Three years later.

A hand slapped him awake, which was rather rude of it. His cheek stung as he blinked his dormitory into existence. It was smaller than his room in his parents’ manor. It was smaller than his cage in the dungeon. He’d rather feel the warm sunlight on his skin and curl into downy sheets than have a few more inches of cold stone floor, so he didn’t mind. Naji woke up alive, as far as he was aware, and that was the important thing. He was safe, for the most part. However, the feral woman now straddling him might force him to disagree with that assessment.

“Ninsey, you’re not supposed to be in here,” he groaned, attempting to stretch out from under her. He rubbed his still-stinging face, and glared at the feral creature he had the misfortune of calling his friend.

“You were talking in your sleep, again. You said his name,” she said in the thick, chittering accent she couldn’t break.

His name. Naji winced. He didn’t have the energy to talk to Ninsey of all people about him of all subjects. “You wouldn’t know that if you weren’t in my room to begin with. Which, let me remind you, you’re not supposed to be.”

Ninsey’s cat stretched a top of him, incidentally pinning him down with her pale, twiggy hands. She was much stronger than her wispy frame would suggest, and Naji didn’t feel like struggling. The woman was inept at any social decorum and simply had no understanding of the proper way to wake a sleeping man. Especially one you’re not dating. Especially one who is trying to avoid the business end of her girlfriend’s dagger.

“Nin, you have to get off of me.”

She looked down at the man with those too-round too-shiny black glass eyes, confusion fluttering her colorless eyelashes. “Why?”

“Because I need to get up.”

She blinked one more time before laughing. “Oh! Sorry!” The creaturous woman scrambled off the bed gracelessly, accidentally dragging his blanket with her. He could only sigh as she revealed his half-naked form. Silently, he thanked the gods he had put on linen shorts before he slept last night. Not that Ninsey would have cared about the difference.

He slumped his body off the side of the bed, and slowly made his way to the closet. At this point, he’d stopped caring that she had violated half a dozen rules of propriety. She clearly wanted something, and figuring out whatever that was would get her out of his dorm before his master or her girlfriend caught them.

“So, what’s up?” he said, slipping on a set of night-blue slacks and its matching silk tunic. He wrapped his leather belts around his waist, and attached his standard equipment pouches to them.

He was waiting for a response, but it didn’t come. As he grabbed his sword, he unsheathed it from the scabbard, letting the mirror-like blade reflect the creature behind him. When he finally escaped the dungeon and found his parents, his mother had thrust that blade into his hands as soon as she managed to stop hugging her boy. It was a powerful relic, able to reveal the original body of nefarious creatures in its mirror-like blade.

Ninsey’s true demon form reflected back at him, and he smiled slightly when he saw the uncanny visage of his strange bug-like (but unfortunately NOT a bug) friend. She was much more boyish in reality, with a flat chest and narrow hips. But ever since she saw her favorite “play” at a brothel (a shamelessly erotic production with more flashing than plot), she fixated on the look of the ethereally gorgeous female lead. Naji used Ninsey’s fascination to convince her to hide those spindly extra limbs, which was pretty clever on his part.

Unfortunately, his smile faltered as he examined her true form closer. Her silence had not come from some sparkly distraction in his room, as he had assumed. Rather, her usually jittery eyes were fixed on him. Her uncannily long fingers still fiddled with themselves, but her feet were completely still. She wasn’t distracted. She didn’t have the words to answer. That was rare, and it fucking terrified him.

“Nins, what is it?” He resheathed his sword and spun to face her.

“Master Bluestone gave us a mission,” she finally managed.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” he asked.

There was something she didn’t want to say. She looked down at her feet, which were still firmly planted on the hardwood floor. His gut pinched. What could possibly still that feral woman?

He knew the answer. He swallowed, before prompting. “It has to do with him then?”

After what was arguably way too long, she nodded. “You mentioned him in your sleep,” she reminded him. “Have you had dreams about him recently?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. Naji, himself, hesitated, mulling over just how much he wanted to admit to his dear Not-Insect. The truth was, he dreamed of the demon from his dungeon cell almost every night since their escape. He hadn’t told a soul. Not Ninsey, not his other groupmates, not his parents, not his master. He knew he should have. Perhaps, had he known, his master could guide him through meditation exercises to dispel the nightmares of his kidnapping. Perhaps he could have helped him etch a few dream protection talismans to bar demonic influence in his dreams. However, he didn’t want them to end. That was the only safe way to see his face again, just ephemeral glimpses in his unconscious.

So he lied. Partly. “I had one last night,” he said, figuring he didn’t have to admit much more. “It was that first night, in the dungeon.”

Ninsey shuddered. He understood why. She had seen the aftermath when she visited him that morning, but she could only imagine how it had gotten to that point.

“Do you dream of then often?”

This time he fully lied. “No.”

She just nodded, convinced. She wasn’t hard to convince. Naji cringed as he broke that pure trust she had in him, but he couldn’t help it. He wasn’t ready to discuss those nightly glimpses of his past any more than necessary. But there was still something Ninsey hadn’t explained. “So what does he have to do with our new mission?”

“The artifact Master Bluestone wants us to look for. It’s one of his.”

Naji frowned. That was not good. That was really not good. That was really, really, really fucking not even a little bit wholely and unequivocally not good.

Three years ago, in the dungeon.

“How big is your appetite?” Naji winced at his own words. He needed to stay away from whatever person or demon lingered in those shadows. Speaking to him (or it) was less than wise. But it was either his voice in the air or the ramblings of a madman in his head. He wasn’t sure which one was worse.

“I haven’t eaten in weeks,” said that hoarse voice. It sounded like he hadn’t had anything to drink either. Naji wasn’t planning to offer. Instead, the young man crouched as close to the bars of the cage as possible, as far from the other as he could manage. That was probably a good thing, since the voice continued, “You smell fresh.”

“I smell better than I taste,” Naji quipped back. He needed to shut up. He was going to die in here if he didn’t shut up. But what if he died if he stayed silent? What if he closed that mouth of his for the risk of it, and ended up without another breath anyway? Would that not be an absolute waste of the terrifying few minutes he had left, to let those thoughts cloud his head again? Master Bluestone would say he was an idiot. Master Bluestone wasn’t here. “Are you going to eat me?”

“Are you going to come closer?”

The young man shook his head before realizing both of them were practically blind in here. “No, I’m good where I am.”

“Hm, then I probably won’t get the chance.” Iron chains clinked. Naji could almost make out the pattern of a shrug in the rhythm of the iron. “My leash is short.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Who are you?” He was pretty direct then. It could almost be considered rude, if the chained one hadn’t just been contemplating the smell and taste of his flesh. Out loud. In front of him. He could afford to be a little direct. What image was he maintaining in the lower dungeons of a demon fortress, in the dark and cold, with just one creeping figure watching (if he could see) from that unseen spot in the corner. He could strip naked and who would be the wiser. He almost did it, for the fuck of it. Who would know? Who would care? His fingers twiddled with the hem of his tunic. But he remembered that he was allowed to save himself a scrap of dignity. And also it was fucking cold.

“Are you scared?” the voice asked.

“Who are you?” he repeated, uninterested in the question.

But the voice ignored him in kind. “You’re almost as jittery as that fungal demon. Are you scared? Or cold?”

“I’m high,” Naji shot back, refusing to dignify the asshole with any semblance of the truth. “Now answer mine. Who are you? Or does that question not apply?”

“Zskch, tsk,” the creature answered in almost a chide, but more of a click. Or hiss. Or sneeze. Or, most accurately, a gross scratch-like sound that grated the human’s ears like a sword scratching a palette stone.

“That was a hiss,” he stated. “I want to know who you are.”

“I just told you.”

“You seem to speak Glaciturial well enough. Answer in a language I understand, if you’d be so kind.”

“Zish,” he said, approximating that awful noise into the human’s speaking pattern.

“And that means?”

“My name,” Zish stated.

“Oh.”

There was silence for a second. Then another second. Then the cold iron against Naji’s back became bones and the floor became ants and his heart became an escalating drum beat that refused to settle at any healthy speed. All metaphorical, as there was always a chance such could really occur, considering he was in the domain of demons.

Master Bluestone always emphasized the importance of knowing the enemy to his other students. Raji studied demons for years and he studied diligently. There was a reason he was under the wing of the renowned Master at the Bluestone Grounds, one of the most intensive training centers for the Renka sect. It wasn’t his knowledge that held him back from achieving greatness. In fact, Master Bluestone always chided him for using that knowledge when he could use his feet or his hands. He was the only student that was barred from taking the last spring exam because his Master wanted all his attention on bridging his mana, his spirit, and his body. That said, even he didn’t know all the types of demons that existed. He knew all the common ones, and a truly impressive list of uncommon ones.

The problem was, the traits and abilities of demons were impossible to confine to a textbook. They were as varied as the crystals of snow. They were as unique as they were numerous. Their one shared trait was in their difference. And thus the chaos of that race was impossible to truly chart. At least, that’s what the texts would have you believe. And, of course, the texts could not fully be trusted. They said so themselves. So what did he know?

The point is, the ground could have truly changed to ants, and the bars of the cage could have changed to bones, and some music-fond creature could have slipped through the cavity of his veins and with impossible speed could have beat a miniature drum in his heart. What really happened, as the human shuttered at the bones and wiped away the ants and clutched the space above that quickening drum, was that he panicked. He had stopped filling the air with frivolous babble and much less frivolous thoughts crashed in.

Every pinch of his skin was aching in terror. Every drop of his blood was hot with fear. He was bantering with a demon one moment and falling to himself the next.

He was a poor excuse for a Laudknight.

“You’re a Laudknight?” Zish asked. He couldn’t tell the tone. He could barely make out the words.

“No!” Raji yelled. His hands made their way from the ants at his feet and the middle of his chest to the curve of his ears.

His body was jittering. Faster than not-insect. Faster than his heart could even beat. He was rattling like a snake, shaking like a rattle, pulsing like the blood of a heart-thorn demon. He was cold. He was so. Damn. Cold.

The chains clattered in that corner of the cell, and then something fell on top of him. His body jerked in response, tangling his limbs with some thick arrangement of fabric. As he tried to twist out, he remembered tripping in the words earlier. He remembered the net trap he had activated that launched him into the air, suspending him from the branch of a gnarly old tree. He remembered being the only of his team to not escape. He remembered the demons staring at him, the many-eyed demon laughing at him as he locked the human in the cage with this creature on the other side.

He remembered failing three physical challenges this year, and Bluestone pitching the daily mile run so he didn’t embarrass himself in the tournament. He remembered having to cut that in half because he simply couldn’t handle the stain. His teammates could. Levon ran three a day before he could run half. He remembered how he trained all year while his friends studied for their demon exams, and how despite his dedication, his blood sweat and tears, despite the strain on his body and mind and everything, he had just scraped by with second place. No one else had trained as much as him. He knew because he watched them train, studied their movements, tried in vain to imitate how their bodies worked with their mana, rather than the other way around. He remembered that look in his parent’s eyes as he showed them the silver. He had almost been proud. But then again, they were going on missions solo years before he went on missions with a whole ass team to back him up. He remembered. He remembered. He remembered.

And now he was twisted in a weird piece of fabric, after having a panic attack in front of Zish the fucking demon, in the coldest fucking dungeon he’d ever had the displeasure of being trapped in (which is completely accurate, considering it was his first), with no idea how to escape and at this point, almost no desire to figure out how. He was fucked. He was a loser. He was laughing. He was laughing so hard. He fell back to the floor and laughed till his stomach ached from laughter instead of terror.

When the laughter slowed, his body drained of energy, he fumbled with the fabric again, finally able to make his escape. He fondled the piece, trying to decipher what the fuck it was. He still had no clue what the fuck it was. So he said, “what the fuck is this?”

And Zish spoke again. He’d been quiet for so long, watching this strange human lose his fucking mind. He simply said, “my coat.”

Naji sat up, leaning once again on the bars which were no longer metaphorical bones. “You’re coat?” He was gasping for breath still, but at least he was breathing. Despite all his fear, he was happy to be breathing.

“You seemed cold.”

“Ah.” Naji managed to wrap the coat around himself, now that he understood what the contours of the fabric could be. Arm here, arm there. “That’s unexpectedly kind for a demon that seems set on devouring my poor human flesh. Are you not a fan of popsicles?”

The demon grunted in a way that could have been a hiss or a laugh or maybe demon pidgin instead (Naji might try to learn some if he ever escapes… and if his human vocal cords can find a way to replicate those sounds). “Popsicle?” Zish inquired.

“My dad has a trick to freeze water. We’d make sweet ice from fruit juice when he’d visit me in the summer. We call them popsicles.”

“Hmmm, no I don’t think you’d taste good frozen,” the demon said after careful consideration.

“I’m delicious warm. I see, I see.” Naji snorted, and his body jolted with it like a hiccup. Now even laughter was starting to hurt. He hadn’t even been tortured yet, and he was miserable. “I’m so tired,” he commented to the air.

Zish responded anyway, “Humans lose their energy so easily.”

“We’re only human.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“It’s a saying.”

“It’s a pitiful saying.”

“Who are you to judge?”

“Zish.”

“...”

“I never got your name, Laudknight.”

“That is my name.”

“The one to call you.”

“Is it so important to know the name of your next dish?”

“No, but it may be important to know your name, if we are going to spend too long in this prison.”

Raji paused. “Does… that mean you’re not going to eat me?”

There was that groan again. It was definitely a snort this time. Even the demon’s laughter was more powerful than his own. The hairs on his neck stood up at the sound. “Let’s make a deal. You tell me your name, and I promise I won’t.”

“Won’t what?”

“Hm?”

“I want you to say the terms of the deal completely and explicitly. If I tell you my name, what won’t you do? Phrase it like that and everything.” The human instructed. Some demons were quick-witted bargainers. A special kind might never lie, but warp their words to match their true intentions anyway with the other party none the wiser. These were more common to the north, and it was far more likely that Zish could lie all he wanted without issue. But if there was a chance the human could bend the tides in his favor he wanted to take it.

“Okay,” the demon agreed. “If you tell me your name, I will not eat you.”

Raji smiled. “Good. My name is Raji. Raji Laudknight.”

It was after he said it that he remembered those same northern demons could steal names once given. He might have just lost everything. He also didn’t have the energy to care.

“Pleasure to meet you, Raji,” the demon said, amicably. “Now, human. Let’s start planning our escape.”