The executioner's axe gleamed under the blood-red sun, its edge hungry for the prince's neck.
"Any last words, brother?" King Gabriel's voice was sweet poison, his golden crown gleaming like a halo atop his perfect face.
Daemon lifted his head, chains biting into the raw flesh of his wrists. Around him, the crowd roared—peasants, nobles, even the soldiers he'd bled for—all screaming for his death.
"Demon spawn!"
"Cursed blood!"
They forgot so easily.
They forgot how he'd held the Gates of Hellfire alone, his blackened veins splitting open to drown the enemy in a tide of shadows.
They forgot how he'd starved so his men could eat, how he'd burned his own soul to wield the power that saved them all.
Now, they called it monstrous.
Now, they knelt to Gabriel, the saintly king,his twin brother,the same hands that had slipped poison into their father's wine, the same smile that had promised Daemon mercy before ordering his execution.
A Flash of the Past ,the War That Branded Him
Memories cut deeper than the axe ever could.
****
The battlefield stretched endlessly before him, a wasteland of fire and blood. Bodies lay in heaps, twisted and broken, their lifeblood seeping into the scorched earth. The stench of death clung to the air.
Daemon stood at the center of it all, his sword dripping darkness, his own breath ragged. His body wasn't his own anymore—his veins pulsed with something beyond human, a force that should have killed him, should have consumed him. But he had wielded it anyway.
For them.
His soldiers had watched in silent horror as his power erupted—a black tide of death, swallowing enemies whole. The enemy legions, once fearless conquerors, had screamed in terror, their flesh unraveling as shadows devoured them.
Daemon turned, expecting gratitude. What he saw instead was fear.
His own knights had stepped back, hands gripping their swords—not against the enemy, but against him.
He saw Sir Edric, the first knight who had sworn loyalty to him, mutter a prayer under his breath. Saw Captain Veyne, the man he had trusted most, grip his blade with shaking hands.
They crossed themselves as if warding off a demon.
Daemon's chest twisted. No... not you too.
Then came the whispers. The faintest brush of betrayal.
"He's not human."
"Did you see his eyes? That wasn't aura—that was something else."
"The prince is cursed."
And then, the voice that sealed his fate.
"Daemon," Gabriel had whispered, stepping forward, his face a perfect mask of grief. "You have to control the darkness, brother. Or it will consume you."
Daemon had wanted to laugh. To scream. Wasn't it Gabriel who begged me to use it? Wasn't it Gabriel who told me to do whatever it took to win?
But his brother's words had already spread like poison in their ears. The knights who had once followed him into hell now looked at him like he was something to be put down.
The war he won for them had become the noose around his neck.
Daemon never saw the dagger coming.
A blade between his ribs. A whisper in the dark.
"Forgive me, my prince."
Then it was over.
******
The execution square came back into focus.
Daemon's lips curled into a grin—bloody, broken, but defiant.
"Enjoy your throne while you can, brother."
Gabriel blinked.
Then he smiled. "You always were dramatic."
The axe came down—
—and Daemon's world exploded in agony.
For one endless moment, he felt his spine sever, nerves snapping like torn strings. He heard the wet thud of his own head hitting the platform, the sickening squelch of flesh separating from bone.
The cheers of the crowd rippled through the air, their voices a chorus of betrayal.
Above them all, Gabriel stood smiling.
His golden crown caught the sunlight like a halo. His expression—pitying, triumphant, perfect—was the last thing Daemon saw before the darkness swallowed him whole.
Then—nothing.
No warmth. No sound. Only an endless abyss stretching in all directions, blacker than death itself.
Daemon floated, his shredded soul unraveling, his mind drifting between memories and oblivion.
"So this is it?" he thought bitterly. "After everything... I die a villain?"
The void trembled.
"PATHETIC."
The word cracked through the abyss, a voice vast enough to shake the very fabric of nothingness.
A shadow loomed—titanic, unmeasurable, a presence older than time itself. A hand, black as dead stars and vast as kingdoms, reached out and caught Daemon's soul like a child plucking a moth from the air.
Daemon struggled, but the entity's grasp was absolute.
"I watched you," the being rumbled, its voice like grinding mountains and collapsing suns. "A prince of war, broken by a child's poison. The hero who burned for his people,left to rot while they cheered his execution."
Daemon shook,not from fear, but from the raw weight of the being's disdain.
"Who—?"
"You'll learn soon enough." The void swirled."But first... answer me,my friend. Shall I spit you back into the world? Let you claw your way from infancy to vengeance?"
Memories tore through Daemon like blades dipped in salt—
"Ugh damn it"
Gabriel's voice, sweet as honey, whispering poison into the ears of the court.
His knights flinching from him, their loyalty rotting at the first sign of fear.
The executioner's axe, cold and merciless.
The weight of every betrayal, every loss, every scream settled in his chest like a second heart,a heart of iron, a heart of vengeance.
"Hahah indeed I'm pathetic"
Daemon's lips curled into a snarl, his soul pulsing with hatred so pure it turned the abyss to fire.
"NOT JUST GABRIEL , NOT JUST THE NOBLES.NOT EVEN THE TRAITORS. I'LL KILL THEM ALL . I'LL PAINT THE THRONE RED, DROWN THE CITY IN THEIR SCREAMS. LET THE WORLD KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BETRAY ME.!"
The entity laughed, and the sound birthed and destroyed universes.
"Good."
A single, massive finger pressed against Daemon's forehead.
"We will speak again, Daemon... when you remember what you truly are."
Pain. Heat. The shock of lungs gasping for air.
Daemon woke to the scent of blood.
Not his own. His mother's.
The room was dim, lit only by the flickering glow of torches. The wailing of a newborn filled the space—his twin.
Across the room, swaddled in silk, lay Gabriel.
Soft. Innocent. Unmarked by war.
Daemon did not cry.
As rough hands lifted him, he forced his tiny muscles to move, forced his head to turn, to stare at the boy who would one day steal everything from him.
His first thought was not a thought at all, but a promise—a curse whispered into the very bones of the earth.
"I'll carve the light from your soul, brother."
"And this time, I'll make sure you feel every second of it."