind the ears, like cotton stuffed too deep. The kind of silence that made even the crows stop calling.
People nearby turned their heads, uneasy.
The sunlight flickered—only once—and suddenly Garlan froze.
Not voluntarily.
His body jerked like a puppet with crossed strings. His arms stuttered. His mouth twisted sideways, then—horrifyingly—flipped upside down.
He screamed.
The stall burst apart. Fruit exploded into the air, hovering in place, suspended mid-flight like they were caught in syrup. Apples pulsed, orbiting each other in defiance of gravity.
At the center stood Rhea.
Her feet barely touched the ground. Her hair floated like seaweed in deep water.
Her eyes weren't glowing.
But the world was.
Skewed. Crooked.
Reality seemed to ripple away from her, like a fabric being pulled too tight. Elias's vision shimmered around the edges.
Then came the voices.
They didn't come from her mouth.
They came from... somewhere deeper. Not one voice. Dozens. Whispering in overlapping cadence, like a choir echoing in a broken mirror.
"No one yells at Elias."
Elias stepped into the warped space, his every movement slowed by a strange resistance in the air. He pressed a hand to the glowing rune on his palm, feeling it throb with heat.
"Rhea," he said softly. "It's okay. I'm fine."
She didn't move.
Her fists trembled at her sides. Around her, the hovering fruit began to blacken. Time itself seemed to accelerate in pockets—decay spread like ink on parchment.
"No one touches him. No one hurts him."
The whispers escalated. The sound wasn't even sound anymore. It pressed against the inside of the skull. People in the crowd staggered. One woman dropped into a crate of peaches, unconscious.
Elias forced his way forward.
He reached her and gently cupped her cheek.
"Hey," he said again. "I'm not hurt. Look at me."
She blinked.
And the world collapsed.
The pressure popped. The warped air snapped back like stretched elastic. Fruit thudded to the cobblestone. Gravity remembered how to work. A bruised apple bounced off Elias's head with a comedic thunk.
Rhea swayed.
Elias caught her just before she fell.
Behind them, Garlan curled up in the wreckage of his stand, clutching his head and rocking.
Elias looked down at the girl in his arms.
Her breathing was shallow. Her face pale.
Something had changed.
This wasn't just hellfire. Not just a flicker of inherited magic. What she'd done bent the laws of existence.
And she'd done it to protect him.
He held her tighter and left without a word.
They didn't talk much on the walk home. Rhea slept against his shoulder, her breaths warm against his neck. A single pear rolled out of his satchel when he reached the cottage door and bumped it open with his foot.
He laid her on the couch, gently tucking a wool blanket around her. She murmured something unintelligible and curled toward the pillow like she was bracing against a storm.
Elias sat beside her, one hand resting on the armrest, the other toying with the edge of the contract mark on his palm.
It had changed.
A second ring had formed, curling like ivy around the original design. Finer lines. Intricate script. It pulsed faintly, like it was alive.
He didn't know what it meant.
Only that the bond between them wasn't dormant.
It was evolving.
He stared at the mark until a quiet voice broke the silence.
"I didn't mean to…"
Rhea sat up slowly, hair mussed, eyes red-rimmed but awake.
Elias smiled tiredly. "Hey."
"I didn't mean to make the fruit go weird. Or the man." Her voice cracked. "He grabbed you and I got scared. Then it all just… happened."
"You're not the first person to weaponize fruit for emotional reasons," he said dryly.
"I'm serious."
"So am I. I once saw a noblewoman try to hex her cousin with an enchanted lemon tart."
She didn't laugh.
"I'm not fine," she whispered. "I'm broken."
"No," Elias said gently, leaning in. "You're powerful. You're scared. And, yes, a little dramatic."
She sniffled. "You're not scared?"
"I'm terrified," he admitted. "But you're still you."
She hesitated. "Even if I warp reality?"
He nodded. "Even if you turn my laundry into rainbow cats."
A pause. "Would they still be warm?"
"Probably."
She giggled.
He pulled her into a hug. "You don't have to control it all right away. We'll figure it out."
She clutched his tunic. "Promise?"
"Promise."
That night, Elias stayed up late at his desk, scribbling notes by candlelight.
Field Notes: Emotional triggers cause magic anomalies. Effects appear temporal, spatial, or otherwise reality-based. Not standard infernal casting. Likely latent potential from former Demon Queen identity.
On the next page, he scrawled:
DO NOT LET HER NEAR: – Garlan's fruit stand (for obvious reasons) – Alchemist's shop (glass and fire don't mix) – Decorative gourds (temptation too strong)
A soft knock interrupted his thoughts.
He turned.
Rhea stood in the hallway wrapped in a blanket like a cloak, rubbing one eye.
"Elias?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I sleep in here tonight?"
He moved over and patted the small bed tucked beside the desk. "Of course."
She climbed in, curling up with a yawn. "I promise I won't warp anything while I sleep."
"I appreciate that."
A beat.
"Elias?"
"Hm?"
"Am I… dangerous?"
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then reached out and flicked her forehead gently.
"Hey!"
"You're a menace. But you're also kind. And smart. And trying very hard."
She smiled. "You forgot 'beautiful and terrifying demon princess.'"
"I was getting to that."
She snuggled into the blanket.
"I won't let anyone yell at you again," she mumbled.
Elias leaned back in his chair, eyes on the stars beyond the window.
"…And I won't let the world break you."
Outside, under the moonlight, the enchanted runes buried deep in the surrounding forest shimmered.
Watching. Waiting.
For whatever came next.
To be continued…