Azriel discovered that his return to the kingdom had not been driven solely by his own desire to change, but by a dark pact his parents had made with occult forces. In order to protect their own power, they had sacrificed the light of their son. When one of the rebels spoke to him of this pact, Azriel realized that to break the curse he would have to confront not only his parents, but also the demonic powers they had invoked. He did not yet know that the king—his stepfather—was dead, nor that the demon had already taken form.
For evil had now become terribly real.
It bore the head of a dragon and the immense body of a man towering nearly two and a half meters tall. Its skin was red, its brow crowned with horns—in short, it was everything one might imagine a demon to be. Its origins were shrouded in mystery, though it was said to have come from hell itself. Its power of confusion was without equal, and its dominion over men made even the bravest tremble.
In its hand it held a scepter that allowed it to force its way into the thoughts of whomever it wished. Indeed, all its power seemed to come from that object. Yet this miserable scepter was in truth nothing more than a crude staff. The idea that it possessed such immense power arose spontaneously in the minds of men whenever they submitted to the demon in a state of deep confusion—the only true power the creature possessed. In other words, this illusion made it almost invincible.
The demon had also gathered an army of its kind, unleashing upon the kingdom a merciless hatred. Together, men and demons spread terror and bloodshed. The king had died fighting for survival. The soldiers, at the peril of their lives, had tried more desperately than ever to repel the assaults of the monsters—but in vain.
The queen, for her part, had sensed that something terrible was about to happen. She had fled with her servants far from the kingdom, seeking refuge with the Oracle. She feared the presence of evil upon the land, and yet she still carried herself with the proud bearing of an indomitable woman. The Oracle did what she could to comfort her, speaking often of her son Azriel, who would one day come to deliver the world.
And so matters stood, while far away Azriel fought his own battle—another battle altogether—in search of his own hope.
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Azriel or the silence complex
Short StoryIn an ancient kingdom, a mother remained silent, tormented by the guilt of her acts of lust and betrayal, while a father, consumed by jealousy and pride, shared this oppressive silence. One day, an oracle prophesied to the Queen:
