Chapter 32: 32 The promise kept

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32: The promise kept 32: The promise kept When Kairan returned to the mountain village, they saw him coming from afar.

News of the dead dragon had spread, and with it the name of the demon prince.

So, when the small, hooded figure reappeared on the horizon, descending from Dareth’s Ridge, the entire village gathered.

But this time, no one dared approach.

No one dared speak.

The demons, about forty in all, simply stared at him as he waded through the mud, his two katanas at his sides, their red and purple auras pulsing faintly beneath his cloak.

Kairan didn’t spare them a glance.

He walked toward a single house.

Zaphira was waiting for him at the door.

Her heart was in her throat.

When he stopped in front of her, she couldn’t say anything: “You’re back,” she whispered.

“I made a promise,” Kairan replied.

He opened his cloak and delicately pulled out the plant.

It was small, with silvery petals, and despite the journey, despite the battle, it was intact.

He had protected it as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

He handed it to the child.

Zaphira took it in both hands, trembling.

“I…

I don’t know how to thank you.” “You don’t have to.” Kairan turned toward the inside of the house, where Thila lay on the bed, paler than ever.

He approached.

And while Zaphira quickly prepared the infusion with the plant, he remained beside the sick woman.

“Why?” asked Thila, in a faint voice.

“You are a prince.

A god, they say.

Why would a being like you cross a cursed mountain to save a common demoness?” Kairan thought for a long time before answering.

“Because you cured me without knowing who I was,” he said finally.

“Not out of fear.

Not out of self-interest.

Just… because I was hurt.

It was the first time in eight years that someone treated me like a person, not a weapon.” He paused.

“I wanted to give back.

Before I stopped, perhaps forever, being a person.” Thila looked at him with shining eyes.

And in that moment she understood that the child before her carried a burden that no adult could bear.

She drank the tea.

And slowly, as the silvery plant took effect, the color returned to her face.

Her breathing became more regular.

The pain, the pain that had been consuming her for months, began to recede.

Zaphira burst into tears of joy and threw herself into her mother’s arms.

Kairan took the opportunity to leave, as silently as he had arrived.

But on the threshold, a small hand stopped him.

“Wait!” Zaphira looked at him, her eyes still moist.

“Will I see you again?

Someday?” Kairan stared at her for a long time.

And for the first time in his memory, he couldn’t foresee the future.

He didn’t know if he would ever see her again.

He didn’t know what fate had in store for that brave little girl who had dragged him out of the mud.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly.

“But if it happens…

remember, I won’t be this anymore.

I’ll be something different.

Maybe something that will scare you.” “I don’t care,” Zaphira said, with the stubbornness of a child.

“For me, you’ll always be the one who kept a promise.” Kairan, then, did something he never did.

He smiled.

A real smile.

Small, but true.

Then he turned and walked toward the Dark Tower, leaving behind the only place in the demon realm where, for three days, he had been only a child.

And as his figure vanished in the rain, Zaphira clutched the empty plant to her chest and whispered his name like a prayer.

“Kairan.” The demon realm still didn’t know what was about to happen.

The demons lived their usual lives, under the gray sky that knew no sun.

The forges of Ignimurus beat their eternal rhythm.

The dragons of Sanguinarii slept their watchful sleep.

The Vanhai of Nocturnum wove their intrigues, and the shadows of Umbrafluctus guarded their secrets.

But something had changed.

It was felt in the air, like the heavy calm before a storm.

The most sensitive felt it: the seers, the ancients, the dragons.

A new tension, a thread stretched to the breaking point.

As if the entire Abyss were holding its breath, waiting for something that still had no name.

That something, however, had a name.

It was called Kairan.

And as the prince descended from the mountain, with two legendary blades at his side and a fresh scar on his face, the fate of the three worlds slowly began to shift, like a colossal gear that, after ten thousand years of immobility, began to turn again.

In the Celestial Realm, above the stars, something stirred.

Azrael, the Keeper, the being who had watched silently for millions of years, opened his yellow eyes.

He had sensed something impossible: the blades of Vezareth and Kharmul, the blades he himself had seen forged and fallen into the Abyss, had awakened.

Someone had wielded them.

Someone had succeeded where no one had.

“So it began,” Azrael whispered, and for the first time in ages, he left his vigil.

“The circle closes.

And what was broken above will be broken again below.

In the Demon Realm, an eight-year-old boy walked through the rain, carrying the weight of two gods and the fate of three worlds.

He was not yet the god he would become.

But he had taken the first step.

And the three worlds, unaware, slept the last peaceful sleep they would ever know.

For the Ascent had begun.

And it would never stop.

As Kairan descended the mountain, with the two blades at his side and a fresh scar on his face, he carried within him not only his own fate, but also that of all who had come before him.

He carried Vezareth and Kharmul, the two fallen angels who had dared to desire too much and who, for that desire, had built with their own hands the prison of their pride.

He carried Azrael, the yellow-eyed Keeper, who had loved two brothers like sons and had to witness their fall without being able to save them.

He carried Kaldreth, the ancient master who had taught him that the greatest power is choosing not to use it.

He carried Zaroth, the father who feared and respected him at the same time, and who had accepted being surpassed by his own blood.

He carried Lilith, the mother who was slowly dying to give him life, and who held a secret too heavy to be confessed.

And he carried Misael.

His brother.

The other half of the prophecy.

The one he would one day have to face.

The one he might have to kill.

Or by whom, perhaps, he would be killed.

Kairan carried all of this within him as he walked under the eternal rain of the Abyss, an eight-year-old boy with the weight of three worlds on his shoulders.

And he didn’t complain.

He didn’t falter.

He didn’t slow down.

Because now he had understood a truth that few beings in the world truly understand: that destiny is not a chain, but a choice.

That prophecy was not a condemnation, but a possibility.

That the future he had seen in the blades was not written in stone, but in will.

And his will, he knew, was stronger than any prophecy.

He looked up at the gray sky, beyond which, millions of years before, it had all begun.

And he smiled.

A small smile, cold, trusting.

“I will come for you,” he whispered to the Creator who had condemned two brothers to the Abyss.

“And when I do, I will discover if you, like everyone else, will kneel before me.

Or if you will be the first, in all of existence, to look me in the eyes without trembling.” The wind carried those words away.

And somewhere, above the stars, something heard them.