An Impossible Proposal

The massive oak doors leading to the Throne Room remained closed. Two rows of Royal Knights guarded the entrance with their lances crossed, standing motionless like statues. Kaari paced back and forth down the hallway, unable to stand still.

They had returned to the capital the night before, and her father had met with the Demon King without telling her or allowing her to attend. Cornwald accompanied her to try to calm her down, without much success.

“Your Highness, you’re not accomplishing anything by waiting out here. You could use this time to rest after your turbulent journey.”

Kaari crossed her arms and gazed absently out the windows overlooking Amrisee, the kingdom’s most important city.

“I want to be able to yell in my father’s face when they’re done talking.”

“His Majesty is the only one who can deal with that scourge on equal terms,” the butler replied without bitterness.

“I’ve already done that,” she said, raising her voice. “I freed him and convinced him to help us. I took responsibility, and now I must deal with him.”

“And you did an excellent job, Your Highness. But he is no subordinate; he is a Demon King. And for reasons unknown to us, he agreed to come to our aid.”

She tapped her heel and glanced sideways at the butler.

“He doesn’t seem like the being everyone’s been talking about.”

“But he is,” Cornwald’s reply left no room for debate, “I assure you. Doesn’t it make you suspicious that on the very day you traveled to reinforce the Pact, an army of demons attacked the prison and forced you to free him?”

Kaari hesitated for a moment before answering, and when she did, it was in a whisper.

“Something told me I had to do it.”

The Throne Room remained in absolute silence.

Two lines of Royal Knights guarded the long central corridor with their hands on the hilts of their swords. Behind them, several court mages stood on alert, their eyes fixed on the man at the far end of the room. The fifty most skilled people in the capital, against one: Baalgran.

The former Demon King surveyed the room with a calm expression. He did not seem impressed. At the far end, seated on Aethelgard’s throne, King Karthan rested one arm on the armrest.

“You haven’t aged a bit,” he said at last.

Baalgran did not reply.

“Fifteen years, and you’re still just as arrogant,” Karthan continued. “Take a good look at these men and women. Every one of them will give everything they have to kill you if you do anything foolish.”

“Fifteen years ago or now, there’s no point in gathering them here,” was the only thing the Demon King replied.

“True, except for my brother, no one was able to stop you, but times change, and you’re not the same either, are you?”

Those words caused the prisoner’s expression to harden slightly. The knights sensed that subtle shift in his gaze and, almost instinctively, stiffened their posture. Baalgran slowly turned his eyes toward them. Just a glance. The air in the room seemed to grow heavier.

Several soldiers swallowed hard. Not even a shadow of doubt gave them the courage to try to provoke him.

The king raised a hand.

“Enough.” Everyone obeyed immediately. “We have not come to fight. My daughter has told me what happened in Meredis. She says you helped her—why?”

“Because she asked me to.”

The king let out a brief chuckle, and the members of the court exchanged bewildered glances.

“Chroniclers have tried to understand the Demon King. Priests wrote treatises. Generals studied your campaigns. Scholars debated what your true intentions were.” The king’s smile became barely visible. “And it turns out that all it took was for a young girl to ask you for help.”

Baalgran remained silent. He didn’t seem offended, but rather reserved.

The king let out a sigh after a few seconds of silence and addressed him again.

“Did you come only because my daughter asked you to?”

“No, because she mentioned a new Demon King, and that’s impossible.” For the first time since the conversation began, Baalgran strode decisively to the center of the room. The Royal Guard hesitated to stop him. “You’re going to tell me everything you know.”

One of the knights closest to the king—who wore the most lavish white-and-blue armor in the entire Guard—leapt in his path, drawing his sword.

“Scum, you dare not speak to the king that way in my presence.”

“Gawen. Return to your post.” The king’s words betrayed fear rather than courage.

Baalgran himself stopped shortly after crossing halfway across the room, and Karthan stroked his copper-colored beard. Then replied.

“He appeared a few months ago in the south of the continent. Seized what little remained of your forces and reorganized them. He is known as Baalmordan, and like the common people, he would have no reason to know of your existence.”

“Unless someone told him,” Baalgran added without a shred of empathy.

The king merely nodded slightly.

“As we speak, he is conquering and destroying with even greater cruelty than you, if that’s possible. The Cycle repeats itself, but this time there’s no one to stop him… unless…

Baalgran closed his eyes for a moment and opened them with a look of gloom.

“You want me to kill him. For you—the man who decimated my people.”

“Your people…” the king spat with disgust. “Anyway, kill him, and I’ll grant you your freedom again.”

The former Demon King raised an eyebrow and scanned the room once more.

“I already have that; I can leave here and go wherever I please.”

Karthan laughed and looked at him with a smile.

“You can leave, yes. But do you really think Baalmordan will let you? You pose a threat to his plans. It’s clear that you two see things differently. And since he possesses everything you once had, you won’t be able to defeat him on your own when he catches you.”

He interlaced his fingers and let his smile widen as he sensed Baalgran’s doubts. The latter looked away, deep in thought.

“And what is your plan?”

The king rose from the throne and looked down at him from the top of the stairs.

“You will travel with my daughter and a select group through the kingdom’s lands under the pretext of fostering a symbolic bond between the people and the crown. You’ll travel in disguise as you make your way south. Perhaps, by bypassing his army, you’ll have a chance. I don’t know if it will work, but I do know that confronting him head-on means losing before even starting.”

Silence reigned once more. Even the Guard themselves couldn’t stop exchanging glances after hearing their king’s absurd plan. Suddenly, Baalgran let out the first laugh anyone could recall him ever making. A laugh full of irony and resignation.

“So you’re going to free a Demon King… to kill another.”

“Yes,” the king affirmed bluntly.

“You’re very different from your brother.”

“My brother was born to be the Hero and protect the kingdom; I was born to keep it alive at all costs. And that comes with one more condition.”

Baalgran narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.

“What is it?”

“We’re going to make a Pact. One that will guarantee your freedom, but in which a single word will be enough to end your life.”

“What’s the point…

“I trust you want to destroy Baalmordan,” the king added, cutting Baalgran off completely. “But I don’t trust that you want to protect humanity.”

The former Demon King sighed, and for a moment it seemed as though he were ignoring Karthan. He looked up at the largest painting in the Throne Room—that of Aerios Aethelgard, Hero of Humanity. Something he couldn’t quite recall from his last battle was gnawing at him from within. A truth that perhaps only Aerios himself and he knew. How had he lost, and why had he ended up imprisoned rather than executed? He needed answers. He had nothing left. And with that in mind, he accepted his own downfall.

“I accept.”