Trigger Warning: The following chapter includes depictions of violence, emotional distress, and sexual assault. Please proceed with caution.
Time flowed differently in the depths of the catacombs than on the surface. Days blended into an endless stream of dim, damp stone and shadows creeping along the walls. Days turned to months, and months to years, though Nita was never entirely certain just how many years she had spent in the dark maze of corridors.
She filled her days in the monotonous twilight in various ways. If she wasn't helping Nicholas or buried in books, she wandered further and further through the twisting corridors. The tunnel system was vast, clearly built long ago. She often encountered collapsed ends of tunnels or rooms filled with rubble. In some places, water seeped through from above, and Nita knew they were beneath the river canals. Exploring the catacombs felt like the only real freedom left to her.
Sometimes, she felt as though she had lost herself in those shadows. The curious child who had once sought answers to every question was gone. Now, in her place, a nearly-grown girl wandered the halls, shoulders slumped, eyes hollow. The pointless death of Ellie, the betrayals and losses she had endured, along with the bitter disillusionment with people and her own failures — these had all etched themselves deeper into her soul than she was willing to admit.
When she had first accepted Nicholas’s offer, he had given her a bundle of warmer clothing and boots.
Boots. Those stupid boots!
She cried when she first put them on. As long as she could feel the cold, damp stone against her bare feet, she felt connected to her past, to her freedom. But the raw cold of the catacombs was unforgiving. And after stepping on countless rat bones during her wanderings, she was glad to have them. Yet, every time she laced them up, there was a soft pang in her heart — a small, buried memory of warm earth, grass wet from rain, sand between her toes... her childhood, her home by Rem. Those memories had once brought her to tears, now only a resigned sigh. With every step, every tug of the laces, she gave up a part of herself. Somewhere inside, something had quietly and irreversibly broken. In the end, all that remained of her past was her diary and her short-cropped hair.
She knew Nicholas found her appearance disgraceful, that he often looked at her like she was a dirty servant, something beneath him. Yet, when she had found a pair of old, half-rusted scissors in a forgotten room during one of her solitary wanderings, she had taken them without hesitation. She cut her hair by herself and it was visible - uneven, spiky strands of different lengths covered her head. She still resembled a unkempt, dirty sparrow, but she refused to give up the short hair.
Aside from the clothes, Nicholas had also assigned her a small room near his study. Nita only stayed there out of necessity; she felt far better when she could vanish from sight and be alone in the corridors. She always took her imp along, though he was unreliable. The mischievous little demon only responded when she spoke in the language of the Elders. That was her secret, one she had never revealed to Nicholas. Because of the imp, she continued to secretly learn new words from the moldy books she found in the forgotten corners of the catacombs, where they had long been abandoned. Sometimes she borrowed them, other times she outright stole them, reading them aloud to the imp. Occasionally, she addressed him directly, and the response was often a mocking grin, but Nita didn’t mind. Pride had long since left her — what mattered more was that he provided warmth and light. Several times, she had nearly gotten lost in the corridors because the imp decided, on a whim, to fall asleep. Then she would shuffle back along the walls in the dark, inching her way toward the main halls, which were always lit.
Lately, she had less and less time for her explorations due to Nicholas’s demands. Still, working for him didn’t usually bother her. She had learned how to be indispensable yet invisible. She organized the chaos of his desk, prepared parchment with careful records for him, and even managed to turn his incoherent notes into texts that made sense. She had developed the ability to anticipate his needs before he voiced them. And when he burst into the study, angry, she knew when to light incense to calm him and when it was better to be silent and disappear. Occasionally, he would glance at her with disapproval when she helped shape his scattered thoughts into a sensible plan. He never praised her directly, but when he silently adopted her suggestions as his own, she felt a cold, quiet satisfaction inside.
However, he never took her outside the Rat’s Nest, and Nita wasn’t sure if the homunculus would even allow her to pass. But more and more frequently, Nicholas took her along to meetings with other warlocks. At first, she was merely a shadow, but over time, the other warlocks noticed that Nicholas was increasingly selecting her, while older, more experienced apprentices remained in the background.
Nita never dreamed that anyone might be jealous of her. And that was her greatest mistake. The older apprentices silently watched as she gained Nicholas’s favor, and their resentment grew with each passing day. The envy she failed to notice slowly turned into malice — and from that malice, a plan was born, waiting for the right moment. That moment came one night when, in blissful ignorance, she fell asleep in her small room.
Pain ripped her from her sleep. There were two of them—the older apprentices who had always glared at her with such hatred whenever she appeared at Nicholas’s side. The reddish light from the imp’s orb reflected in their eyes, filled not only with anger but something more. They had come to break her.
"You think you’re better than us?"
A wave of fear surged through her, and she tried to wriggle free, but it was futile. Life in the catacombs had taken its toll on her body. She had never grown as tall as the others, remaining as small and thin as a reed.
Panic choked her. Everything around her began to lose shape; her own body felt like nothing more than a shell trapped in a world of pain. She felt every blow, every touch, as if her senses were heightened to an unbearable degree. She tried to focus on something else, but the pain was like a boulder crushing and burning her at the same time. She didn’t want to feel, didn’t want to be.
This isn’t happening to me!
She froze and stared at the ceiling.
This isn’t me. This isn’t my body.
The world started to blur. With a sob, she inhaled sharply and suddenly felt lighter and lighter. Where there had been pain a moment ago, now there was only a spreading emptiness. The ceiling seemed to be drawing closer, and Nita realized it wasn’t the ceiling that was approaching her - it was she who was floating towards it. Her mind was hovering above her immobile, powerless body. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something unusual. The orb with the imp, which had until now cast only a dim glow, was now shining with a different light — brighter, sharper. It pulsed, and within that light swirled something that drew Nita’s consciousness toward it. It was raw energy, writhing and restless, full of power.
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The dozing imp opened its eyes and looked at her. Not at her physical body, but at her mind floating in the room. Their gazes met, and Nita suddenly understood what the essence of the demon truly was. She was flooded with feelings of malice, mischief... and loneliness. Its energy called to her, waiting for her mind to seize and reshape it.
"So, you’ve done it," chuckled a spiteful voice in her mind, and Nita realized the voice belonged to the imp. He spoke to her in the tongue of the Elders.
Through a fog, she heard the apprentices laughing and hurling insults. The horror of what was happening to her body was everywhere, yet distant, a background fading before the demon’s radiant essence. Pain and revelation merged into one.
Something tugged at her mind, pulling her back into her body.
Not yet! Not ye-!
She blinked, and a wave of pain flooded her senses. She was back, but the room was empty. The apprentices had left.
She turned her head and looked at the orb. The imp watched her, glowing faintly, but she could no longer hear its voice in her mind. The connection had been severed, and Nita felt lonelier than ever before.
Cautiously, Nita sat up on the bed, her face twisted with despair, and let out a sob. Words slipped from her lips without thinking, words Rem had once used to comfort her.
"What else can you expect from people?"
That sentence was filled with bitterness. Yet, at the same time, it stirred something inside her, forcing her to shake off the numbing humiliation and gather her thoughts.
This must never happen again...
She wrapped her arms around herself and stood up. The pain and the wetness clinging to her body made her stomach churn. She only managed a few steps before collapsing to her knees and vomiting up her entire dinner. Tears streamed from her eyes and nose despite all her efforts to hold them back.
I have to pull myself together. I have to...!
Her body trembled as she fought off another wave of convulsions, but she forced herself to stand again. Barefoot, she stepped out into the corridor and, relying on memory, made her way through the darkness to a room she had discovered only recently. She stumbled, the cold stone biting at her feet, but she repeated the same thought over and over in her mind.
I must do this.
She leaned against the wall, and under her fingers, bits of mortar and cobwebs crumbled. She moved as if in a feverish dream, relentlessly repeating the few words she clung to, until her hand brushed against a set of low, old doors. She opened them. A still darkness radiated from the room.
She took a few steps inside, feeling deep grooves etched into the floor beneath her feet.
I must-
She stepped into the circles, and a faint light flickered in the room, as if responding to her presence. Nita's breathing quickened. She inhaled and exhaled deeply several times, and the air around her suddenly became heavy and stifling.
She knew what to do. From the books she had stolen and read over the years, she understood that it didn’t matter WHAT she said — what mattered was HOW she said it.
"I summon you!"
She poured all her despair and longing into those words, spoken in the common tongue. The shadows around her ankles flickered and flared like cold, dark flames, and the air became thick with an acidic sharpness that stung her eyes and throat.
But no demon appeared.
"Daara ithra!"
This time, she called upon the language of the Elders, the first words that came to her mind. Her voice was hoarse, and the words struggled to escape her lips, but she forced even more power into them. The shadows continued to dance around her, but she remained alone. She pressed her lips together, her mind racing feverishly.
What am I doing wrong?!
Breathing became harder and harder, the air burned in her lungs. She closed her eyes, trying to recall the feeling from when her mind had slipped from her body. The sensation of weightlessness and connectedness to everything around her, the moment when everything became one, and all it took was to reach out with her mind to make a desperate wish manifest.
"Paaz zītu!"
Another tongue of the Elders, ancient and nearly forgotten. She wasn’t even sure if she was speaking the words correctly or if her mind was merely stringing random syllables together. But the tips of her fingers began to burn and tingle as if they were touching real flames. She sensed she was no longer alone. She inhaled, but it felt like she was breathing fiery coals that constricted her chest.
She opened her eyes. From within the black flames, a pair of glowing eyeballs stared at her. The demon's face, however, remained shrouded, hidden in the shadows that writhed and fluttered around it. The entire space around it twisted and shifted constantly, making Nita’s stomach turn as she tried to peer through the darkness controlled by the demon, which cloaked him like a trembling veil.
"Little one," the demon addressed her, tilting its head. The shadows rippled and revealed a crooked smile. "Why did you summon me?"
"I don’t want to-" she faltered, swallowing hard. She was no longer sure what to say - there was so much! Waves of helplessness, anger, shame, fear, and emptiness crashed against her mind like a stormy sea. She felt them overwhelm her, realizing that all these emotions were now leading her to one conclusion: "I don’t want to be weak."
"And what are you willing to sacrifice for that?"
The demon’s question caught her off guard. It was supposed to be simple - command the demon, impose her will upon it, take its power. But this creature resembled nothing she had read about.
The demon whispered, as though coaxing a small child. "Name for name, soul for soul."
"You want my name?" she tried to sound confident, though she could hear her own voice tremble.
The demon chuckled softly, a sound like metal scraping across glass. "You know nothing, and yet you toy with such things. Name for name, service for service. I will tell you my name first, since you do not know what to do."
He leaned closer, and Nita felt as though the space around her was shrinking, pulling her nearer to the demon’s face. A painful sob escaped her lips.
"Flaethrun."
As the name left the demon’s lips, the air around it shimmered as if the single word had transformed into heat. White flames burst from the darkness that surrounded him, blinding Nita for a moment.
"But for you, your name is not so simple, is it?" the demon pulled away, his eyes piercing into her like daggers, waiting for her response.
She gasped for breath as the pressure on her chest eased slightly. "My old name... I don’t know it."
"Yes. That is true."
"Nita."
The demon made a sound like a dissatisfied click of the tongue. "A lie."
A lie? She blinked in confusion. Her head spun, and breathing the hot, acidic air became more difficult with each passing moment.
"I’m not lying!"
He leaned closer again, and Nita’s breath caught in her throat. She was certain her blood was boiling beneath her skin, her heart pounding erratically.
"You lie. What is your true name?"
She felt on the verge of losing consciousness. Panic surged through her.
"Nita is my name! My name that I chose! Rem called me Aconitum!" She tried desperately to shout, but only a rasp escaped her throat.
"Yes. THAT is the truth."
The demon extended a hand towards her, and Nita grasped it with all her remaining strength.
Sharp, searing pain shot through her fingertips, as if dozens of needles were stabbing into them.
"Name for name, soul for soul. The pact is sealed."
She heard no more. Darkness swallowed her as she fell unconscious.
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