Chapter Text
There were many things Eliska would have done differently if she had known how the story would end.
She would have left the forest before midnight. She would have ignored the old book she'd bought from the crooked little apothecary in town. She would have stopped reading when the instructions demanded blood, and certainly when they demanded that she speak the demon's name aloud.
Most of all, she would have read the entire contract.
But desperation had a way of making foolishness feel like courage.
So at midnight, beneath a moon almost completely hidden by clouds, Eliska stood in the middle of an abandoned clearing with a silver knife in one hand and a book of forbidden magic in the other. The circle she'd drawn around herself was made from salt, ash, and her own blood. Candles burned at each point of the sigil, their flames unnaturally still despite the cold wind moving through the trees.
She had been told that summoning a demon required three things: an offering, a true name, and a reason worth answering for.
Eliska had all three.
She placed the knife on the ground, pressed her bleeding palm against the center of the circle, and whispered the name she'd spent two weeks researching.
"Addison Montgomery."
Nothing happened.
For a moment, she thought she'd been cheated.
Then the candles went out.
Every single one.
The darkness that followed was so complete that Eliska couldn't see her own hands. The forest seemed to hold its breath around her. Even the insects had gone silent.
Then came footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
Approaching from somewhere beyond the trees.
Eliska's heart began to hammer.
A woman emerged from the darkness.
At first glance, she looked almost human.
Almost.
She was tall, graceful, and dressed in a long black coat that seemed to move with a life of its own. Her dark-red hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders, contrasting sharply with skin so pale it seemed almost luminous beneath the moonlight.
Then Eliska saw the horns.
Two dark-red horns curved elegantly from Addison's temples, smooth and polished, their color deep enough to resemble dried blood or garnet in shadow. Behind her, something moved lazily through the darkness.
A tail.
Long, powerful, and unmistakably demonic, its dark-red tip flicked once against the forest floor.
Eliska forgot how to breathe.
Addison stopped just beyond the boundary of the circle.
Her emerald-green eyes swept over Eliska with amused curiosity before settling on the blood beneath her hand.
"Well," she murmured. "This is unusual."
Eliska swallowed.
"Are you Addison Montgomery?"
The demon smiled.
Her lips were blood red.
When she smiled, sharp white fangs appeared.
"I am."
The answer should have frightened Eliska more than it did.
Instead, she found herself staring.
Addison was beautiful.
Not pretty. Not merely attractive.
Beautiful in a way that felt fundamentally dangerous, like standing too close to the edge of a cliff because the view was too magnificent to step away from.
Addison noticed.
Of course she noticed.
Demons, Eliska suspected, noticed everything.
"You summoned me," Addison said.
"I did."
"Why?"
Eliska tightened her fingers.
"I want eternal life."
Addison's expression did not change.
"How boring."
Eliska blinked.
"What?"
"People always want the same three things. Wealth, power, or immortality." Addison stepped closer, stopping at the edge of the circle. "Occasionally someone wants revenge, which at least has a little personality."
"I don't want to die."
"No one does."
"I mean it."
"So do they."
Eliska's frustration rose. "Then perhaps I summoned the wrong demon."
Addison laughed softly.
It was a beautiful sound.
That somehow made it worse.
"No, darling. You summoned exactly the right one."
She crouched near the edge of the circle, resting one elbow against her knee. Her tail curled lazily behind her.
"Tell me why."
Eliska hesitated.
Addison's smile faded.
"Not the pretty answer."
"I don't have a pretty answer."
"Everyone has a pretty answer."
"I am afraid."
That earned her Addison's attention.
"Of what?"
"Everything."
Eliska looked down at her bloodied hand. "I'm thirty-two. I'm already watching my mother become someone I barely recognize. I wake up every morning wondering what part of me will hurt next. I see people I love growing older while I stay exactly the same, and I know one day I'll be the one standing at their graves."
Her voice broke.
"I don't want that."
Addison watched her for a long moment.
Then she stood.
"Immortality isn't what you think it is."
"I don't care."
"You will."
"I won't."
"You'll watch everyone you love die."
"I've already accepted that."
"You'll lose people."
"I've already lost people."
"You'll become something other than human."
Eliska looked into those green eyes.
"I don't care."
For the first time, Addison looked genuinely interested.
"Perhaps you don't."
She stepped through the circle.
Eliska recoiled.
The salt did nothing.
The ash did nothing.
The blood did nothing.
The demon simply crossed the boundary as though it had never existed.
Eliska's heart nearly stopped.
Addison walked toward her.
"Do you know what immortality costs?"
"No."
"Good."
She stopped close enough that Eliska could feel the heat radiating from her body.
"It costs you the right to change your mind."
Eliska stared at her.
Addison reached out and gently took her chin between two fingers.
"You won't grow old. You won't become sick. Your body will remain exactly as it is tonight. But immortality is not a gift, Eliska. It's a contract."
She released her.
"Everything is a contract."
Eliska looked at her carefully.
"What do you want?"
Addison smiled again.
"There it is."
"What?"
"The important question."
She turned away, walking toward the center of the clearing as though she owned the entire forest.
Perhaps she did.
"I want a child."
Eliska frowned.
"A child?"
"Yours."
The answer was so unexpected that Eliska almost laughed.
Instead, she stared.
Addison turned back.
"Mine by blood. Yours by birth. A child conceived between us, carried by you, and born into this world."
"You want a baby."
"I want my child."
"Why?"
"Because I want one."
There was no explanation.
No apology.
No elaborate justification.
Just certainty.
Eliska folded her arms. "And what happens to the child?"
"That depends on what you want."
"Explain."
Addison's expression softened into something almost tender.
"The child will be mine."
Eliska's stomach tightened.
"But you said—"
"I said you would carry my child. I did not say you would raise it."
"You expect me to give away my baby?"
"I expect you to understand what you're agreeing to."
Addison moved closer again.
"You'll have eternity. You will never age. You will never fall ill. You will never die. In return, you give me what I ask for."
Eliska looked away.
A child.
It was an enormous price.
But eternity was an enormous prize.
She thought of her mother.
Her own reflection.
The gray hairs she'd begun finding near her temples.
The ache in her knees after long days.
The fear that one day there would simply be no more days.
Then she looked back at Addison.
"And if I say yes?"
"You become immortal."
"Immediately?"
"Immediately."
"And the child?"
"When the child is born, the contract is fulfilled."
Eliska took a shaky breath.
"Will it hurt?"
Addison's smile became strangely gentle.
"No."
"Will the child be..."
"Human?"
Eliska nodded.
"Partly."
"Partly?"
Addison's eyes flashed.
"My blood will be in the child."
Eliska stared.
"Half demon?"
"Something like that."
"And what does that mean?"
"It means your child will be extraordinary."
"Or dangerous."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
Eliska almost smiled.
Almost.
She looked down at the contract Addison had produced.
It appeared from nowhere, unfolding in her hands like a sheet of dark parchment. The writing was black at first, then slowly began glowing red around the edges.
Eliska scanned the first few lines.
Her eyes caught on the promise of eternal youth.
Then immortality.
Then perfect health.
She looked further.
The language became complicated.
Ancient.
Dense.
Addison watched her.
"You should read it."
Eliska looked up.
"You're encouraging me to?"
"Always."
Something about the answer made Eliska uneasy.
She looked down again.
The words blurred slightly.
She could make out fragments.
first breath...
bloodline...
claim...
right of possession...
Her gaze moved to the bottom.
There was a place for her signature.
"How long do I have to decide?"
Addison's smile was slow.
"Until the candles burn out."
Eliska looked around.
The candles had been relit.
Their flames were already beginning to shorten.
She looked back at the contract.
Eternity.
The word burned brighter than everything else.
She thought about living forever.
She thought about never aging.
Never dying.
Never becoming fragile.
She thought about every person who had ever told her she was too old, too weak, too ordinary, too human.
She picked up the pen.
Addison said nothing.
Eliska signed.
The moment the ink touched the parchment, the forest screamed.
Wind exploded through the trees.
The candles went out.
The contract burned gold beneath Eliska's fingers, and a sharp pain pierced her palm. She cried out, dropping the parchment.
Addison caught it before it touched the ground.
Her emerald eyes gleamed.
"It's done."
Eliska stared at her hand.
The wound had vanished.
Her skin was flawless.
Not even a scar remained.
She looked up.
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"I'm immortal?"
Addison nodded.
Eliska laughed.
She laughed so hard she nearly cried.
For the first time in years, she felt light.
Young.
Untouchable.
She looked at Addison.
"And the child?"
Addison's smile returned.
"Oh, we'll have plenty of time to discuss that."
Eliska should have noticed the way the demon said it.
She should have noticed the slight curl of Addison's tail.
She should have noticed that Addison looked almost unbearably pleased.
Most of all, she should have read the final clause.
The one written beneath her signature.
The one that stated, in elegant black letters:
The child shall belong to the demon by blood and by right.
But Eliska was already dreaming of eternity.
She never saw it.
And somewhere beneath the earth, where ancient things slept and waited, a tiny spark of demonic magic stirred for the first time.
A child who did not yet exist.
A son who would one day be called Nyx.
And Addison Montgomery, who had waited centuries for something that would finally be hers, smiled into the darkness.
The bargain had been made.
Now all she had to do was wait.