Seven years had passed since the half-breed demon child had been brought to the sve quarters. Against all expectations, Thrall 7249 had survived infancy, though he remained smaller than his full-blooded demon peers.

  The sve quarters were carved deep into the rocky foundations of Infernum, the rgest of the seven demon kingdoms. Narrow corridors connected cramped sleeping chambers where dozens of thralls were packed together on thin mats. The air was perpetually thick with the scent of unwashed bodies and the sulfurous fumes that seeped through cracks in the stone.

  "Get up, runts!" The overseer's voice echoed through the children's chamber. "Work doesn't wait for zy thralls!"

  The child who would one day remember being called Kai rose quickly from his sleeping mat. Experience had taught him that being st invited extra attention from the overseers—attention that always ended painfully.

  "You, half-breed," the overseer snarled, pointing his barbed whip at the boy. "Kitchen duty today. Try not to break anything, or it'll be the pit for you."

  The boy nodded silently, keeping his eyes downcast. Drawing attention was dangerous. Being different was dangerous. And he was different in ways beyond his mixed heritage—though he didn't understand why.

  Sometimes, strange dreams came to him—images of bright rooms filled with objects he couldn't name, and a face in a glowing square that moved like water. These dreams left him confused and disoriented, making him appear slow-witted to others, which only made him more of a target.

  The kitchens were hot, filled with massive cauldrons bubbling over fires that were never allowed to die. Adult thralls moved with practiced efficiency, preparing meals for the higher castes who lived above. Children were assigned simple tasks—carrying ingredients, scrubbing pots, or cleaning waste.

  "Watch where you're going, half-breed!" A foot shot out, tripping the boy as he carried a bucket of potato peelings. He crashed to the floor, the contents spilling across the stone.

  Laughter erupted from a group of older demon children. Their leader, a red-skinned boy named Vrag, stood over him with a cruel smile that dispyed his already-sharp teeth.

  "Look at the weakling," Vrag sneered. "No horns, no fangs, not even proper demon skin. Your mother must have been desperate to rut with whatever made you."

  The boy said nothing as he began gathering the scattered peelings. Speaking back meant beating. Fighting back meant worse.

  "I'm talking to you, dirt-blood," Vrag growled, delivering a kick to the smaller child's ribs.

  Pain fred through the boy's side. He curled instinctively but continued collecting the peelings. Another kick followed.

  "Leave some for the rest of us," called another demon child, a female with small curved horns. "If you break him, we'll have to do his work."

  Vrag ughed but stepped back. "You're lucky, half-breed. Next time, I'll show you how real demons treat mistakes."

  The boy finished cleaning the mess and continued his tasks, ignoring the throbbing in his side. This was nothing new. From his earliest memories, he had been the target of rger, stronger demon children. His smaller stature and cking demonic features made him an obvious outlet for their cruelty.

  Days blurred together in endless cycles of work, abuse, and fitful sleep. The boy learned to move silently, to stay in shadows, to make himself invisible whenever possible. He watched the overseers and other sves carefully, learning patterns of behavior that might keep him alive another day.

  By his tenth year, most of the sve children had developed noticeable demonic traits—horns that jutted proudly from foreheads, skin that hardened into scales or took on vibrant hues, cws that extended from fingertips. The boy's development was slower, his demon heritage revealing itself in subtler ways—eyes that sometimes reflected light like a cat's, slightly pointed ears, and unusual quickness when frightened.

  These small differences only made the bullying worse.

  "Look at the half-breed," Vrag, now sporting impressive bck horns, would taunt. "Still waiting for your horns to grow? Maybe they never will. Maybe you're just a deformed human."

  The taunts hurt less than the beatings that followed. The boy had learned to endure both in silence.

  One night, as he y curled on his sleeping mat nursing fresh bruises, an elderly sve woman shuffled past. She was ancient by sve standards, her once-mighty horns now worn down to nubs, her scaled skin hanging loose on her frame. She was assigned to simple cleaning tasks, too old for hard bor but not yet useless enough to be disposed of.

  She paused beside the boy's mat, her cloudy eyes studying him with unusual interest.

  "You're different," she whispered, her voice a dry rasp. "Not just your blood. Your soul. It doesn't belong here."

  The boy looked up, surprised by both the direct address and her words.

  "Had a dream about you," she continued. "Saw you standing with fire in your hands and a crown of shadows. You will rise or die trying, half-blood. No middle path for souls like yours."

  Before he could respond, she shuffled away, leaving the boy to wonder at her words. It wasn't the first time someone had commented on something unusual about him. One of the magical adepts who occasionally inspected the sves had once paused beside him, frowning.

  "This one's soul signature is... abnormal," the adept had said to his companion. "Almost as if... no, impossible. Just a mutation, I suppose."

  These incidents left the boy with questions he couldn't answer. Why did he feel so different? Why did the strange dreams of another world feel so real sometimes? Why could he sometimes understand concepts that confused even adult sves?

  Winter came to Infernum, though deep in the sve quarters the only change was the increased chill seeping through the stone. Food rations grew smaller as upper caste demons hoarded supplies. Competition among sves intensified, with the weak often going without meals entirely.

  The boy had developed strategies for survival. He had found hiding pces in forgotten corridors, memorized the patterns of food distribution, and learned which kitchen workers might be persuaded to drop scraps where he could find them ter.

  One evening, as he crept through the narrow spaces between storage rooms looking for fallen crumbs, he heard voices around the corner.

  "The weak ones won't survive this winter," an overseer was saying. "Good riddance. Natural culling strengthens the stock."

  "What about the half-breed?" asked another voice. "The one with the strange eyes?"

  "That one?" The overseer ughed. "Surprising he's sted this long. Too small to be useful, too weak to fight back. He'll be among the first to go when the real cold sets in."

  The boy pressed himself against the wall, heart pounding. He had always known his position was precarious, but hearing his death discussed so casually made the danger immediate.

  That night, huddled on his thin mat, he made a decision. He would not die this winter. He would not be culled like an unwanted animal. Something deep inside him—something that felt older than his young body—rejected the idea of surrender.

  As other sve children slept around him, the boy stared into the darkness with unusual determination in his eyes. For a brief moment, they fshed with an inner light that had nothing to do with his demon heritage.

  Somewhere in the locked memories of a human boy named Kai, a spark of defiance remained. And though he couldn't access those memories yet, their influence shaped his resolve.

  He would survive. Whatever it took.