Chapter Text
He was small.
So… impossibly small.
The Archduke of Cania regarded the bloodied infant in his grasp, claws vast and foreboding against the cambion’s fragile form.
The contrast alone was most definitely offensive to life itself. How can something so slight, so newly formed, cradled in hands meant to rule the dead?
At his feet lay the woman’s corpse. Cold, long forgotten. Mephistopheles spared it no attention. Mortals were never meant to survive such births. She had known that when she struck her bargain; her body for his seed, her brother’s soul released from its debt.
A soul for a soul. A fair trade, the Lord of Contradictions reckoned.
The infant cried then. It was a thin pitiful sound, more of a squeak than a wail.
Mephistopheles’s lip curled.
Such weakness. Such meager breath!
Was this truly what his seed had wrought?
With a flicker of distaste, he passed the child to a waiting servant, an eternal debtor, who hurried to take it from him. The Archduke’s mind had already moved on, turning over calculations and possibilities of the future.
If—no—when he were to claim dominion over all Nine Hells, he would require an heir. Not merely loyal, but also ambitious and capable. But shall never be greater than he.
It was a quest to bring paradox to reality. Yet, blinded by his own ambition, it was a quest the Lord of the Eight was willing to take.
Thus, it was why he had forged this path at all; the creation of a devil and a mortal to create power that can only be tempered by limitation.
A creation that could strive, but never eclipse.
But this one in particular seemed lacking too much of his own blood.
Its horns were barely there, nubs against its brow. Its lungs weak. Its tail curled inward, as though it already knew fear.
All too fragile for his liking.
But Mephistopheles dismissed the thought, for now. There would be time to judge this spawn, as there had been for the others.
He would decide, in time, whether it was worth anything at all.