Doors of Shadows
The garden felt too beautiful for the ache in her chest.
Elowen walked in silence, her slippers whispering across the grass-soft path lined with black roses that breathed in rhythm with the wind. Trees taller than towers bowed slightly in her presence, as if recognizing her now not as an intruder, but a marked soul.
Fairies moved across the skies like glowing dust, trailing silver ribbons through the air. Winged serpents slithered through the trees overhead, purring like cats. In the distance, the bellows of dragons echoed between cliffs and ruins. The realm pulsed with life, yet she had never felt more alone.
Behind her, her assigned maids followed like shadows — always three steps back, never speaking unless spoken to. Elowen didn't mind. She had no desire to talk.
Not today.
Not when he hadn't come.
Morris — or rather, Lucifer.
He had vanished from her world the moment he kissed her. Not a visit. Not a whisper. Not even a pulse of warmth through the mark that bound them.
That kiss… it hadn't been a mistake. She knew it. She had seen it in his eyes — how it shook him. The devil had trembled. And then he left her with silence.
That hurt more than any lie.
She paused beside a fairy-ring, watching the small creatures as they wove moonlight into the petals of a flame lily. Their voices were soft and melodic, but she couldn't hear the words — only the loneliness between the notes.
"Take me to the library," she said suddenly.
One maid lifted her head. "My lady?"
"Now."
The women exchanged glances, worry creeping behind their veils.
"We… are not permitted to bring guests into His Grace's private study—"
"I didn't ask about his study," she said. "I want the library."
They bowed.
She didn't miss the fear in their silence.
Inside the Library
The Grand Library was unlike anything she had imagined — and her mind had grown wild with fantasy.
It was cathedral-tall, its shelves stacked higher than towers, filled with books that breathed, wept, moaned, and whispered. Each row shifted with her presence — shelves folding, sliding, realigning like a sentient maze. Some books floated midair. Others trembled like animals in cages. The smell was dense — parchment, ashes, flowers, and something old. Something that remembered the beginning of time.
Elowen wandered the first few aisles, running her fingers across tomes titled in languages she didn't understand. Her maids waited at the entrance, unwilling to follow her deeper. She understood. This place was holy. Or cursed. Or both.
"Where does he read?" she finally asked.
The question froze the air.
The eldest maid stepped forward, bowing low. "My lady… we cannot say."
"Because you do not know?"
"No," she whispered. "Because we fear what we do know."
The way she said it made Elowen shiver.
She nodded once. "Then return to my chambers. I'll join you shortly."
Reluctantly, they obeyed.
When their footsteps faded, Elowen moved deeper.
She wasn't sure what pulled her down the narrow corridor behind the map alcove. Maybe instinct. Maybe the mark. Or maybe it was simply the weight of unanswered questions.
She brushed her fingers along the spines of identical books — all blank, all fake.
And then she saw it.
A black door.
No seams. No handle. Just smooth obsidian with faintly glowing runes carved into it like veins. It pulsed once as she stepped closer.
She smiled faintly, heart pounding.
He had hidden something here.
"So this is your sanctuary," she murmured. "You sly creature."
But now wasn't the time.
She couldn't risk opening it while the halls stirred. Not while eyes could still watch.
So she turned, gathered herself, and returned to her maids with a carefully worn expression of fatigue.
"I'm tired," she told them. "Take me back."
That Night
Elowen didn't sleep.
She waited.
The moon in this realm never rose, but the stars outside her window pulsed with slow, steady rhythm — heartbeat stars. The mark on her neck burned faintly all night.
When the castle was finally still, and the silence had soaked deep enough to drown curiosity, she rose.
She dressed in soft black — simple, silent — and slipped from her room like a breath. The maids didn't notice. The guards along the corridor didn't glanced her way.
She moved like someone walking toward a wound they had to reopen.
Back through the shadows of the library.
Back to the black door.
It greeted her with silence.
She reached up and touched the mark on her neck — then pressed her hand to the rune-etched surface.
A low whisper curled in the air — ancient words — and blue light unfurled from her palm, spilling across the door like moonlight melting into ink. The runes shivered. Shifted.
And the door opened.
You don't seek the devil's truth and return unchanged.
The door closed behind her with a whisper.
Elowen stood frozen just inside the threshold, her hand still raised, the mark still glowing faintly against her skin. The temperature shifted—cooler, denser. She could feel something ancient in the air, something sacred. Or damned.
The chamber before her was not just a study. It was a sanctuary of secrets.
It stretched wider than it should've—like space itself had bent to fit the pain buried in these walls. The floor was made of black mirror-stone, and her reflection looked darker, older, more haunted. Every surface shimmered like memory.
Tall windows—caged in bone and flame-carved glass—did not show the outer realm, but echoes of the past. In one, a child with wild black curls chased stars in a garden made of fireflies. In another, a boy knelt in blood, a crown shattered beside him. These were not dreams—they were scars made visible.
And in the center of it all: a desk carved from petrified root, webbed with veins of gold and sorrow.
Elowen stepped closer, the silence pressing like a breath held too long.
On the desk lay parchment, thick with ink stains and grief.
She reached for the first scroll—her hands trembling slightly.
The handwriting was his.
"Day after day I suffer in silence.My shredded heart lies buried in shadows I cannot name.I live every breath caged in a body too old for hope.I would burn a thousand worlds to feel my heart beat again."
Elowen pressed her lips together, eyes stinging.
She found another—this one newer. Short. Abrasive.
"The mark—it binds us. I knew it would, but not like this.Her voice haunts my sleep. Her eyes burn my defenses.I've destroyed nations. Why can't I look at her and lie?"
She set it down slowly.
Across the room, books lined a single curved shelf, each bound in shadow-leather, some humming faintly with ancient curses. One stood out—a black book with silver etching.
"Lucifer – A Goose-Bumping Tale of the Night"
She opened it with reverence.
But it wasn't a tale. It was a confession.
Handwritten. Every word bleeding truth.
The first page read:
"They call me Devil.But I was a boy once.A son. A prince. A promise.Until my heart was scattered,And my soul was torn by hands that once swore to protect me."
Elowen's hand hovered over the page, eyes wide, throat tight.
He had been… human.
Or something close.
She kept reading. Each page revealed more of his pain—not of war, but betrayal. The king who sold his bloodline. The queen who was never meant to wear the crown. The son buried before his time. A child whose body was left to rot while gods debated mercy.
And then—the awakening.
"I returned not as man, but vengeance. And yet,he still lives inside me. The boy.Crying in the corners I pretend not to see."
Elowen sat down slowly.
The mark on her neck burned softly—not in pain, but in resonance.
You weren't supposed to see this, it whispered.
But she had.
And she couldn't unsee it.
Meanwhile: Morris Feels the Shift
In the grand infernal court, Lucifer stood stiff, eyes on nothing, voice drowned by the churning weight of something unspoken. Ivan had been speaking, briefing him on the five vessels chosen for infiltration. But Lucifer wasn't listening.
He felt it.
Her heartbeat.
Not fast. Not panicked. But—pierced. Like she had found something that cracked her open.
"She's not asleep," he muttered.
Ivan looked up. "My Lord?"
"She's not in her chamber."
A stillness spread through the hall.
Lucifer disappeared in a breath of smoke and flame.
In Her Room
"Where is she?" His voice was not shouted, but the maids fell to their knees in terror all the same.
One stuttered, "She—she was tired—my Lord—we thought—"
The bed was untouched.
His golden eyes ignited. The mark on his palm flared. She had used it. She had opened the door.
That door.
He vanished before they could utter another word.
Elowen Leaves
The study began to feel too quiet. The air too heavy. She knew he would feel it—her presence. The mark had pulsed when she first touched the door. That meant only one thing.
He knew.
She gathered the scrolls back carefully, placing them where she found them. She paused only once—at the mirror that did not reflect.
She saw herself… and someone else standing beside her.
Not Morris. Not Lucifer.
A boy with soft eyes and blood on his mouth.
She turned and ran.
Through the corridors. Down the shifting halls. Past the serpents, past the paintings, past the shadows whispering her name.
The Silver-Robed Girl
Just as she entered the outer courtyard, breathless and trembling, a flicker of light to her right caught her attention.
A girl in silver robes stood beneath the twisted moon-tree. Her face was pale, almost glowing, eyes empty and knowing. She didn't move.
She only watched.
Elowen took a step back.
The girl smiled faintly.
And vanished.
Elowen's heart nearly gave out.
She fled to her chambers.
Morris Appears
She didn't make it to her bed.
One of the maids cried out as the air turned heavy—and then he was there.
Morris.
His arm wrapped around her waist in one swift movement, pulling her flush against his chest. She gasped—not in fear, but from the intensity in his eyes.
They weren't just glowing.They were devastated.
The maids scattered in reverent fear, kneeling low.
And then, like a falling star, they vanished.
In Her Chamber
He set her down.
No fury. No shouting.
Just silence.
He stood before her, breathing heavily. His fists clenched and unclenched as he looked at her.
"You went there."
She said nothing.
He closed his eyes.
"I told you… some doors are not meant to be opened."
Still, she said nothing.
He stepped forward.
"Do you understand what you read? What you saw? That is not just my pain you opened. That was—"
"Morris," she whispered.
He froze.
"I saw you."
He swallowed.
"You weren't always… this."
"No," he whispered. "I was worse."
"You were a boy," she said, stepping toward him. "You were loved. Then you were betrayed."
His jaw clenched. His voice cracked.
"And now I am everything they feared I would become."
She reached out.
He stepped back.
"Don't," he breathed. "You don't understand what I'm trying to protect you from."
"Yourself?"
He didn't reply.
He looked at her — truly looked — and the pain in his eyes was deeper than any flame he'd conjured. She thought he might touch her. She thought he might disappear.
Instead, he whispered, "Go to sleep. You'll be safe now."
And then he was gone.