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Chapter Text

The world opened to you in a storm of cold.

You lay sprawled across a floor of polished stone veined with frost, every nerve trembling from the weight of the magic that had torn you here.

A circle of runes glowed faintly beneath your body, their lines sharp and merciless, drawn with some ancient hand long before you arrived.

The light flickered like dying embers, casting your skin in pale blue, as though branding you a thing claimed.

Around the circle, tall candles guttered in the freezing air, their flames pale and fragile, wavering as though on the edge of extinction.

Their smoke curled upward and vanished into the vastness of the hall. Shadows of robed figures, they are priests of ice, silent and faceless; stood in the alcoves, their heads bowed, as though their work was finished and what came next was no longer theirs to command.

The hall itself was cavernous, built not for comfort but for awe and fear.

The walls glittered with frozen glass, fractured reflections bending your form until you no longer recognized yourself.

The silence was absolute, save for the faint crackle of frost spreading outward from the circle, tendrils creeping across the floor to claim more ground.

You tried to move, but weakness dragged at your limbs.

Your body felt heavy, as though the magic had hollowed you out and left you nothing but an empty shell.

Your breath came shallow, clouding the air above you in fleeting wisps that dissolved before your eyes.

Then, the silence broke.

A voice poured into the hall, low and eloquent, smooth as velvet draped over a blade.

“A soul dares intrude upon my dominion.”

The sound echoed against the frozen walls, each syllable sharp enough to pierce.

“Tell me, little wanderer…”

You felt the weight of him before you saw him, as though the air itself bent in reverence.

Your body trembled, weak and small, pinned beneath a gaze you could not yet find.

And then, calm, merciless, inevitable. 

“…do you bow… or do you break?”

The echo of those words still hung in the frozen air when you finally forced your eyes upward.

At the end of the vast hall, framed by towering pillars of bluish ice, rose a throne carved from obsidian and frost.

Its surface shimmered faintly with runes of power, pulsing in time with the fading glow of the circle beneath you, as though tethering your existence to the figure seated upon it.

He sat with an elegance that defied the savagery of the cold.

One leg bent, one arm resting idly on the armrest, his hand draped casually yet with authority over the hilt of a sword that pulsed faintly with its own terrible aura.

It was not laziness, but dominion.

Every line of his posture spoke of a sovereign who had no need to rise, for the world itself bowed in his presence.

Candlelight licked at his features, scattering across high cheekbones, the line of his jaw, the pale shimmer of his eyes.

Eyes so cold they could have been carved from the glacier itself.

He looked upon you as one might regard an offering, or a mistake.

Your chest tightened.

Every instinct screamed at you to avert your gaze, to crawl, to kneel.

Yet you could not look away.

Your lips quivered, the words trembling out before you could stop them, raw with fear. 

“W–who… who are you?”

The question cracked against the silence, frail and pathetic, your voice nothing more than a whisper shivering through the vast hall.

He let the pause stretch, savoring your weakness, his expression unreadable until the corners of his mouth curved faintly.

Then he spoke again, and the voice that slid through the hall was smooth, resonant, each word deliberate, polished with the care of a predator savoring the act of striking.

“Pathetic. Already trembling, and yet you breathe.”

The corners of his mouth curved slightly, too sharp to be called a smile, too cruel to be amusement.

“You must be wondering why you are here. Why the priests sang their hollow rites and carved your fragile body into my circle. The answer is simple.”

A pause, heavy as iron. His gaze locked with yours, unblinking.

“I summoned you.”

The words crashed through you with the weight of revelation and chains alike.

Your heart stuttered, fear lancing through your veins as surely as frostbite.

His voice softened, yet the softness only made it worse, a caress made of knives.

“I am Regis. Demon King Regis. Lord of this dominion, sovereign of the Ice Plane… your master, should you prove worthy of keeping breath in my presence.”

Silence pressed in again, suffocating, broken only by the sound of your own ragged inhale.

And then, softly, too softly.

He laughed.

It rolled low in his chest, rich and deceptively warm, and for a moment it almost soothed, almost invited.

But then it rose, sharper, crueler, like glass shattering on stone.

The sound reverberated through the frozen pillars until your body quaked with it.

“Ah… look at you. Weak. Shaken. Caught between awe and terror. A soul summoned into my realm with nothing but fragile bones to offer.”

He leaned forward slightly, fingers brushing the pommel of his sword, eyes gleaming like twin shards of ice.

“So, will you cling to your trembling dignity, or shall I strip it from you here and now?”

Your whisper lingered in the vastness, pitiful, barely a sound at all.

You could not even raise yourself from the cold stone floor; the weight of the summoning still chained your limbs.

Every breath rasped shallow, painful, as though the air itself rejected your lungs.

He observed you in silence.

That silence was worse than laughter, worse than threat.

It was judgment.

Then his eyes flicked past you, toward the priests who stood in the alcoves like shadows.

The robed figures stirred, heads bowed lower, as though anticipating command.

A single word, quiet but unyielding, spilled from his lips.

“Leave.”

The word rang with power.

The priests obeyed at once, their footsteps fading quickly, robes whispering against the frozen floor until only silence remained.

Now, there was nothing between you and him.

The sound of his throne creaked as he rose.

The movement was deliberate, unhurried, but the weight of it stole what little strength you had left.

Each step echoed through the hall, sharp against the marble, until the air itself trembled.

By the time he reached the edge of the summoning circle, you were shaking outright, the feeble glow of the runes painting your weakness for him to see.

He crouched slightly, towering yet close, his presence scraping out everything else.

His hand lifted, not rough, not hurried, but steady, precise.

And he pressed his palm against your chest.

The cold seared first, sharp enough to make you gasp, but then a slow flood of warmth coursed into you.

Mana.

His mana.

His own power, energy. 

It filled you with a fragile spark of strength, just enough to steady your arms, enough to make your lips obey, enough to let you draw breath without shattering.

But woven into that warmth was something else.

Something that clung to you, burrowed deep, branding you with invisible chains.

He leaned close into your ear, his voice a low murmur, smooth and eloquent, yet carrying the cruelty of a blade pressed to the throat.

“Stand. Speak. I will not have a creature collapse before me like wasted prey.”

The frost that had crept through your veins now thrummed faintly beneath your skin, a reminder that what you held inside was not your own.

His power.

His mark.

His gaze burned down at you, unblinking, merciless.

“And now, little wanderer… you belong to me.”

The strength he had forced into you clung to your body like borrowed breath, fragile and fleeting, but enough to stir your limbs into motion.

You staggered upright, knees buckling beneath your own weight, the world tilting as though the frost-slick floor wished to swallow you whole.

Behind you, the circle of runes dimmed, their pale glow sputtering into silence until only the echo of your breathing remained.

Your chest rose and fell in shallow tremors, every inhale jagged, every exhale ghosting white in the frigid air.

You clutched at nothing, fingers twitching uselessly at your sides, desperate for balance.

The weakness clung to your skin like a second shroud, and you could not shake the feeling that even standing now was not your own doing, but his will made flesh inside you.

From the corner of your eye, you felt his gaze more than you saw it.

Regis did not move at once.

He watched.

Silent.

The kind of silence that spoke more than words, pressing against your ribs until you nearly collapsed again under its weight.

His posture remained elegant, measured, yet the stillness carried menace, as if the very act of waiting was an execution held back by choice.

His eyes narrowed faintly, their pale light glinting like the edge of a frozen blade.

“Pitiful,” he murmured at last, the word soft, almost indulgent, yet sharp enough to draw blood.

Your head dropped instinctively, shame twisting through your chest, but he noticed.

He always noticed.

The shift of your shoulders, the quiver of your lips.

Every fragility was laid bare to him.

A faint curve ghosted across his mouth, too cold to be called a smile.

It was the expression of a sovereign watching a creature crawl, of a king amused by weakness but offering no mercy for it.

The silence stretched again, thick with his judgment.

You trembled, your breathing uneven, until his voice cut through once more.

“Stand as if you mean to live. If I wished to see you grovel, I would have left you in the dirt.”

Your body flinched at the order, and yet, as if his words had tethered invisible strings to your frame, your spine strained upward, forcing you into a mockery of posture.

Still trembling. Still fragile.

But standing.

Regis’s eyes lingered, unblinking.

His hand shifted against the pommel of his sword, not to draw it, but in a gesture so casual it unsettled you more than if he had struck.

He tilted his head slightly, as though appraising a piece of art, or a tool.

The faint smile deepened by a fraction, cold, cruel, the kind of expression that promised nothing good.

He did not praise you.

He did not acknowledge the effort it cost you to remain upright.

He simply let his silence speak, a silence that reminded you with every heartbeat that your strength was his gift, and your weakness his amusement.

Regis turned from you as though certain you would follow, his robes sweeping across the frost-slick floor, each step echoing with authority.

He did not glance behind him; he did not need to.

His command lingered in the air, heavy as chains.

“Come.”

You obeyed. You had no choice.

The great hall narrowed into a corridor lined with bluish ice, torches flickering with pale blue fire that gave no warmth.

At the end stretched a long table draped in velvet cloth, silver platters gleaming, crystal goblets catching the light.

Steam curled faintly from food untouched, though you wondered how anything could remain warm in this frozen palace.

He gestured, elegant yet sharp, to the place nearest his chair at the head of the table.

“You will dine at my side.”

Your throat tightened.

The thought of food in your mouth when your body was still hollow from summoning felt impossible, yet his words pressed down like a commandment carved in stone.

With effort, you lowered yourself onto the chair.

Regis sat beside you, movements precise, graceful, yet so deliberate it was clear he wasted no gesture.

He poured dark wine into a goblet and slid it toward you.

His pale eyes gleamed faintly, catching the candlelight.

“Drink.”

The single word struck harder than any threat.

Your hands trembled as you lifted the cup.

The taste was bitter, metallic, yet warmth spread faintly down your throat, settling into your chest like fire hidden beneath the ice.

He leaned back slightly, his gaze never leaving you.

“Fragile things break easily. Yet you endure. That is… curious.”

The words lingered, smooth as silk, yet barbed.

His gaze trailed over your trembling hands, the way your lips pressed together as though to steady yourself.

His eyes narrowed with sharp interest, and then, slowly, he smiled.

It was not warmth.

It was possession.

“Do you realize what it means, little one?” he asked, his voice velvet over steel.

“That you sit here, beside me? That you draw breath only because I allow it?”

Your shoulders tensed, a shiver tearing through you despite the fire still in your throat.

His voice lowered, softer, as though confiding something intimate, yet it dripped with cruel amusement.

“You belong to me. Already. The mark thrums inside you. You feel it, do you not? That chain beneath your skin? It binds you closer with every heartbeat.”

He leaned closer, his presence pressing against you until you felt swallowed by it.

His eyes caught yours, unblinking, merciless, yet gleaming faintly with hunger.

As if the sight of your fear was a rare delicacy to him.

Your chest rose sharply, breath stuttering.

Regis noticed.

The cruel curve of his smile deepened, satisfied.

“Ah… you shiver,” he murmured, voice low, almost tender.

“Not from the cold. From me.”

He reclined again, gaze never breaking from yours, as if he enjoyed the game of watching you try and fail, to compose yourself.

“Understand this. I will not release you. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. You were summoned for me, and I do not relinquish what is mine.”

The words settled over you heavier than iron, heavier than chains, the promise of eternity in his dominion.

He drank from his own goblet, slow, deliberate, his eyes never leaving you.

And you shivered.

Not from the frost, but from the chilling certainty that he was telling the truth.

He hadn’t touched his own food yet; he simply watched you, pale blue eyes glinting like shards of ice in the candlelight.

His silence was a weight, filling the hall even more than the frost.

At last, his voice slid across the table, soft and low.

“Tell me,” he murmured, tilting his head slightly, “what name does this fragile little soul carry?”

Your lips parted, hesitant, your voice breaking before it fully formed.

“I… my name is—”

He raised a single gloved hand, silencing you with the smallest gesture.

The faintest hint of a smile tugged at his mouth.

Not warm, but sharp, as if your effort to speak amused him.

“I already know it.”

His eyes glinted with cruel satisfaction.

“I knew your name before the circle took you. Before the priests called you. Before you drew your first breath in my hall.”

You froze, your breath catching, a shiver trailing down your spine.

His smile deepened a fraction, a predator savoring the tremor in its prey.

“You were summoned for me,” he continued, voice smooth as velvet but heavy with finality.

“Every word, every breath you take here belongs to my will. You are not lost, nor a stranger. You are exactly where you were meant to be.”

Then his tone shifted, softening, not with kindness but with manipulation, like a blade sheathed in silk.

“I will not harm you, little one. Not if you obey. Everything you desire, I will place at your feet. Safety, warmth, purpose.”

He leaned forward slightly, his chair creaking under the motion, the distance between you collapsing until his presence swallowed the air around you.

His gloved hand reached out .

Slow, deliberate, and caught your chin, tilting your face up toward him.

His touch was cold but steady, a caress of iron.

“All I require is obedience,” he murmured, his pale eyes locking with yours.

“Obey me in every command, and no frost will touch you, no blade will find you. You will be protected. Provided for.”

His thumb brushed lightly against the corner of your mouth, almost gentle, though the gesture felt like a mark pressed deeper into your skin.

“But defy me…”

He leaned closer, until you could feel the coolness of his breath against your cheek, until his voice became a whisper that wrapped around your throat.

“…and I will show you what it truly means to break.”

He released you suddenly, as if granting a reprieve, sitting back in his chair with the slow grace of a sovereign who knows his hold is absolute.

You swallowed hard, heart hammering.

His promise of protection felt like a chain; his cold touch still lingered on your skin like a brand.

You shivered, not from the palace’s chill, but from the merciless certainty of his possession.

Regis rose then, slow and deliberate. He did not need to raise his voice; his presence filled the hall until the walls themselves seemed to bend toward him.

“Enough.”

He circled the table once, his boots striking the frozen floor with measured authority, until he stood behind your chair.

His shadow spilled over you, long and heavy.

You could feel him there without looking, a weight of will pressing against your back.

“You will remain here,” he said softly.

“Not as a prisoner. As my guest.”

The word guest coiled in the air like smoke, soft yet suffocating.

You swallowed, some fragile spark inside you daring to think of escape, of rising from the chair, of running to the cold hall beyond the doors.

You shifted an inch, a heartbeat of defiance.

Pain lanced across your chest.

You gasped.

The mark beneath your skin flared, cold and bright, and something invisible but solid wrapped itself around your ribs.

It wasn’t a chain of iron but of power, of frost, of his mana lodged deep inside you.

You could not move.

Your muscles seized.

Regis’s chuckle was low and dark, brushing against the back of your neck like a shiver.

“Ah. So you feel it.”

He leaned down just enough that his lips were near your ear, his voice a velvet murmur laced with cruel amusement.

“The chain within you. It stirs when you even think of leaving me.”

You trembled.

He drew in a slow, satisfied breath, savoring your reaction, then straightened again, his shadow stretching long across the marble.

“This palace will not release you without my word. And neither will I.”

He moved to stand in front of you once more, his pale eyes gleaming with quiet, merciless pleasure as he looked down at you.

“Eat, drink, breathe, wander my halls. You are under my protection now.”

Then he tilted his head, a faint, predatory smile ghosting across his lips.

“You are my guest,” he murmured, the word drawn out like silk over steel.

“Remember what that means.”

The invisible chain pulsed again under your skin, answering his words, and you realized it was not merely power but a promise.

Protection, possession, inevitability.

The air in your lungs tasted like frost and inevitability as the vast hall around you seemed to close in like a cage of ice.

Regis sat once more at the head of the table, silent and composed, as though nothing had happened at all.

But the glint in his eyes told you everything.

He enjoyed this, every tremor, every gasp, every small act of surrender.

And you knew, as the candles hissed and the frost crept closer across the floor, that the word guest would never mean freedom again.

Chapter Text

The air was sharp with frost when the guards stepped forward.

The echo of Regis’s command still lingered in the hall, cutting through the silence like a blade

“Take a rest for now”

Their armored hands reached toward you, but you recoiled, desperation cracking through your voice.

“No! I said no! Please, send me back ...to my world! I don’t belong here!”

Your plea rang out, fragile and frantic against the cold walls.

Regis’s boots struck the marble with a measured rhythm as he closed the distance.

The guards halted at once, bowing their heads, retreating into silence as their king approached.

Regis’s shadow swallowed you whole as he stopped in front of you, his expression carved in ice.

His voice was low, almost gentle, but its weight left no room for defiance.

“Your world?” A bitter laugh slipped past his lips.

“How quaint. You still believe it waits for you, as if my will bends to your begging.”

His gloved hand shot forward, seizing your chin with an iron grip.

He forced your gaze up to his own, sharp and glacial.

“You stand in my hall. You breathe only because I allow it.”

You tried to pull away, but his other hand caught your wrist, pinning it against the wall.

The chill of the stone seeped into your skin as his strength crushed your resistance.

“You plead for freedom as if I would grant it out of pity.”

His smile was a cruel, thin curve.

“But mercy is not mine to give. Obedience ...now that I will take.”

He leaned closer, his breath cold against your cheek, words dripping with cruel intimacy.

“Do not mistake me for a man swayed by tears. I do not send away what is mine.”

His grip tightened once more before he released you abruptly, leaving your body trembling in the void of his touch.

Regis flicked two fingers, and the guards seized you again.

“Take them,” Regis ordered, his voice reverberating through the hall.

“Prepare them. Bathe them. Strip away the stench of another world.”

His gaze lingered on you, gleaming with hunger.

“When I return, they will be dressed as they should be, ...fit for my palace, and for me.”

You cried out, thrashing against the guards’ hold, but Regis’s voice silenced every protest.

“Enough.”

The single word was a command, a verdict, a chain.

His eyes never left you as he spoke again, soft but merciless. 

“You may resist, you may beg, you may weep, but it changes nothing. You are mine now. And mine ...you will remain.”

The guards dragged you from the hall, your cries echoing against the cold walls until the sound was smothered by the endless corridors of ice.

Your struggles ended not in freedom, but in ritual.

The guards dragged you forward, their claws biting into your arms through cold iron gauntlets.

They were not human, of course.

Horns curled from their foreheads, some sharp and spiraled like blades, others cracked and jagged like broken obsidian.

Their eyes burned faintly red in the dim light, expressionless as statues carved for war.

They pulled you through corridors of ice and silence.

The walls shimmered with frost, etched with runes that pulsed faintly like veins beneath skin, alive with enchantments you could not read.

The floors were polished so smooth they reflected your struggling body back at you.

A distorted figure caught between worlds.

Every archway revealed more of Regis’s dominion.

Demonic sentries lined the halls, spears tipped with frozen flame, unmoving yet watchful.

There was no warmth anywhere.

Only the cold that clung to your lungs with each breath, and the oppressive awareness that every stone here belonged to him.

You twisted, scanning for a path, a shadowed passage, any crack in this glacial prison.

But each turn led only deeper into the palace, sealed by looming gates and wards that shimmered faintly when you neared them.

Escape was a word without meaning here.

At last, the guards thrust you into a bathing chamber.

The maids awaited you, tall, elegant figures with horns arched like crowns, their faces masked in calm obedience.

They moved in silence, their hands pale but inhumanly strong, guiding you toward a basin carved of dark crystal.

Steam rose from its surface, but when the water touched your skin, it was a chill so sharp it seared.

They stripped you of the clothes that smelled of your world and washed you as though scrubbing away every trace of it.

Cold water sluiced down your body until you shivered violently, teeth chattering, but the maids neither spoke nor pitied.

They worked with ritual precision, combing your hair, smoothing oils across your skin that left a scent.

Marking you, claiming you.

When they were done, they clothed you not as yourself but as something other.

Silks embroidered with silver threads that gleamed like captured moonlight, garments that wrapped you like both adornment and shackle.

The weight was unbearable, though the fabric was light.

You felt suffocated, reshaped into a figure that belonged not to yourself but to him.

The maids bowed deeply as they stepped back, their horns catching the light.

One pressed a hand to her chest and whispered in the demonic tongue.

"For His Majesty.”

When they left, he remained.

Regis stepped into the chamber, his presence eclipsing even the frost.

He stood behind you, his reflection rising over yours in the mirror, his gloved fingers grazing the line of your shoulder as if sealing the transformation himself.

His voice slid velvet against your ear, heavy with ownership.

“This chamber is mine. This palace is mine.”

His hand tightened briefly, possessively on your shoulder.

“And now...” he leaned closer, his breath cold against your neck,

“...you are mine, too.”

“I… I’m not yours,” you whispered, voice trembling.

“You can’t decide that for me.”

Regis laughed low, a sound like cracking ice.

His grip shifted from your shoulder to the back of your neck, forcing your head slightly forward until you could see only your reflection beneath his looming shadow.

“I decide everything in this realm,” he said, his tone cruelly patient.

“And I have decided you belong to me.”

You shook your head, breath quickening. “I’ll never...”

Regis's hand snapped up, fingers curling under your chin again, pinning it so you were forced to meet his eyes through the mirror.

His other hand slid around your wrist, pressing it hard to your chest, trapping you between his strength and the reflection of his dominance.

“Look at you,” Regis murmured, his gaze burning into yours.

“Defiance painted across your lips… but fear in your eyes. Do you think I cannot see it?”

You tried to turn away, but he held you fast, his face drawing closer until your breaths tangled.

“Say it,” he whispered.

“Say you understand. Say you are mine.”

Your throat tightened.

His grip was unyielding, his stare unrelenting.

The tremor in your body betrayed you as his fingers pressed harder, until the sting of his hold left no room for resistance.

“I…” Your voice cracked, tears stinging your eyes.

“I… understand.”

Regis’s lips curved into a satisfied smile.

He released your chin only to brush his thumb over the place he had held so roughly, a mockery of tenderness.

“Good.”

His tone was softer now, but no less dangerous.

“Learn quickly, my sweetling. Obedience will keep you in my favor. Defiance…”

His thumb traced slowly down your throat, making your pulse leap.

“…will break you.”

Your body betrayed you again.

Shoulders stiff, breath shallow, eyes wide with fear.

You managed only a weak nod.

“Yes,” you whispered.

“Yes… what?” 

Regis's eyes narrowed dangerously. 

“Yes, I’ll obey.”

At last, he let your chin go, but his hand lingered against your throat for a heartbeat longer, a final warning branded into your skin.

Then he stepped back, watching with a predator’s satisfaction as you stood trembling in the silks he had chosen, fear painting your expression.

“Wise,” Regis said, the word dripping with victory.

“Even temporary obedience will do. You will learn the rest soon enough.”

He didn’t give you time to steady yourself.

Regis’s hand slid from your throat to the small of your back, his palm cold even through the silks.

He didn’t push; he guided, almost like a dance.

“Come,” he murmured.

“It is time you see where you are… and what belongs to me.”

You hesitated, but his fingers flexed just enough to make your knees move.

You stumbled forward and he walked at your side, taller, heavier, always a half-step closer than necessary.

The palace stretched endlessly before you, each corridor a cathedral of frost.

Chandeliers of frozen flame hung overhead, burning blue without heat.

The walls were inlaid with moving murals.

Scenes of war and conquest, figures kneeling before a crowned silhouette of ice.

Regis’s voice threaded through the silence, smooth as a blade’s edge.

“Every inch of this hall is built from victory. Do you see them?”

His gloved hand swept toward a fresco of soldiers kneeling.

“Every name etched here is a promise kept. I take what I desire, and I protect what I take.”

You glanced at him warily. “Why show me this?”

His smile was slow, deliberate.

“Because you must understand what it means to be here.”

At last Regis and you reached a frozen reliquary at the end of the hall.

Frost spread across its glass like veins of white ice.

Within lay a crimson shard, its glow fierce yet imprisoned, like a captured heart still trying to beat.

The cold radiating from it felt alive, gnawing at your skin.

Regis’s grip on your wrist tightened until you couldn’t move.

He wanted you to see, to know.

“This,...” he said, his voice a low echo rolling through the vaulted chamber,

“...is the Fire Heart Shard.”

His gloved hand gestured toward the frozen relic.

The shard’s inner light flickered once, as if reacting to his presence.

“It once belonged to Syrios,” Regis continued, his tone softening to something almost intimate but threaded with iron.

“The exiled prince who fancied himself a ruler. He thought fire was enough to defy me. He was wrong.”

He stepped behind you, pressing close enough for the cold leather of his coat to brush your back.

His hand rose from your wrist to your shoulder, then to the hollow of your throat, the tips of his fingers resting just shy of a choke.

His breath chilled the shell of your ear as he leaned down to speak.

“I did not merely break his armies. I took his heart. This shard you see...” his fingers pressed lightly at your throat, as though comparing the pulse there to the shard’s glow

“...is the most prized trophy I have ever claimed.”

The words sank into you like ice water.

“You… stole it?”

You whispered, unable to stop yourself.

“I claimed it.”

His tone snapped like frozen glass.

“I claim what I desire. I bend fire to ice, kings to their knees, worlds to my will. Even a prince’s heart was not beyond my reach.”

His grip at your throat tightened just enough to draw a gasp from you.

“And now you stand here, trembling, still thinking you can hide something from me?”

He moved his hand from your throat to your jaw, tilting your head so you had no choice but to face the reliquary, to watch the shard’s glow dance over your own reflection.

“Look at it,” he murmured.

“This is what happens to those who think they can keep what is mine.”

Your knees wavered under his touch.

“Why are you showing me this?” you managed, voice thin.

Regis chuckled low, a sound like cracking ice.

“Because you must understand who I am. Because I want you to see what I can do. Because I want you to know what awaits those who defy me.”

His other hand slid down to your waist, fingers splayed, pinning you lightly but unmistakably against him while he whispered into your ear. 

“Obedience, and you may yet walk free. Defiance…”

His thumb brushed the corner of your mouth, a teasing, possessive touch.

“…will make you become my next trophy. A heart, a key, a soul. And I will take it all.”

You shuddered under his hold.

The reliquary seemed to pulse in time with your heartbeat, as if the shard inside sensed the fear in your chest.

Regis smiled against your hair, cold and triumphant.

“Do you understand now? Do you believe me when I say there is nothing I cannot have?”

You felt the tremor in your own voice as you whispered,

“Y… yes…”

“Good,” he breathed, brushing his thumb slowly down your jaw in a mockery of tenderness.

“Then give me the key.”

Your whole body shook under his hold.

The cold from his palm seeped into your skin until you felt hollowed out, as if the palace itself had reached inside you.

“The key,” he repeated, softer now but with a predator’s patience.

“Let me see it. Let me take it. Open the door for me.”

“I… I don’t understand…” Your voice was a hoarse whisper.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a key!”

He gave a low laugh that vibrated through his chest and into your back.

“You do. It beats inside you even now. You’ve carried it since you stepped into my realm."

"You’re not a mere guest."

"You’re a gate.”

His thumb stroked your throat, his other hand sliding lower to your waist, his presence overwhelming every inch of space around you.

“All you need,” he murmured,

“is to agree. Stop fighting me. Give me what is already mine.”

“No…” you breathed, but your voice cracked.

“I don’t—”

Regis’s hand moved, his gloved fingers spreading over your sternum, directly above your heart.

The contact was cold, sharp, like ice burning through fabric into skin.

“Here,” he whispered.

“It lives here. I can feel it pulsing. It wants to come out. It wants me.”

Your knees went weak.

“I… don’t…”

“Say yes.” His fingers pressed more firmly.

“Say yes, and it will come.”

His breath ghosted against your ear, the words silken and poisonous.

“Give me the key, and I will open the door between realms. You will see your world again. You will walk free. Say it.”

You tried to pull back, but he held you fast.

His thumb traced slow circles over your heart now, teasing, coaxing, his voice low and hypnotic.

“Say it,” he whispered again.

“I... I...”

The word trembled in your mouth like a trapped bird.

“N-no…”

Regis stilled.

For a heartbeat there was only the sound of your ragged breathing.

Then, like a crack running through ice, his patience broke.

The slap came sudden and cold.

His gloved palm struck across your cheek with enough force to send your head whipping sideways.

Stars burst behind your eyes; the floor tilted.

You crumpled, your body folding against the marble.

The world blurred, colors bleeding into one another, your limbs heavy and unresponsive.

You could barely move, but his voice still reached you, cutting through the haze like a blade through snow.

“I gave you every chance,” Regis hissed, but even his anger carried that velvet undercurrent.

“I coaxed. I guided. I promised. And still you resist.”

His footsteps echoed as he stood over you, the key glinting faintly in his fist.

“If you cannot behave like my guest, you will be treated like my prisoner.”

You felt rather than saw him gesture.

“Guards,” he said, voice calm again, icy as the walls.

“Take them to the lower chamber.”

Hands, clawed and cold, closed around your arms, lifting you easily from the floor.

You swayed between them, too weak to struggle.

Your vision swam, but the sound of Regis’s words clung to you like frost.

“Bind them to the bedpost. They are not to leave until I say so.”

“Yes, Majesty,” a guard’s guttural voice replied.

The world narrowed to the echo of boots, the scrape of doors, the biting chill of iron restraints.

As the guards carried you away, Regis’s voice followed, soft and distant but still commanding. 

“You will learn,” he murmured.

“Even if I must teach you the hard way.”

The last thing you felt was the cold of a chain against your wrist and the whisper of silk tearing as they fastened you to the bed’s carved post.

Darkness edged your vision, but his words lingered like a spell.

Chapter Text

The first thing you tasted was iron.

Blood lingered sharp on your tongue, clinging to the edge of your mouth where Regis’s hand had struck you.

The second was cold.

Not the wild, biting chill of the open ice fields.

But a stillness that seeped from the stone walls into your skin, sinking deep until even your breath felt heavy.

Your eyes fluttered open.

Shadows blurred into focus.

A high-arched ceiling, frost creeping across carved beams, a single lantern flickering blue with witchlight.

This was no dungeon.

No dank cell.

It looked almost like a bedchamber.

A regal one, with silken curtains draped over tall windows and a fur-draped mattress beneath you.

Yet the chains on your wrists told the truth.

You lifted your arms instinctively, but the clink of iron cut the air.

Both wrists were bound to the carved posts of the bed, the restraints cold and unyielding against your skin.

You pulled once, twice, the metal biting into you, but there was no give.

Panic flared, hot and immediate.

“No… no, no, no…”

Your voice cracked, hoarse from the cold air.

Every word vanished into the howl outside.

The storm raged beyond the glass, a blizzard swallowing the world.

Snow lashed against the window panes in furious waves, thunder rolling low like a growl from the heavens.

It was as though the whole plane mirrored Regis’s mood.

Violent, restless, absolute.

You swallowed hard, tasting blood again.

Not a prison, you thought, staring at the velvet drapes, the carved stone hearth, the silk sheets beneath your body.

It looks like a chamber for a favored guest. A consort. A prisoner dressed as something else.

The chains rattled again as you tested them, the sound too loud, too final in the storm’s lull.

You sagged against the headboard, chest heaving, your pulse thundering in your ears.

Outside, the blizzard howled. Inside, silence pressed down.

Heavy, waiting, as if the walls themselves were listening.

And then, faintly, through the roar of snow and ice, came the echo of approaching footsteps.

The door creaked open.

Regis entered without a word.

His presence, normally so sharp and cold, seemed muted tonight, like the storm outside had drained its fury into him.

His cloak trailed behind him, heavy with frost, his pale hair damp with melted snow.

But it was his eyes that unsettled you most.

They looked… sad.

He shut the door, the sound echoing too loud in the silence, then strode forward.

His boots clicked against the stone, each step deliberate, yet there was no triumph in his movements now.

Only weight.

You stiffened as he approached the bed.

Regis halted at your side.

For a moment, he only stared down at you.

His gaze tracing the chains, your bloodied lip, the bruise darkening across your cheek where his glove had struck.

His jaw tightened.

Then slowly, hesitantly, he reached out.

His hand brushed against your forehead, cold and careful, as though testing for fever.

You flinched away instantly, chains clattering as you turned your face from his touch.

The hurt that flickered in his expression was sharper than any blade.

Regis’s hand trembled once, before lowering to hover near your cheek.

His fingers ghosted over the bruise he had made, the one still burning on your skin.

His eyes softened further, something raw and unguarded breaking through his usual mask.

“...Sorry.”

His voice cracked low, almost hoarse.

“I didn’t mean it.”

You blinked at him, disbelief freezing your tongue.

Regis’s hand lingered just short of your skin, his entire posture torn between reaching and restraining.

He swallowed hard, and when he spoke again the words were nothing like the manipulative silk he had spun before.

They were unchecked, stripped bare, heavy with a vulnerability you never thought him capable of.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he whispered.

“Not you.”

The storm outside howled against the glass, but in the chamber, only the sound of his confession remained. 

Regis’s hand lingered at your cheek, hovering, trembling faintly as though caught between restraint and desire.

His eyes… you couldn’t read them.

Was it guilt? Regret?

Or was it another mask, another weapon in his endless game of control?

Your breath quickened, and you turned your face aside, refusing the comfort he seemed to offer.

The chains at your wrists rattled sharply in the silence.

Regis withdrew his hand slowly, curling it into a fist at his side.

His expression smoothed, but it did not harden fully back into ice.

Instead, there was something unsettling. 

A blend of weariness and hunger, a softness that felt more dangerous than cruelty.

“I want you to understand,” he said at last, his voice low, almost coaxing.

“This is not about pain. Not about ruin.”

You glanced up warily.

“You struck me. You chained me.”

“And yet you still breathe,” Regis countered softly.

He sank into a crouch before the bed, so your faces were level, his cloak spilling across the floor like a shadow.

His eyes searched yours, unblinking.

“I take much from those who stand against me, yes. But I do not take their lives. Not Syrios, not the others.”

Your heart stuttered.

“Syrios… he’s alive?”

Regis nodded once, his blue hair brushing forward over his brow.

“The Fire Prince. He raged, he fought, he bled. I took from him his shard. The essence of his flame, the power that made him a sovereign. But I left him with life. With breath. With the weight of knowing his greatest strength belongs now to me.”

His words dripped with victory, yet there was no cruelty in the telling.

Only certainty.

“I do not destroy,” Regis went on, his tone almost tender.

“I claim. I reshape. I bind.”

His gaze flicked to your bound wrists and lingered before returning to your face.

“Do you see? What I take becomes mine, but what is mine endures.”

Your throat tightened, a protest trembling on your lips, but no words came.

Regis leaned closer, his voice falling to a whisper, dangerous in its softness.

“Your world will not be crushed. Not shattered. Not drowned in ruin. Why would I destroy what I desire to make mine?”

His cold breath ghosted across your lips.

“I only seek its essence, as I sought Syrios’s. The core of its power. Its heart.”

He tilted his head, studying you as if trying to read every flicker of thought.

“So do not fear me,” he murmured.

“Do not fight me. Give me the key willingly, and I will prove it. Your world will remain. You will remain. Only… bound to me.”

His words slid over you like silk.

Half-promise, half-threat.

You could not tell if you were hearing confession or manipulation, truth or poison.

And that, perhaps, was what frightened you most.

Regis’s gaze never left you.

The storm outside rattled the windows, but in the chamber his voice was the only sound.

Soft, steady, and laced with something older than language.

“You think me cruel,” he murmured, his fingers brushing a lock of hair from your face.

“You think me a thief. But what I offer is a gift.”

His thumb traced the bruise on your cheek, lingering there, as though even his touch could erase it.

“I want to share the goodness of my kingdom, to bring its knowledge, its power, to your world. Not to destroy, but to uplift. To protect. To bind.”

He shifted closer, his cloak spilling across the bed, his scent of frost and faint smoke enveloping you.

“If only you would stop fighting me,” he whispered, “you would see it. You would feel it. All you need to do… is agree.”

His hands slid from your face to your shoulders, gloved fingers pressing lightly, possessively.

His lips brushed the shell of your ear as he spoke again.

But now his voice changed.

Lower. Slower. Rhythmic.

Chant. Spell. 

Words you did not understand poured from him, ancient syllables curling like smoke through the air.

The sound was beautiful and wrong, sliding under your skin, making the hair on your arms rise.

The chains on your wrists trembled faintly with each utterance.

You tried to look away, but his hand caught your chin, tilting your head back toward him.

“Do not fight,” he murmured between the strange words.

“Just listen. Just feel.”

The chant deepened, his voice weaving around your heartbeat.

Frost and heat mingled under your skin, your mind blurring at the edges.

You tried to speak, to refuse again.

But your lips only trembled.

“No…” you whispered, weakly.

“I… can’t…”

“Yes,” Regis breathed, his thumb stroking slow circles at the base of your throat.

“You can. You will. Give me the key. Give me your yes.”

His other hand slid down to your waist, pressing you lightly back against the mattress.

The touch was not brutal but unrelenting.

Teasing, possessive, but every movement was deliberate.

His breath was cool against your lips.

“I will not harm your world,” he murmured between incantations.

“I will not harm you. I will bring only my gift, my blessing. All I need is you. All I need is your yes.”

The words wrapped around you like silk, soft and poisonous.

Your thoughts slipped, your heartbeat syncing with the rhythm of his chant.

“Say it,” he whispered.

“Say yes.”

Your lips parted.

The word trembled there, a bird caught in a snare.

“…yes…”

It was barely above a whisper.

Immediately, a glow sparked beneath his palm.

It started as a faint pulse, then swelled into a thin, blinding light that pushed out from your chest.

The warmth of it contrasted the icy press of his glove until you almost cried out.

Faint shape emerged from your heart, forming out of light and color.

A small, translucent key, ice and fire entwined, pulsing with your own heartbeat.

It drifted upward from your chest like a soul being drawn out.

Regis moved with inhuman speed.

His gloved fingers closed around the key the instant it appeared, the glow vanishing as if swallowed whole.

The moment he did, a shock of power cracked through the chamber.

The chains on your wrists rattled violently, then shattered into frozen shards that fell away from your skin.

Your body went slack, your strength draining out with the key.

You slumped forward into Regis’s arms, your breath ragged and shallow.

He caught you easily, holding you against him, the key glinting coldly in his palm.

His hand rose to cradle the back of your head, his thumb brushing your temple with a tenderness at odds with the power he had just stolen.

“Good,” Regis murmured into your hair.

“You’ve given it to me. At last.”

His arms tightened slightly, almost like an embrace, the key burning bright between you both.

Outside, the storm howled, but in the chamber you could only hear his heartbeat and his voice, low and possessive. 

“Now, nothing will stand between us.”

The key was gone.

You felt hollow, emptied, a vessel with nothing left to give.

You went pliant over Regis's arms, your chest aching with every shallow breath.

Regis lingered above you, the faint glow of the key still flickering between his fingers.

His expression was regal, triumphant.

But then his gaze returned to you, and something in him shifted.

His composure cracked, revealing not only a conqueror but a man consumed.

He gripped your waist tighter, flushing into him.

Closing the gap between you and him.

His gloved hand brushed your cheek, his thumb tracing your trembling lip.

The gesture was tender, almost reverent, yet it left no doubt of ownership.

“You gave me the key,” he whispered, voice like velvet drawn over steel.

“But it is not enough. Not yet.”

His hand slid, pausing over your heart.

You stiffened, but he pressed closer, his cold presence wrapping around you.

“I will give you my blessing in return,” he murmured, his lips so near your ear that the words became breath against your skin.

“The mark of ice. The gift of corruption. With it, the world will know you as mine. Body, mind, and soul.”

His palm pressed flat to your chest.

The chill went from a sharp sting to an all-consuming flood, a glacier breaking inside you.

You gasped, arching back against his hold, fingers clutching at his coat as ice threaded through your veins like silver fire.

Regis’s voice was still a low murmur at your ear, velvet words sliding into your mind like a spell.

“Breathe… yes… like that,” he coaxed.

“Do not fight it. This is my gift. My blessing. Strength for fragility. Warmth against fear.”

The pain peaked and broke, rolling into a feverish rush of power that made your limbs tremble.

You felt weightless, dizzy, as though his hand were rewriting something in you.

His thumb began to stroke slow circles just below your collarbone.

Grounding you while the cold consumed you.

“Good,” Regis whispered.

“You’re taking it so well. My touch, my strength… all of it will be yours.”

He shifted, his other hand rising to cradle the back of your neck, his gloved fingers spreading wide as though to cradle the tremor of your pulse.

His mouth brushed your temple, not a kiss but a promise.

“Do not fear. I am here. Always.”

You shuddered against him.

The ice in your veins turned molten, an ache that was equal parts pain and hunger.

He leaned in closer, and his lips hovered at the hollow of your throat.

His words slid over your skin, slow and low. 

“You belong to me. Always. Forever...” he murmured.

A flare of cold burned at the side of your neck.

You gasped as his thumb pressed there, tracing a sigil you could not see but felt sinking into your skin.

It seared a mark into you, sharp and cool, then warm. 

A claim no one else would ever mistake.

Regis stayed elegant, gazing at you like a king blessing a chosen one, but his composure cracked at the edges.

His thumb lingered at your throat.

His hand trembled, just barely, as though the power running between you was changing him too.

“You’re beautiful,” he said quietly, the words almost a confession.

“Even like this. Especially like this.”

He tilted your chin up again.

His eyes, once cold and impassive, shone with a darker hunger now.

Not just the hunger of conquest, but something far more dangerous.

His voice softened, the order bending toward a plea. 

“Stay with me. Don’t turn away. Say you’ll stay.”

Your lips trembled under his thumb.

His grip remained absolute, but his touch had shifted.

No longer restrained elegance, but something deeper, more consuming.

His forehead brushed yours, his breath cool and heavy against your mouth.

“You’re mine,” he whispered again, the words were rough now.

Breaking at the edges as though his obsession were tearing through his composure.

“Mine to protect. Mine to hold. Mine to…”

And then, as if restraint snapped in two, he crushed his mouth to yours.

The kiss was no longer gentle.

It was fierce, claiming, his lips moving against yours with a hunger that left no room for breath.

Cold and fire mingled.

The sear of his blessing, the chill of his body until you couldn’t tell where the pain ended and the fever began.

His hand at the back of your neck pulled you closer, angling your face upward so you could not escape.

His thumb pressed against the mark he had seared into your skin, as if each kiss could drive it deeper, bind it tighter.

You gasped against his lips, but he swallowed the sound, deepening the kiss until the world spun.

His gloved fingers slid from your jaw to cup your cheek, rough leather contrasting with the tenderness of the gesture.

He kissed you again, harder, slower, lingering on your lower lip before claiming your mouth once more, as if he could drink every fragment of resistance from you.

When he finally tore back, his breath trembled against your lips, unsteady for the first time.

His eyes, dark and fever-bright, devoured your face as though memorizing every expression you made.

The tears caught on your lashes, the flush on your skin, the parting of your mouth as you tried to breathe.

His thumb brushed your swollen lip, trembling slightly despite the strength of his hold.

His voice, when it came, was low, almost raw.

“Even your trembling… even your surrender. It's… mine.”

Regis murmured, each word punctuated with the ghost of his breath against your skin. 

"Exquisite..."

He leaned in again, lips grazing yours once more, softer this time but no less possessive.

His voice a whisper that bound like chains. 

“And I will never let you go.”

His mouth lingered over yours, reluctant to part. 

But when he finally drew back, it wasn’t to release you.

His lips hovered a breath away, brushing against you again and again.

Small, claiming touches that set your skin aflame.

Your eyes fluttered shut at the feather-light contact, a soft gasp slipping past your lips before you could stop it.

The cheeks flushed hot despite the cold, your lashes trembling as you struggled to steady your breathing.

“Perfect…” Regis whispered, the word rough and low, as though pulled from the depths of his chest.

“Even your trembling belongs to me.”

A whimper broke in your throat, quiet but audible.

Your shoulders tensed at the sound, as if ashamed, but Regis’s grip only tightened, savoring it.

Before you could catch your breath, his lips left yours only to trail lower. 

A slow path across your cheek, along the line of your jaw.

Each press was deliberate, almost reverent, yet charged with hunger.

His cool breath fanned across your skin, and your lips parted helplessly.

A shiver running through you with every press of his mouth.

Each kiss left you tilting ever so slightly toward him, your body betraying the protest in your eyes.

Then he reached the mark on your neck.

His mouth hovered there, his thumb pressing into it as though to remind you it existed.

Making you wince, and his mouth hovered there for a heartbeat.

You swallowed hard, your throat bobbing against his lips.

His lips brushed the seared skin once, twice, before he pressed a lingering kiss directly onto the brand.

You whimpered again, this one softer, drawn out, as the sensation sent a tremor through your whole body.

Your eyes squeezed shut, your lips quivering, every breath uneven.

The shock of it sent a tremor through you.

The cold of him, the heat in your veins, the tenderness laced with a terrible finality.

“Here,” Regis murmured against your skin, his words sinking into the mark.

“So the world sees. So no one mistakes who you belong to.”

He kissed the spot again, harder this time, before dragging his lips slowly upward, back to your jaw, then to the corner of your mouth.

Making you gasp.

Your head tilting back instinctively as though offering him more.

His pace was unhurried, savoring, like a man unwilling to release his claim even for a heartbeat.

Your breath hitched with each touch until he reached the corner of your mouth.

You let out a shaky exhale, your lashes still lowered, lips trembling and half-parted as if waiting.

By the time his mouth claimed yours again, your body was trembling.

Part fear, part something warmer that left you breathless.

The kiss was deeper, fiercer; you whimpered into him, caught between resistance and surrender, your hands curling helplessly into the silks at your sides.

His hand tangled at the nape of your neck held you firmly, while his other pressed against your chest, feeling the frantic thrum of your heart.

When he finally drew back, your lips were swollen, parted as if searching for air.

A flush painted your cheeks, your lashes wet with the tears you hadn’t realized had slipped free.

His eyes, fever-bright and hungry, devoured every detail.

Your trembling, your parted mouth, the faint sound still caught in your throat.

“Mine,” he whispered one last time, brushing a final kiss against your throat, directly over the mark.

“Body, mind, and soul.”

The chamber around you faded to frost and shadow.

Only his hands, his touches and his voice remained

Soft, low, hypnotic.

Weaving possession into promise, until you couldn’t tell which was which.

Chapter Text

Regis’s kiss lingered on your lips until your breath came shallow and unsteady.

His mouth pressed firmly against yours, drinking in your quivers, refusing to part until you had surrendered every last gasp of air.

When he finally drew back, it was not to release you.

His hand stayed firm at your neck, thumb stroking slowly over the mark he had burned into your skin, the touch a cruel echo of tenderness.

His gaze softened, but his grip only tightened, his touch both unyielding and possessive.

Your lashes fluttered, your lips still parted as though waiting for more.

Your chest rose and fell in uneven tremors, every breath shallow, shaky.

A faint whimper caught at the back of your throat, though you bit it back, heat rushing to your cheeks.

Regis’s smile deepened, slow and dangerous.

His thumb grazed the corner of your trembling mouth.

“How sweet,” he murmured, his tone filled with indulgent delight.

“Every gasp, every sound, every tremor of your lips belongs to me.

You taste of fear, of warmth, of surrender… it is exquisite.”

He bent again, his lips brushing lightly across yours before pressing harder, claiming them once more in a kiss that left no space for breath.

When he parted from you again, his gaze devoured your expression.

The flush of your cheeks, the wet shimmer in your lashes, the helpless parting of your lips.

“So fragile,” he whispered, his voice vibrating with barely restrained hunger.

“And yet, so perfect. The way you quiver against me, the way your breath stutters… ah, it delights me. Do you even realize how beautiful you are like this?”

Your lips trembled, your throat tight, but you couldn’t form words.

He chuckled softly, leaning close enough that his breath tickled against your mouth.

“You do not need to speak,” Regis said.

“I can see everything I need in your eyes, in the way you lean toward me even when you fear me.”

His hand at your neck squeezed faintly, reminding you of his control.

“How adorable… to see you caught between terror and yearning. It makes me happy.”

Regis kissed you again, slower this time, savoring.

His lips moved deliberately, lingering at your lower lip before catching it between his teeth and letting it go with a sigh of satisfaction. 

“Delicious,” he breathed, his words low against your skin.

“Do you know what you do to me? Every shiver, every whimper, they are mine now. You are mine now. And nothing in any realm could make me let you go.”

He drew back just enough to gaze at you fully, his hand stroking over your cheek as if you were the most delicate, precious jewel.

His eyes burned, bright and fevered, no longer the mask of a king but the raw hunger of a man consumed.

“You are my joy,” Regis confessed, his voice breaking into something softer, almost trembling.

“My delight. My treasure. To hold you, to taste you, to watch you tremble in my arms… it is happiness I never knew I craved. And now that I have it....”

His grip tightened, his lips pressing hard to your temple.

“...I will never, never give it up.”

The air was too still.

The palace itself seemed to hold its breath, walls of frost reflecting your trembling form back at you from every angle.

You caught sight of yourself in the mirrored ice, flushed cheeks, wide eyes, lips red and swollen from his kiss.

And the sight only made you shiver harder.

Regis stayed close, so close his shadow swallowed yours.

His hand cupped your face, his thumb brushing beneath your eye where a tear had dared to fall.

The touch was gentle, almost reverent, yet the other hand at your waist gripped tighter, tightening like a shackle, pulling you flush against his chest.

The leather of his coat was cold against your cheek as he drew you nearer, and you let out a breathless gasp at the sheer force of his hold.

“I should take the world,” he said, voice low, as though confessing a secret not meant for any ears but yours.

His words vibrated through his chest, seeping into you where your body was pressed against him.

“I should conquer every realm, bend them all to my will.”

Your eyes widened, and your brows furrowed faintly, unsure whether to shrink back or lean closer.

Your lips parted, trembling, but no sound came.

Only a breath that hitched when his forehead pressed against yours.

His breath ghosted over your mouth, cold and lingering, making you shiver again.

His grip tightened, almost desperate, fingers digging into your waist as though he feared you might vanish if he let go.

“But I no longer care for the world.”

His voice cracked at the edges, softened into something fevered.

His eyes bore into yours with a hunger that stripped away his mask of elegance.

“All I need is here. All I need… is you.”

Your lips quivered at his words, the protest dying before it could form.

Your throat tightened, your breath catching in ragged pulls.

A sheen of tears blurred your vision, yet you couldn’t look away.

His gaze devoured every flicker of emotion on your face.

The trembling, the hesitation, the helplessness that betrayed your fear and the strange pull binding you closer.

“I will not risk you,” he whispered, brushing the pad of his thumb along your cheekbone.

His words were soft, yet they bound tighter than chains.

“Not for conquest. Not for kingdoms. Not even for the world itself.”

You blinked, startled, as he drew back just enough to raise his hand.

The crystalline key shimmered in his grasp.

Frost spiraled upward instantly, curling around it like chains of glass until the key was locked inside a flawless tube of solid ice.

You flinched at the sharp sound of the crystal sealing, your body jerking faintly in his arms.

Your eyes widened, panic flashing through them, and you stared at the frozen prison enveloping the key as though it were your own.

Regis only smiled.

The curve of his lips was cruel and serene, as though this had been inevitable all along.

With a snap of his fingers, the air itself shifted.

The murals froze mid-motion, trapped in the silence of their last breath.

The captured fire hearts dimmed, their glow strangled into stillness.

Beyond the palace walls, all sound, all movement ceased.

The world itself was gone, erased into silence.

You gasped, your lips trembling as your breath fogged in the cold.

Your hands clenched weakly at the folds of his coat, seeking balance as your knees threatened to give way beneath the unnatural stillness.

Your reflection stared back at you from the frozen walls.

Your own face flushed, lashes wet, lips parted in disbelief.

“…You… stopped everything…”

The words escaped in a whisper, and breaking, barely audible.

Regis bent close, his lips brushing your temple, cold and silken, his voice a low caress.

Each word vibrated against your skin, as if the sound itself was a touch.

“It's done,” he murmured, slow and deliberate.

“Time and space beyond these halls are nothing to us now. No one can reach you. No one can take you.”

The words slid down your spine like ice water.

You shuddered in his grasp, a small, involuntary sound catching in your throat.

His tone was soft, coaxing, almost loving, yet the arms that held you were iron.

His fingers flexed slightly at your waist, reminding you with each heartbeat that you were contained, captured.

Escape was no longer even a thought; it was already gone.

“The world outside is fragile,” he continued, his breath brushing your ear like a promise.

“Tainted. Unworthy. For You...”

He tilted his head, lips grazing the edge of your jaw with every word.

The faintest scrape of his teeth followed, making your breath hitch.

He pressed a kiss just below your ear, cool and deliberate, before tracing the path down your neck, slower now, his mouth brushing the pulse at your throat.

“But here, with me…”

His grip on your waist tightened, pulling you closer until your heartbeat was pressed against his chest.

His lips grazed the hollow at the base of your throat, then the soft skin just above your collarbone.

“…you will be safe. Untouched. Forever.”

Your eyes filled with unshed tears, not just sorrow but the terrible finality of his words.

You trembled, shoulders curling as if to hide, but your body betrayed you: leaning closer, seeking the only warmth in the endless frost.

Your lips parted on a shaky breath; your lashes fluttered, wet and heavy.

Regis’s hand slid from your throat down to your waist, the slow glide of leather over your trembling skin making you stiffen before you melted against him.

His hand slid from your throat down to your waist, the slow glide of leather over your trembling skin making you stiffen before you sagged into him.

He drew you fully into his embrace until no space was left between you. His coat smelled of frost and something darker, richer; it wrapped you like a second skin.

He pressed another kiss to the side of your neck, directly over the faint glow of his mark.

A high, breathless sound escaped you, but your body no longer jerked back.

Your head tilted slowly, almost dreamlike, baring your throat, your eyes wide but glassy, pupils dilated as if already slipping.

“Don’t be afraid,” Regis whispered against your skin.

His tone deepened; each word became deliberate, rhythmic.

His lips brushed the mark again as he began the chant in full, no longer veiling it. 

“Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay.

Let the frost close over your past.

Let my hands be your walls, my voice be your sky.

Silks to bind you, jewels to keep you,

My breath, my touch, my vow to seep through into you.

Be still. Be mine.

Be safe. Be loved.

Be my sanctuary, as I am yours.

Here in my arms, in my world.

You will not stray. You will not fade.

You will stay.”

Each refrain came with a slow stroke of his thumb across your lower lip, a kiss at your jaw or your throat, a brush of cold breath against your ear.

Your knees weakened under the weight of the sound.

Your fingers unfurled from his coat, hands falling slack against his chest, eyes fluttering shut but never opening fully.

“All I ask,” Regis said softly between verses, “is that you stay. Here. With me. In me.”

The frost-light around you shimmered and dimmed, leaving only his arms like iron and ice, holding you as if the palace itself had hands.

His fingers slid upward into your hair, combing through the strands slowly.

His other hand pressed to the small of your back, drawing you closer until his heartbeat, or the echo of it, pulsed under your palm.

He didn’t go to your lips.

Instead, he lowered his head to your cheek, your jaw, then the hollow of your throat.

His mouth brushed your skin there in time with his whispered chant.

“Mine. Mine. Mine.

Silks to shield you. Jewels to keep you.

A crown to make you more than a guest, more than a key.

My touch to claim you, my name to hold you,

My voice to bind you,

Body, heart, and soul.

Stay. Stay. Stay.”

Each word landed like frost on glass.

You blinked slowly, lashes heavy, breathing evening out as though the chant was your only rhythm now.

The tremors in your body softened.

Your fingers, once trembling, lay open against his chest.

Your mouth parted without sound, your gaze unfocused, as if your mind were sliding gently from your grasp.

Regis smiled, his expression was so soft and devastating.

He cupped your face in both hands, lifting it so your tear-streaked but vacant gaze met his.

His eyes were no longer cold.

They burned with obsession, with something that was no longer entirely power but need.

“You are my kingdom,” he said softly, each word trembling like a prayer and a command, his breath brushing your lips as he continued his chant.

“My forever. Even if the world forgets… I won't...”

Your eyes fluttered but did not focus.

Your breath came slow, each inhale matching the rhythm of his voice.

Your fingers lay limp against his chest, your head tilted easily as his hand guided it, your body a pliant weight in his arms.

Regis’s lips grazed your temple, and his chant deepened, no longer a whisper but a slow, deliberate recitation.

His breath chilling your ear as he spoke. 

“In my hands, your name is fading.

In my arms, your will is still.

All you were is melting,

All you are is mine to fill.

No doors. No roads. No sky.

No dawn, no tide, no flight.

Only frost and only I.

Only my voice, only my night.

Give me your sight, give me your breath.

Give me your heart’s last sound.

Stay in my spell beyond all death,

My forever, here, bound.”

 

He punctuated each verse with a touch.

A thumb brushing your lip, a kiss to your jaw, a cold palm pressed over your heart.

His voice dropped lower still, velvet wrapping iron. 

“I claim. I keep. I hold.

I crown. I bind. I fold.

No escape, no end, no key.

Only frost. Only me.”

By now your eyes were half-lidded, pupils dilated, breath shallow but steady.

You could feel his voice more than hear it, each syllable pulsing in your veins like slow, heavy beats of ice.

The room’s edges blurred; only his face and hands remained clear.

Regis cradled your jaw, tilting your head up so he could see the empty softness beginning to creep into your gaze.

His smile was soft, but his eyes were fever-bright.

He pressed a lingering kiss to the spot over your heart, his breath cold against your skin.

“You will stay,” he whispered one last time.

“Until there is nothing left but us.”

Outside, the palace had sealed fully, frost curling over every door and window, the world beyond forgotten.

Inside, his voice rolled over you like waves, a dark lullaby.

You could feel yourself sliding deeper, thought by thought, into the stillness he promised, pliant, quiet, and held.

Your lips trembled as though searching for words, but none came until his chant wound through you one last time, sinking into marrow and mind.

The silence stretched, broken only by the sound of your own shallow breaths against his chest.

Then, softly, dreamlike, your voice slipped free:

“…I’ll… stay.”

The words rang with quiet certainty, not desperate, not fearful, but as a glad.

As though they had been waiting for you all along.

For a heartbeat, Regis stilled.

Then his arms snapped tight around you, pulling you against him until you could feel the tremor in his body.

His laughter broke loose.

No longer soft, but jagged and manic, a sound too joyous and too dark all at once.

It rolled up from his chest like the cracking of ice, unsteady and exultant, shuddering through his frame as if he’d finally seized something he’d chased for centuries.

His lips pressed feverishly to your hair, your ear, your mark, his voice quivering with obsession as he hissed between fragments of that wild laughter. 

“Yessss… stay. Gladly stay. Mine. My forever. My kingdom.”

Your eyes fluttered shut, peace washing over you like frost.

Foreign, suffocating, inescapable.

The world outside had already ceased to exist.

There was no time, no sky, no door, no escape.

Only his arms, only his voice, only the frozen eternity he had sealed around you.

And in the end, you accepted it.

The palace of frost became your sanctuary.

Demon King Regis, your captor, your king, became yours forever.

And so, in the hush of eternal frost, the world forgot you.

But in Regis’s arms, you were remembered forever.

Chapter Text

The key pulsed coldly between you, its light sinking into your skin as if etching a brand across your soul.

It wasn’t just cold now, it burned with an alien clarity, a living thing thrumming in your blood.

You could barely lift your head, but you felt his breath at your hair, his heartbeat under your cheek, steady and deliberate like a war drum.

“Good,” he whispered again, savoring each syllable like wine.

“The key is mine… and through it, everything else.”

You swallowed, lips trembling, your voice a thin thread of sound.

“Where… where do you even put such a thing? How do you, ...how do you use it?”

For an instant his hand stilled against your temple.

Then it began, a sound bubbling up from deep within his chest.

Not laughter at first, but a low tremor of something feverish, cracking open into something sharper.

The laugh rolled over you, filling the chamber as though he were crowning himself king of every echoes.

“Where?”

Demon King Regis's eyes caught the dim light and gleamed with something unhinged.

“Where? There’s no vault for this. There’s no altar. The world itself will hold it, because I will carve the world to fit it.”

He tilted your chin upward, his smile spreading too wide, too bright.

Then he began to speak to himself, words tumbling out between shuddering breaths.

“Utopia… this frozen ark. That digital world. This copy of a copy of a dream."

"They thought they could hide you from me. But I’m here. I’m here. I’ll take it all back. I’ll take it all and it will kneel.”

His grip on your jaw tightened just enough to make you gasp.

“Watch me.”

He lifted the key high, hand shaking with hunger, his free hand weaving through the air in motions too fast, too complex to follow.

The language that spilled from his mouth was older than stone, older than stars, wrong and true at once, each syllable vibrating through the marrow of your bones, making your vision blur.

Frost crawled over the walls, jagged webs of ice cracking outward from him.

The air thickened, warped, and tore.

Before you, the space bent inward and shattered.

Cracks ran through the air like splintering glass, and a shape emerged.

A door, vast and formless, edges rimmed with burning ice.

It wasn’t wood, nor iron, it was possibility, a threshold, a wound in the fabric of worlds, held in place by the key that blazed in Demon King Regis’s grip.

He pulled you tighter against him, his lips brushing your ear, voice rich with triumph but slipping toward mania.

“Do you see?” he whispered, trembling with reverence and rage.

“This is what your world tried to hide. Another realm, waiting. Your realm. My next kingdom.”

And then the mirror bloomed.

Across from you, conjured in the frost as if the ice itself were a canvas, a mirror surfaced.

A tall one, jagged, alive.

It showed not you and the Demon King, but another scene entirely.

Regis Altare, not this one but a softer reflection.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with Axel Syrios, Gavis Bettel, Machina X Flayon, Banzoin Hakka, and Josuiji Shinri.

Their hands reached out toward something unseen, their expressions fierce but human, the friends you had known, the ones who had stood beside you.

They could not see you; the image was one-sided, their figures wreathed in dim light like saints painted on glass.

The sight cut through you sharper than any blade.

Your chest seized, a tremor of sorrow and recognition.

These were your companions.

This was Utopia, world where Elysium resided, not his conquest but the world you had been summoned from, the world where you belonged.

And they were in danger.

A sound left you, small and broken, a whimper of agony.

But you could not move.

You lay limp in Demon King Regis’s arms while his twisted reflection claimed the key that bound everything.

Demon King Regis saw it too.

He laughed again, crueler now, teeth bared like a predator.

“Look at them,” he said, gesturing at the mirror with a flick of his wrist.

“The shadows of a dream. That’s the mask I wore for you, the one you clung to. The heroes, the guild, the friendship. All of it a door for me to step through.”

His voice dropped to a hiss. “All of it ...is mine now.”

He angled the key and the door’s surface rippled, showing flashes of familiar light, green fields, rooftops, the sky of your world.

He leaned close, his breath hot against your ear, and whispered. 

“With this, I don’t just step through. I take everything. Utopia will kneel. Your friends will kneel. And you...”

His grip tightened, possessive and unyielding, “...you will sit at my side as I do it.”

Demon King Regis’s laughter curled and coiled through the chamber until it seemed to come from every wall, every shard of ice.

His grip on your chin was merciless, forcing your eyes back toward the mirror of frost.

There, your friends, your guild, your family in Utopia.

Regis Altare, not the king who held you but his parallel self, stood with Axel, Bettel, Flayon, Hakka, and Shinri.

They were reaching, always reaching, toward something unseen.

Toward you.

A strangled sound caught in your throat, and with the last of your voice you whispered,

“No… no…”

It was all you could manage.

All your energy had already been stripped away, consumed into the key that burned cold against your skin.

You had nothing left but breath and despair.

Demon King Regis’s lips brushed your ear, velvet words dripping poison into the hollow of your soul.

“Do you see them, little one? How they searched for you, how they fought, how they ached to bring you back?”

Your breath hitched, another broken whisper.

“No…”

He chuckled darkly, his thumb stroking the curve of your trembling lip, as though mocking the refusal he knew was powerless.

“But it doesn’t matter now. They searched, and searched, and searched… and they failed. Because you are mine. No one from Tempus will claim you back.”

You shook your head weakly, tears spilling, every ounce of your will straining against his words.

“Don't… please...”

Demon King Regis's smile cut sharper, his voice rising, fevered and cruel.

“Yes. Mine. You will sit beside me as I shatter Utopia, as I burn it black with frost, as I devour their precious Elysium."

"I will crush them one by one, and when they look at you, when they see you, they will know you not as their friend, not as their anchor, but as my consort, my crown, my victory.”

You cried, broken, whispering “no, no, no,” like a mantra against the inevitable.

But Demon King kept laughing, manic and triumphant, the sound rolling over your defiance like thunder over a whisper.

Then, with sudden certainty, he swept you fully into his arms.

One arm curled under your knees, the other tight across your back, cradling you as though you were a bride carried over a threshold.

To anyone else it might have seemed tender, but to you, it was domination dressed in mockery, ownership carved into every step.

Your head lolled against his chest, tears soaking into his collar.

Still you tried, breath after ragged breath: “No… no…”

Demon King Regis’s smile only widened.

He pressed a kiss into your temple, silencing your sob with his feverish whisper.

“Yes. You’ll watch it all. You’ll watch me take your world, your Tempus, your Elysium. And you will stay at my side while I do it.”

The key flared, white-blue fire spilling down his arm as he thrust it toward the portal.

His voice rose in a chant, words older than stone, darker than the void, reverberating like war drums.

The rift ripped wider.

The mirror of Utopia shattered into light, Tempus’s figures breaking into static before dissolving, their reaching hands snuffed out.

The gate bloomed into a storm of fire and ice, tall as towers, its maw spilling wind and light across the chamber.

The armies roared.

The frozen palace trembled with their fervor as ranks upon ranks of demons spread their wings, banners snapping, steel gleaming.

Their cries rose in unison, a tide of worship and war.

Demon King Regis looked down at you once more, his eyes alight with mania, his voice molten with victory.

“Now watch, my consort. Watch your world fall.”

He stepped through.

The ground shook as his boot broke the threshold.

Behind him, the army surged, a black tide pouring into the breach, their roars deafening, their shadows devouring the familiar light beyond.

Elysium, the jewel of Utopia, the country where Tempus resided, lay waiting.

The skies of your world cracked with shadow and ice as the first cries of invasion thundered across its horizon.

And in his arms, powerless, you could only whisper the word again and again. “No… no… no…” As Demon King Regis carried you into the conquest.

The portal’s light consumed everything, swallowing the frozen palace, the storm, and the fractured mirror.

When the brilliance dimmed, you were no longer in the icebound chamber.

You were in Utopia. 

The air was different, warmer, alive with the scents of rain and stone, the distant hum of a city’s pulse.

The familiar rooftops of Elysium stretched beneath a bright sky, banners of gold and silver rippling in the wind.

It should have been comforting.

It should have felt like home.

But you could hardly keep your eyes open.

Your body was weak, hollow, drained.

Every shred of your strength consumed in the forging of the key now blazing in Demon King Regis’s hand.

Your head sagged against his shoulder, your vision dimming at the edges.

You slipped in and out of awareness, barely tethered to the world.

Still, you heard it.

The sound of conquest.

The first thunder came from the sky.

A crack like stone splitting apart as Demon King Regis’s army descended.

Wings of shadow and ice eclipsed the sun, blotting the sky with legions of demons, their cries shrill and monstrous.

Spears of frost plunged down like meteors, impaling the streets and shattering rooftops.

Black fire raced through the air, reducing banners to ash.

The city of Elysium erupted in screams.

And then, voices you knew.

Shouts cutting through the chaos, a familiar sound. 

“Form up!” Shinri’s voice, sharp and commanding.

The clash of his blade against a demon’s maw rang out like iron striking iron.

“We’ve got to hold the line!” Axel’s yell followed, hoarse with fury.

The roar of a fighter who threw himself into the thickest fray without hesitation.

“Don’t falter, we can’t falter...!” Flayon’s voice cracked but still rang true.

Sparks of his laser flaring bright against the overwhelming darkness.

Your name, with a desperate cry, tore from Hakka’s throat, choked and broken, swallowed instantly by the roar of Demon King Regis’s army.

And Bettel, his voice was a rallying call, even as fear edged its corners.

“Together, together! Don’t let him through!”

Your eyes fluttered open for just a breath.

Through the haze, you glimpsed them, your guild, your family, Tempus, standing as one against the tide.

Their weapons flashed, their magic sparked, their bodies straining as they cut down wave after wave of demons.

For a moment, they were unbreakable.

But Demon King Regis only laughed.

His voice rolled across the battlefield like thunder, his arms tightening around you as he raised the key aloft.

“Is this the guard of Utopia? These boys, these scraps of will? Watch, my consort. Watch how they shatter.”

And he unleashed his power.

A storm of ice ripped through the streets, jagged spires tearing through stone and steel alike.

Buildings cracked and collapsed in cascades of rubble.

Banners froze mid-whip, then shattered into glittering shards.

Shadows poured outward like living flame, coiling across rooftops, dragging down everything they touched.

Altare was the first to meet him.

Your Regis Altare, the one who had fought beside you, not the twisted king who now cradled you.

His gunblade burned bright as he charged, cutting through the darkness in wide arcs, each swing ringing like steel struck against fate.

He leapt, blade raised, fury in his eyes.

But Demon King Regis didn’t even shift you in his arms.

With a simple gesture, he caught the blow mid-air, not with steel, but with a wall of frost conjured from nothing.

Altare’s blade cracked it, but the shards erupted outward like razors, tearing at his arm, slashing his cheek.

He hit the ground hard, breath ragged, yet still forced himself up.

His gunblade trembled in his grip, defiance burning even as his blood spilled.

“Altare!” Axel roared, chains snapping as he spun them around his fists, the iron links glowing red-hot from sheer force.

He tore through a cluster of demons, his knuckles blazing, each strike cracking skulls and shattering armor.

He hurled himself toward the king, fists drawn back.

Demon King Regis sneered.

With a flick of his wrist, the ground froze solid beneath Axel’s feet.

Spires of ice erupted upward, spearing through the chains, wrenching them out of his grip.

Axel tried to push forward, but a wave of shadow struck him broadside, sending him skidding across the stones until he slammed into a wall with a sickening crack.

“Get away from them!” Flayon’s voice cut through the din.

R-TRUS slammed into the square, its arms glowing as cannons charged with a rising whine.

Energy lanced outward, beams ripping through lines of demons.

For a heartbeat, hope surged, the machine’s fire was enough to clear a path.

But the Demon King Regis raised his hand.

The key flared, and the beams bent, twisting mid-air as if the world itself obeyed him.

They curled back, tearing through the machine’s flank instead. R-TRUS staggered, sparks spilling from its frame.

Flayon cried out, scrambling to recalibrate, but shadows surged over the machine’s joints, locking it in place before tearing it apart in an explosion of steel.

Flayon tumbled to the ground, coughing blood.

“Together! Now!” Bettel’s voice carried across the chaos.

His whip cracked, lightning-fast, coiling around a demon’s neck and snapping it with a vicious pull.

He darted forward, whip flashing again, aiming for the Demon King’s wrist, the one clutching the key.

Demon King Regis let him strike.

The whip wrapped tight.

For one heartbeat, Bettel thought he had him.

Then the shadows along the whip solidified, turning black and rigid as steel.

They crawled up the length in an instant, freezing it, shattering it to dust in his hands.

The backlash threw him off balance, and a spear of frost caught him in the side, tearing him down to his knees.

“Not again… not again!” Hakka’s voice cracked, his double spears spinning into a storm of light and lightning.

He vaulted high, descending in a blur of strikes that rained down on the king.

Sparks and thunder split the air, the ground shattering beneath each blow.

Demon King Regis’s eyes blazed.

He spoke a single word, not in any tongue you knew, but in something older, crueler.

And all of Hakka’s lightning froze mid-air.

The spears clattered to the ground, and a wave of shadow burst outward, striking him in the chest and hurling him across the square.

His scream cut off in the crash of stone as he disappeared under rubble.

Only Shinri remained.

His bow gleamed with pure energy, an arrow drawn and glowing like a star.

His shield shimmered on his arm, cracked but unbroken.

He stood alone in the square, Tempus broken behind him, his eyes locked on the king holding you.

“Let them go!” His voice rang out steady, even as his hands shook.

“Let them go, take me instead!”

Demon King Regis only smiled.

He bent his head, pressing his lips against your temple in mockery, his gaze never leaving Shinri’s.

“They already belong to me.”

The arrow flew.

It seared through the night, blazing toward the king’s heart.

The key drank it whole.

The light was gone in an instant. Shinri’s eyes widened, too late.

The Demon King whispered another word, and the shadows obeyed.

They surged upward like a tidal wave, slamming into him.

His shield cracked, splintered, then shattered.

Shinri’s bow broke in his hands as he was swallowed, his body hurled to the stones.

One by one, they fell.

One by one, Tempus was broken.

And Elysium… Elysium burned.

Its golden towers cracked under falling demons, its streets split with ice, its proud banners fell as ash.

The city screamed, and no voice answered it but Demon King Regis’s laughter.

Your own voice slipped out in a broken whisper, ragged and weak. “No… no…”

But you were too drained, your strength long since consumed by the key.

Your body hung limp in his arms, powerless, forced to watch your guild crumble.

And Regis, Demon King Regis, pressed another kiss to your temple, his voice triumphant, mad.

“Do you see, my consort? Your Tempus is fallen. Your Utopia is mine. And still, you are mine most of all.”

The city of Elysium crumbled into ice and shadow.

And you slipped fully into darkness.

Chapter Text

The key throbbed in Demon King Regis’s palm like a second heart, white-blue light searing the frozen chamber in waves.

Each pulse dragged at the tether knotted inside your chest, pulling strands of your very soul into its core.

Though he held it, it was still you who bled for it.

Demon King Regis tilted his head, watching your body tremble beneath the strain, a manic smile playing at his lips.

“Yield,” he whispered, the syllable velvet-soft, intimate, undeniable.

“Through you, the worlds will kneel.”

The runes carved into the floor flared alive, concentric circles blazing beneath you, leeching your strength as though your veins were rivers being siphoned dry.

The air vibrated with the sound of his chant, language older than stars, heavy and wrong, clawing against your bones.

You could feel it.

The gate before you, a wound in reality half-forged.

Its edges shimmered like glass under strain, reaching wider with every beat of the key.

A moment more, and it would open.

But you refused.

With the last scraps of your will, you dragged against the tether, wrenching your spirit back toward yourself.

The gate quaked.

Its edges flickered, distorting, collapsing into shards of light.

The runes cracked, sparks spitting across the icy stone.

“No…” The word spilled from your throat like blood.

“I won’t… let you.”

Pain exploded through you, a thousand knives splintering inside your chest.

Your body convulsed with the effort, but still you pulled, and still the gate faltered.

For a moment, you believed.

For a moment, you thought you could stop him.

Demon King Regis froze.

The manic gleam in his eyes dimmed, his breath catching as the gate sputtered, unstable.

His chest heaved once, twice, as if the air itself refused to fill his lungs.

“You…” His voice fractured, barely a whisper.

“You’d… fight me still?”

“Yes…” you rasped, tears burning your cheeks, your body locked in the ice crawling higher.

“I’d rather… destroy it… than give it to you.”

For a moment, silence.

Then Demon King Regis's face crumpled, his lips parting around a laugh that wasn’t laughter at all.

It scraped from his throat, jagged and broken, a sound closer to a sob.

Frost rained from the ceiling as his power trembled, faltering with him.

“You stubborn, stubborn thing,” he breathed, his words quivering.

His gloved hand caught your chin, not roughly this time, but shaking.

“Why do you keep tearing yourself apart for a world that never deserved you? Why… not just let me have you?”

His thumb brushed your cheek, catching one of your tears as it froze under his touch.

His eyes burned wet, rimmed red, and his voice cracked open like a wound.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“Gods, I love you so much it hurts. And I hate you for making me do this. I hate that I can’t stop myself. If… if there were another life, I’d throw this all away. I’d start at nothing, I’d start small. I’d learn how to love you gently.”

The gate shuddered, light sputtering.

Your lips parted, breath scraping.

“No…” you forced again, faint but final.

Demon King Regis choked, his teeth sinking into his lip until it bled.

Tears spilled down his cheeks, freezing before they could fall.

His smile wavered, then collapsed into a trembling grimace.

“I can’t...” his voice shook, his hands trembling as they framed your face.

“I can’t let you go. I can’t. So forgive me. Please… forgive me.”

The ice surged, swallowing your chest, your throat.

You shook with cold, breath spilling in white gasps.

He leaned his forehead to yours, his tears streaking against your skin as his whisper broke apart. 

“I’m sorry. I love you. I love you. Even if I have to kill you, even if I have to bury you inside me forever...”

His lips pressed to yours.

It was fragile, trembling, a kiss that tasted of grief.

His mouth lingered desperately against yours, holding on to the last trace of warmth in you, stealing your final breath as if it could keep you alive.

When he drew back, his eyes shone wet, his voice raw and shaking.

“If I cannot keep you… then no one will. And even in death… you are mine.”

The frost pierced your heart.

His tears blurred your last sight, his face so close, breaking apart with grief as the cold claimed you.

Your body fell still in his arms.

And in that same instant, he gave himself away.

It was not only mana he poured into the key, but blood, breath, and the marrow of his being.

His lifeforce spilled into the gate like an offering, a sacrifice.

The chamber screamed under the weight of it, runes bursting, walls cracking, shadows clawing at the stone.

And with your final breath, the gate split wide.

Not from your will, but from his, torn open by everything he was, everything he had, until nothing remained but the shell of him.

Utopia lay exposed beyond the rift, clear and waiting.

Demon King Regis staggered at the threshold, his body trembling violently, his knees nearly buckling beneath him.

He clutched your lifeless form tight to his chest, sobbing into the silence, his strength unraveling with every breath.

The gate tore open with a scream, spilling frost and shadow into Utopia.

Beyond it lay Elysium, the cobbled streets you once walked, the blue sky you once loved.

But to you there was no more breath, no more warmth.

Demon King Regis stepped through, your body in his arms.

The glow of the rift painted him in dying light, his tears streaking his cheeks, freezing before they could fall.

He held you like a bride, like a burden, like the last thing tethering him to existence.

Tempus was waiting.

Altare stood at the front, gunblade raised, his eyes grim with fury and heartbreak.

Axel’s chains rattled in his fists.

Bettel’s whip hissed through the air.

Flayon, rode his R-TRUS, bristled with glowing cannons.

Hakka’s spears shimmered with lightning.

And Shinri’s bow was drawn, an arrow of pure energy humming against the string.

“Give them back!” Shinri’s voice cracked, raw.

“Put them down!” Axel bellowed, eyes burning.

Altare’s voice cut through them all, steady and cold: “Let them go, monster.”

Demon King Regis stopped, your body still in his arms.

His eyes met theirs, and for the first time there was no mania, no triumph, only grief hollowed into devotion.

He knelt slowly and laid you down on the frozen stones, smoothing your hair from your face with a trembling hand.

He stayed like that for a moment, silent, head bowed.

When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost childlike, breaking between syllables.

“They’re gone already,” he whispered.

“You couldn’t save them from me. And now… I can’t save myself from what I’ve done to you.”

He brushed his thumb across your frozen lips, his eyes glassy.

“You loved these people enough to fight me. To die rather than see them harmed.”

He rose slowly, his shadow stretching across the square.

“Then let me… let me try to understand them. Let me fight them, not to win, ...but to know. And then I’ll come to you. Wait for me… please.”

The key in his palm cracked and flickered.

Magic spilled from him like blood, ragged and unstable, forming a storm that cracked the stones beneath his feet.

“Tempus,” he said, his voice hoarse but steady now.

“I won’t run. I won’t shield myself. Strike me down. Make me answer for her.”

The battle roared.

Altare charged first, his gunblade clashing against spires of ice erupting from the ground

Axel’s chains snapped like thunder, Bettel’s whip hissed and struck, Flayon’s machine fired a barrage of light.

Hakka’s spears carved arcs of lightning, Shinri’s arrows tore the sky into ribbons.

And Demon King Regis met them all.  

No weapon, only his bare hands and the magic of a dying king.

Ice burst upward in jagged spires, shadows coiled like serpents, but every spell cost him.

His body shook under each incantation, blood on his lips, his skin cracking with frost.

Each time Altare’s blade struck him, each time Axel’s fists landed, he staggered, but he did not shield himself.

He fought as if searching their faces, their strength, their pain, trying to understand the people you’d loved.

And as he fought, his words spilled out between spells, breathless, broken confessions you could almost hear even from where you lay. 

“I see them now… the ones you protected…”

“Their rage, their love… it’s yours, isn’t it?”

“Wait for me. I’ll be there soon… don’t leave without me…”

Lightning ripped across the square, cannons roared, arrows flew like stars.

His frost shattered, his shadows thinned.

Tempus pressed harder, their grief and fury a weapon.

At last Altare’s gunblade cut deep across the king’s chest, searing through ice and shadow.

Demon King Regis staggered, dropping to one knee, his blood staining the stones.

The gate behind him cracked, its light flickering, his power almost gone.

He turned his head, eyes finding you where you lay.

His lips moved, a whisper lost in the wind.

“Another life… another chance… just us.”

Then he rose one last time, swaying, his hands spread wide.

“Finish it,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Make it right. Let me go to them.”

Tempus struck as one.

Light and steel and fury tore through him.

His body cracked apart in ice and shadow, splintering as his power devoured what was left.

He slumped forward, falling across the stones, his hand groping blindly until it found yours.

Cold fingers curled around your still hand, intertwining even as frost climbed his arms.

Silence spread across the ruins of Elysium, heavier than any storm.

The echoes of steel and cannonfire faded into nothing, leaving only the crackle of frost eating through broken stone.

There, in the center of the square, the Demon King and his consort lay bound in death, hands entwined, faces turned toward one another as though even in their final moments they sought no one else.

The frost sealed over them, layer upon layer, until the two of you were one monument.

A sculpture of grief, devotion, and ruin, gleaming cold beneath the shattered sky.

The gate behind then collapsed into dust and shadow, its last sparks swallowed by silence.

The path to other worlds was gone.

All that remained was this stillness, this frozen embrace.

Tempus stood where they were, the fury in their eyes giving way to hollow exhaustion.

Not victory, not relief.

Only mourning for what could not be undone.

The wind carried no sound but its own low howl.

Elysium itself seemed to bow its head.

And in that silence, the chapter closed.

The king who had poured his life into love twisted beyond saving, and the one he bound to him in death.

Two souls, forever locked together in frost, even as the world turned without them.