Elias woke to a tight pressure in his chest, like a hand had reached inside his ribs and was now rhythmically squeezing his heart with all the finesse of a blacksmith tenderizing raw meat.
He groaned, squinting up at the dimly-lit rafters of their attic room. Morning light leaked in through a crooked windowpane, its glow soft and indifferent to the fact that he felt like he'd been run over by a magical carriage. A cold bead of sweat rolled from his temple to his jaw as he clutched instinctively at his left palm.
The mark burned.
Not sharply. Not violently. But steadily—like embers beneath skin, as though some ancient thread had been wound around his soul and was now tugging gently, insistently.
Elias sat up with a wince, holding his hand out and watching the glowing lines pulse with a dull, reddish hue. The runes flickered not in time with his heartbeat, but to something older. Something not his.
"Okay," he rasped. "Not ominous at all."
A soft rustle came from the little cot on the other side of the room.
"Uncle Elias...?" Rhea's voice was groggy, her words slurred with sleep.
He turned his head and saw her sitting up, her messy hair defying gravity in all directions like she'd wrestled a pillow and lost. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, blinking slowly as she rubbed at them.
"You okay?" she asked, her voice still a whisper.
"That depends," Elias muttered, glancing down at his throbbing palm. "On whether or not I'm being slowly consumed by a magical parasite."
Rhea blinked.
He lifted his hand, palm out. "Did you, at any point last night, maybe... I don't know... nibble my soul?"
Her entire body tensed. She bit her lower lip.
"...No?"
He gave her a flat stare.
She squirmed under the covers. "I mean, maybe just a teeny-tiny bit. But it was an accident!"
"Rhea."
"I was dreaming about cheese," she confessed, as if that explained everything. "And then I felt hungry, and... my magic sort of reached out. I didn't mean to do it on purpose! It just nibbled."
"Nibbled? Magic isn't supposed to nibble, Rhea. It's not a rodent."
She sank lower under the blanket, her small horns poking out. "I think… the bond is growing. Like, deeper. You're... um… tasty?"
Elias groaned and fell back into his pillow. "Great. Magical room service. That's what my life's become."
He felt the mattress dip as she climbed onto the bed. Her small form pressed against his side, hesitant and warm, like a very sorry kitten.
"I really didn't mean to," she whispered, her voice trembly with guilt. "I think it's the contract. I didn't ask it to change. It's just doing stuff."
Elias glanced down at her. Her eyes shimmered faintly in the morning light—worried, glassy things—and her horns gently rested against his arm.
He sighed, this time with less exasperation.
"It's not your fault," he said softly.
"Then whose is it?"
"…Magic's."
She frowned. "Can I punch it?"
He let out a short laugh. "I'd pay to see that."
They lay in a comfortable silence, his body slowly adjusting to the residual ache. The warmth of her presence was soothing in a strange, inexplicable way. The bond didn't hurt as much now. It hummed in the background like a heartbeat layered beneath his own.
"Does it still hurt?" she asked, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of the blanket.
"Like being headbutted by a guilt-powered magical girl," Elias replied, deadpan.
Rhea winced. "Should I… try to undo it?"
He turned his head toward her. "I don't think that's possible. The contract's sealed. What we can do is figure out how to manage it."
"Like a faucet?" she asked.
"Exactly like a faucet. One that leaks… soul juice."
She sat up a little. "I'll try really hard not to drink your soul juice again."
"I would appreciate that more than words can express."
"I'll also give you chocolate. For compensation."
Elias gave a pained smile. "Now that is true healing magic."
Later that day, they found themselves in the village's dusty excuse for a library—a lopsided two-story building that looked like it had grown out of an old tree stump and then lost the will to continue. Books crammed the narrow shelves with no regard for genre or alphabet. The air inside was thick with dust and secrets, and the sole librarian—a squat woman with sharp eyes and a deep, thunderous sigh—made it clear she barely tolerated their presence.
Rhea wandered between shelves, trailing her fingers along cracked spines, occasionally pausing to whisper titles aloud with great solemnity.
"A Beginner's Guide to Hexes and Household Repairs… hmm… fun."
Elias hunched over a creaky reading table, flipping through the brittle pages of a tome that smelled like mildew and old candle wax.
"'Blood Oaths and You: A Beginner's Guide to Accidental Bonding,'" he muttered, raising an eyebrow. "Promising."
Across the aisle, Rhea held up a much shinier book with colorful illustrations.
"'How to Raise a Demon Without Getting Smote.' This one has pictures!" she beamed.
"Definitely bring that one. Pictures mean it was written by someone who understood their audience."
Hours passed in quiet study. Occasionally, the librarian coughed in their direction, the sound somehow both passive-aggressive and mournful. Elias absorbed what he could, stacking books and making notes. Rhea, meanwhile, sorted her reading materials by category: funny, interesting, or "probably a crime."
Eventually, Elias leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples.
"Okay," he said. "Here's what I've got."
Rhea hopped into the chair beside him.
"Demonic soul contracts," he began, "are prone to deepening when the contractor and the contracted spend emotional or physical proximity over extended periods."
She nodded as if this were already obvious.
"Second, shared energy pools are a thing. It's like… our magic is a bathtub now. We both use the same water."
"Do not let me near bath metaphors," she warned solemnly.
"And third—if left unchecked, the bond can cause mana drain, fatigue, hallucinations… or spontaneous wing growth."
Rhea's eyes lit up. "I want wings."
"No you don't."
"Yes I do!"
"Do you even know how heavy wings are?!"
"I could use them to smother people in hugs."
"Exactly my point."
A withering sigh from the librarian silenced them. Rhea grinned. Elias gave her a long-suffering look.
Evening fell with a gentle hush, the kind only small villages knew how to conjure. Elias prepared tea in the cramped kitchen nook of their rented house, the kettle hissing as he added a careful pinch of powdered mana suppressant into the brew. Just enough to dull the bond's sharpest edges—like sanding down a splinter, not cutting off the whole plank.
Rhea sat at the table, legs swinging beneath the chair, watching him like a baby owl who'd just discovered the concept of tea.
"Uncle Elias?"
"Hmm?"
"What if I… drain too much again?"
He paused, one hand on the kettle's handle.
"Then I'll take a nap," he said simply. "And you'll bring me snacks. Preferably ones that aren't on fire."
She fidgeted. "I'm serious."
"So am I. Look, Rhea—this bond isn't just about you feeding on my energy. It's mutual. You're trusting me too. That means something."
Her small brows furrowed. "You're not scared of me?"
"All the time."
She blinked, startled.
"But not because of the bond," he added. "Because you once turned my socks into spiders while sleep-muttering in Infernal."
"Oh. Right. That was a weird dream."
"I screamed."
"I remember."
He crouched beside her, one knee against the worn wooden floor. "But no, I'm not scared of you. You're a kid. You're trying your best. And if this contract keeps growing deeper, then we deal with it. Together."
Her hands reached up and gripped his shoulders tightly. Her expression was unreadable at first—somewhere between grateful and embarrassed.
"You're not a very good uncle," she muttered.
"Excuse me?"
"You're more like a very tired big brother."
Elias laughed. A soft, unexpected sound.
"I'll take it."
That night, the wind whispered through the eaves. Elias lay in bed, the faint scent of tea still on his breath, the room dim and still.
He stirred.
The contract mark pulsed.
But this time, it didn't hurt.
It shimmered, warm and steady—like a sleeping heartbeat beside his own. For the first time, Elias didn't feel invaded. He felt connected.
He could sense her.
Rhea.
Her heartbeat.
Her presence.
Not as something foreign or dangerous—but as something familiar. A thread knotted gently to his own.
He sat up slowly, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.
The floor creaked beneath his feet as he padded softly to the window.
She stood there.
Eyes closed, face turned to the moonlight.
Sleepwalking again.
But this time, she wasn't muttering.
She was singing.
Softly. In a voice older than her years, older than this world. The melody twisted through the air like drifting smoke, beautiful and raw. The language made no sense to him—half lullaby, half war hymn—but it pierced straight through him all the same.
He stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.
She blinked awake.
"Did I… dream again?" she asked, voice small.
"Yeah," he said gently. "You okay?"
She leaned into him, eyes heavy with sleep.
"I am now."
They stood there together, staring out at the stars.
The mark on Elias's palm glowed faintly, steady and alive.
Breathing with them.
Growing.
Not as a curse.
But as something… shared.
To be continued…