The morning dawned with a blood-red sun over Shadowmist Settlement. Azreth paused at the entrance to Varik's healing cave, a bundle of freshly gathered herbs in his arms. Something felt wrong. The air carried a metallic tang that reminded him of—

  Battle. Blood. Betrayal.

  He shook his head, trying to dispel the fragment of memory. After six months in Shadowmist, these intrusions from his past life had grown more frequent but no less disorienting.

  "You feel it too?" Verna appeared beside him, her milky eyes staring beyond the physical world. The violet markings on her face—signs of her void-sight—glowed faintly in the early light.

  "Something's coming," Azreth confirmed, setting down his herbs. "We should warn Elder Krath."

  Verna nodded, her expression grave. "Your aura is flickering again. Gold and violet wrestling for dominance."

  "It happens when danger approaches." Azreth had stopped hiding his dual nature from Verna weeks ago. She had accepted his strangeness without judgment, becoming his only true friend in the settlement.

  They found Elder Krath outside his dwelling, already organizing the settlement's defenses. The four-horned elder had lived through countless human incursions and recognized the signs.

  "Azreth, join Dhurge at the northern perimeter," Krath commanded. "Verna, gather the children in the central cavern."

  "Elder, with respect," Azreth interjected, "these aren't regur raiders. I sense... something different."

  Krath's eyes narrowed. "Expin."

  "They carry powerful artifacts. Church weapons." Azreth couldn't expin how he knew this—the knowledge simply existed, bubbling up from his submerged memories.

  The elder studied him for a long moment. "Very well. Join Varik instead—prepare the healing cave for casualties."

  The humans attacked at midday, when the sun's gre would disadvantage the demons' night-adapted vision. Unlike typical border raiders seeking plunder, these attackers moved with military precision.

  "Specimens only!" shouted their leader, a broad-shouldered man whose armor bore the Church's sunburst insignia. "The Cardinal wants live subjects for the Purification Trials!"

  Azreth watched from the healing cave entrance as Shadowmist's warriors engaged the invaders. Dhurge led the defense, his crystal growths glinting as he hurled bolts of demonic energy. But the humans were prepared, their weapons and armor inscribed with counter-sigils that nullified demon magic.

  A chill ran down Azreth's spine as one particur human caught his attention—a slender figure wielding a sword that gleamed with golden light.

  Not as bright as the original. A copy. A lesser imitation.

  The sword resembled the Divine Sword from his fragmented memories, though this version cked the original's overwhelming power. Still, it cut through demonic defenses with terrifying efficiency.

  "Azreth!" Varik called from inside. "Stop gawking and help me!"

  Reluctantly, he turned away from the battle to assist the injured demons Varik was treating. The healer's cave quickly filled with wounded, the air thick with the scent of burned flesh and spilled blood.

  An hour into the attack, screams erupted from the central cavern where the children and non-combatants had taken refuge. The humans had breached their defenses.

  "Stay here," Varik ordered, pressing a blood-soaked cloth into Azreth's hands. "Keep pressure on this wound."

  But as soon as Varik left, Azreth abandoned his post. Something was pulling him toward the central cavern—a certainty that transcended conscious thought.

  Verna.

  He arrived to find chaos. The humans had bypassed the main defense, tunneling through from an abandoned mine shaft. They were systematically subduing younger demons with specialized chains that suppressed demonic abilities.

  "Take the void-touched one!" the leader ordered, pointing at Verna, who was trying to guide a group of smaller children to safety. "The Cardinal will pay double for a seer."

  Two humans closed in on Verna, wielding net unchers designed to entangle without killing.

  Azreth felt something snap inside him—a barrier between his present self and past memories. Combat knowledge flooded his consciousness. Without thinking, he drew on fire magic in a way Krozath had never taught him, creating not wild fmes but precisely controlled heat that melted the nets mid-flight.

  "Leave her alone!" he shouted, his voice carrying an authority that felt both foreign and familiar.

  The humans paused, surprised by the intervention. Their leader turned, revealing a face marked with old scars that formed a pattern—ritualistic wounds that identified him as a Specimen Hunter, a specialized Church operative who captured demons for experimentation.

  "Well, what have we here?" The leader studied Azreth with professional interest. "Unusual coloration, advanced magical control for one so young..." He made a gesture to his subordinates. "Take this one too."

  Azreth stood his ground, drawing on more of his awakening memories. He formed a shield of condensed fire, a technique beyond most adult demons. "You will not touch her."

  The hunter smiled coldly. "Fascinating." He unsheathed a smaller version of the Divine Sword copy—a dagger that hummed with holy energy. "Let's test your limits, shall we?"

  What followed was a dance of bdes and fire. Azreth moved with growing confidence, each exchange unlocking more muscle memory from his past life. He was holding his own against a trained human warrior twice his size—something that should have been impossible for a demon barely fourteen years old.

  But it wasn't enough.

  The hunter was toying with him, analyzing his abilities while reinforcements surrounded Verna. When Azreth lunged to help her, the hunter struck with brutal efficiency, driving the holy dagger into his shoulder.

  Agony exploded through Azreth's body—not just physical pain but a spiritual rejection that tore at his dual nature. He colpsed, the world spinning around him.

  Through blurring vision, he saw the humans chain Verna. Her eyes, normally clouded by her void-sight, focused directly on him for the first time.

  "Remember your promise," she called out as they dragged her away. "Find me, Twice-Lived!"

  The hunter stood over Azreth, studying him with clinical detachment. "Remarkable resistance to holy energy. Perhaps we should—"

  "Sir!" One of his men interrupted. "We've reached our quota, and their reinforcements are coming from the eastern settlement!"

  After a moment's hesitation, the hunter delivered a vicious kick to Azreth's head. "Leave this one. Too damaged now to be worth the trouble."

  As consciousness faded, Azreth caught a final glimpse of Verna being loaded into a cage marked with the Church's symbol—not the common sunburst, but a more eborate insignia he recognized from his past life. The Cardinal's personal mark.

  Era wore that same symbol on her ceremonial robes when she drove the dagger through my heart.

  Azreth awoke three days ter in Varik's healing cave, his body wrapped in poultices and binding spells. The settlement had survived, but at terrible cost. Twenty-seven dead, eighteen captured—including Verna and most of the younger demons with special abilities.

  "Why did they take her?" Azreth asked when Elder Krath visited his sickbed. "What are these Purification Trials?"

  The elder's face darkened. "The Church's test atrocity. They believe they can 'cleanse' demons of their nature, convert us to their faith." He spat on the ground. "None who are taken ever return."

  That night, when the settlement slept, Azreth dragged himself to the highest point above Shadowmist. The wound from the holy dagger refused to heal properly, leaving a star-shaped scar that pulsed with golden light—a constant reminder of his failure.

  Under the three moons of the demon realm, he made a vow, speaking both as Azreth and as the awakening Kael within him.

  "I will find you, Verna. I will save you." His voice grew stronger with each word. "And to do that, I need power. Real power."

  He looked toward the distant peak where Vexerus had told him to seek the Void Whisperer.

  "I need answers about the Divine Sword and why its copy affects me differently." He touched the star-shaped wound. "I need to understand what I truly am."

  In that moment, surrounded by the silence of the night, Azreth made his choice. He would no longer hide from his dual nature or the destiny it implied. If the universe had given him this second chance for a reason, he would embrace it fully.

  By morning, he was gone from Shadowmist Settlement, leaving behind only a note for Varik with a promise to return stronger—strong enough to protect those he cared about, strong enough to challenge the Church that had betrayed him in one life and stolen his friend in another.

  The journey to the Howling Peaks would be long and dangerous, but Azreth walked with new purpose. With each step, the memories of Kael Lightbringer and the instincts of Azreth the demon flowed more seamlessly together.

  He was becoming something new—something neither world had seen before.

  And somewhere in the human realm, locked in the Cardinal's dungeons, Verna waited.