Lucifer lay back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling, watching pale morning light drift across the carved arches overhead. He was waiting for Amelia.
His survival now depended on her.
This fact alone was humiliating.
He did not believe she would betray him. If she had truly wanted him dead, she would never have agreed to help. Whatever resentment she carried, her loyalty to House Valcrest ran deeper than most who bore its name,perhaps deeper than his own.
That thought did not sit well.
Whenever he thought about Amelia,something inside him felt stained.
Their meeting had not been coincidence. Not kindness. Not destiny. Not something soft enough to excuse what followed.
They had been tied together too early,before either of them understood what binding truly meant.
And if the future followed its old rhythm,then
She would be the one to end him.
In the novel, it had been the protagonist.
In the game, more often than not,
It was Amelia.
His maid.
His Guardian.
He felt no hatred toward her. Anthony's memories made that impossible. If killing him had ever granted her freedom,"true freedom" then perhaps that had been the closest thing to justice this world could offer.
He closed his eyes.
He had been a child when he found her.
He wandered into the eastern quarter of Creston out of boredom, guards trailing behind him at a careful distance. He liked stepping beyond polished streets and trimmed hedges. It made him feel bold.
That was when he heard it.
A small sound. Not loud enough to demand help. Just fragile enough to be ignored.
He followed it into a narrow alley where damp stone trapped the scent of rain and rot.
A girl sat there with her back against the wall.
Her black hair tangled. Clothes torn. Bruises dark against pale skin.
Her one arm wrapped around her ribs as if holding herself together. In her other hand,there was a piece of bread partially covered in dirt.
She looked at him warily .
Little Lucifer felt confused at this.
He crouched down and examined her.
"Hey," he asked with grave childish seriousness, "are you dying?"
She flinched and turned her head away from him.
"That's bad," he decided after thinking about it. "You shouldn't do that."
He removed his cloak and draped it over her shoulders. The fabric swallowed her whole. It was too large for her small frame, heavy and warm, shielding her from the cold stone behind.
"My house has food," he added when she didn't reply. "And warm beds. You can stop dying there."
She stared at him for a long time before finally nodding.
When he took her hand, he remembered thinking how small it felt.
He had wrapped her in warmth.
He had thought that was enough.
Back then, he cared without calculation.
He made sure she ate first. Sat beside her when she slept. Followed her through the estate as if afraid she might vanish if left alone too long.
He gave her a name.
Amelia Valcrest.
He liked calling her Amy.
She trusted him. Completely.
When she awakened an SSS-rank Shadow affinity,the estate shifted overnight. Tutors arrived. Evaluations followed. Whispers moved through corridors that had once ignored her existence.
The Duke considered formally adopting her into the main branch.
Amelia refused.
She held onto Lucifer's sleeve and shook her head.
She would not leave him.
The elders objected. A talent like hers could not remain unattached within a ducal household. It would invite political pressure.
So a compromise was forged.
The Noble-Guardian Pact.
A soul-bound contract reserved for heirs and those entrusted with their protection. Usually such Guardians were seasoned elites assigned to shield noble descendants.
Amelia was young but her talent demanded structure.
The pact elevated her status.
It also bound her.
She could not harm him.
She could not abandon him.
Not while the contract endured.
The Valcrest sigil embedded within a slender ceremonial cane served as its anchor. The relic was not merely symbolic ,it was authority made tangible. Through it, an heir could exert pressure upon the bound soul. Protection and control intertwined.
At the time, he had felt secure.
Chosen.
Important.
He never questioned what it meant to hold someone else's freedom in his hand.
For a while, nothing changed.
They trained together. Ate together. Laughed together.
Then others began to awaken.
Power surfaced everywhere except within him.
Cousins. Allied heirs. Even boys he had once dismissed surpassed him with humiliating ease. The Ancient Wing remained dormant.
Proof without power.
Courtesy remained.
Belief did not.
Wine dulled humiliation. Cruelty replaced patience. Control began to resemble strength when real strength refused to arrive.
Then happened the demon invasion.
A space rift opened near Valcrest Mansion which caught everyone off guard.
His uncle died protecting him.
His mother destroyed the strongest demon at the cost of crippling herself.
He remembered crying in a shattered hall, holding a hand that was still warm.
Amelia stood nearby, silent. Watching him with something he did not understand then.
Something hardened inside him that day.
The boy who once guarded Amelia like treasure began searching for something smaller than himself to press down.
He found it in Sebastian.
Sebastian Obsidian Valcrest.
His cousin.
A quiet, earnest, already awakened.
Lucifer cornered him in the training yard while others watched. He pushed him into the dirt and kicked him once, then again, waiting for retaliation.
Sebastian never fought back.
Even though he could have.
That restraint stung worse than resistance.
The estate pretended not to notice his deeds.
Expectation without fulfillment weighs heavier than neglect.
When the Academy admission year arrived, preparations began for the awakened heirs.
Sebastian would go.
Others would go.
Amelia, having reached the required refinement, was nominated as well.
Lucifer was not.
He remained unawakened.
Ineligible.
The Duke's decision was quiet but firm: Amelia would attend Astral Crowncrest Academy.
She informed him calmly.
Professionally.
What burned him was not her departure.
It was that she had accepted it.
Without him.
Without asking.
If she left, she would grow.
If she grew, she might no longer belong to him.
He did not want protection.
He wanted possession.
That night, he asked her to meet him.
She came.
The cane rested in his hand.
Once, he had wrapped her in a cloak to shield her from cold stone.
Now he held a relic that did the opposite.
He activated the sigil.
The pressure began subtly ,a tightening beneath the skin, a weight pressing against her soul. No visible injury. No outward spectacle.
Only containment.
He increased it slowly.
Watched her shoulders stiffen. Watched her breathing shorten.
He spoke quietly. Deliberately. Words chosen to wound, to remind, to anchor her in place.
He did not strike her.
He did not shout.
He simply proved that warmth could be replaced by weight.
Afterward, he heard her crying through the wall.
He remained awake.
He did nothing.
That was when he truly broke her.
Not physically.
But in the space where trust once lived.
The worst part was not that he hurt her.
It was that he justified it.
He told himself she was abandoning him.
He told himself he deserved loyalty.
She had trusted him once.
And he had taught her why that was a mistake.
Surprisingly after that night, he started avoiding her.
The pact still bound her.
But something inside her no longer did.
And in a future he remembered too clearly, under circumstances shaped by intent and a flaw the pact had never accounted for,
She managed to kill him.
Lucifer opened his eyes.
Anthony's memories did not soften the truth.
They sharpened it.
The door opened at this time.
Amelia entered.
Hair neat. Eyes unreadable.
His maid.
His Guardian.
The girl he once wrapped in warmth.
She placed the storage pendant on the table without comment.
Lucifer stood.
"This was the last time I let my pride hide behind your loyalty," he said quietly. "I will not use the chain between us as shelter again."
He held her gaze.
"…Thank you, Amy."
Not as heir.
Not as master.
But as the boy who once offered her a cloak and told her not to die.