The royal archives occupied a vast cavern deep beneath the main fortress, accessible only through a single narrow corridor that spiraled downward for hundreds of feet. Unlike the rest of the demon stronghold, with its dramatic va channels and imposing architecture, the archives were cool and dimly lit. Preservation of ancient texts required an environment hostile to most demons, who thrived in heat and brightness.

  Perhaps that was why Grimshaw had survived so long as the royal archivist. Few demons coveted a position that required spending centuries in the retive cold and darkness, surrounded by scrolls and tablets rather than weapons and trophies.

  Azaril made his way down the spiral staircase, a small fme conjured in his palm providing just enough light to see. Even this minor blood magic taxed him more than it would other demons, but he had mastered the basic skill through sheer stubborn practice.

  At the bottom of the staircase, a massive iron door blocked the entrance to the archives proper. It bore no lock—security through obscurity and disinterest rather than physical barriers. Few demons could read the ancient scripts, and fewer still cared to.

  Azaril pushed the door open, the ancient hinges groaning in protest. Beyond y a byrinth of stone shelves extending into shadow-filled distances. The air smelled of dust, old parchment, and the faint metallic tang of preservation spells.

  "Grimshaw?" Azaril called softly.

  "Section Twelve-B, young prince," came the scratchy response, seeming to echo from multiple directions at once.

  Azaril navigated the narrow passages between shelves, following a system he had learned over centuries of cndestine visits. Section Twelve-B housed historical accounts of the Burning Reaches campaign—a seemingly innocuous collection that would raise no suspicions if they were discovered there.

  He found Grimshaw hunched over a stone table, his withered fingers tracing lines of text on a crumbling scroll. Despite his milky blind eyes, the old archivist moved with perfect confidence among his precious documents.

  "You're te," Grimshaw noted without looking up.

  "I had to wait until the pace guards changed shifts," Azaril expined. "After the council meeting today, security seems tighter than usual."

  "Hmm. Failure makes our kind nervous." Grimshaw carefully rolled the scroll he'd been examining. "And as you observed, we've been facing increasing failures."

  Azaril settled on a stone bench across from the archivist. "What did you want to show me?"

  Instead of answering directly, Grimshaw asked, "How familiar are you with the founding of our current dynasty?"

  "Queen Morghana defeated the previous ruler in formal challenge nine decades ago," Azaril recited. "Before that, King Fmeheart ruled for three centuries, having taken the throne from—"

  "No, no," Grimshaw interrupted with an impatient wave. "Not the recent squabbles. I mean the original formation of the demon realm itself. The true beginning."

  Azaril frowned. "The standard histories say demons have always lived in the volcanic regions, that we evolved naturally from the fire and ash."

  "The standard histories," Grimshaw repeated with a dry chuckle. "Written by the victors, preserved by the powerful, and repeated until even the untrue parts become accepted fact."

  The old archivist stood and moved to a section of wall that appeared identical to all the others. He pressed a sequence of stones, and a hidden panel slid open, revealing a small alcove. From within, Grimshaw withdrew a metal box sealed with multiple preservation spells.

  "What I'm about to show you exists in no official record," he said, his voice dropping to barely a whisper despite their isotion. "If the Queen knew I had preserved these texts, she would have me executed, ancient servant or not."

  Azaril felt a chill that had nothing to do with the archive's temperature. "Then perhaps you shouldn't risk—"

  "Knowledge is always a risk, young prince. The question is whether the potential benefit outweighs the danger." Grimshaw pced the box on the table and began carefully disarming the magical seals. "You asked once why I share forbidden texts with you. Tonight, you'll understand why."

  The final seal broke with a fsh of crimson light. Grimshaw opened the box and gently removed a set of tablets unlike any Azaril had seen before. They weren't made of stone or metal, but of some crystalline substance that seemed to shimmer with its own inner light.

  "These are memory crystals," Grimshaw expined, handling them with extreme care. "Created in the time before time, when demons were... different."

  "Different how?" Azaril asked, leaning forward to examine the strange tablets.

  "Pce your hand on the central crystal," Grimshaw instructed. "But be prepared. What you're about to experience isn't just knowledge—it's memory. Direct, unfiltered, and possibly overwhelming."

  Hesitantly, Azaril reached out and pced his palm on the rgest crystal tablet. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the pressure behind his eyes—his unusual mental ability—fred to life, connecting with something in the crystal.

  The archive chamber disappeared.

  Azaril stood on a vast pin beneath an unfamiliar sky. The ndscape was neither volcanic nor ashen, but a verdant expanse dotted with strange structures unlike any demon architecture he knew. And there were demons everywhere—thousands of them—but they looked wrong somehow.

  As he focused, he realized what was different. These demons dispyed incredible variety in their appearance. Some were massive and muscur like Makar, yes, but others were slender and graceful. Some had huge horns, others small ones, and some had none at all. Their skin tones ranged from obsidian-bck like the Queen's to pale shades lighter than Azaril's own.

  Most shockingly, they weren't fighting or demonstrating physical prowess. Instead, they were... building. Creating. Thinking.

  A group near him appeared to be engaged in some kind of mental exercise, objects floating and rearranging around them through power clearly simir to what Azaril had accidentally demonstrated in the training ground.

  "The mind circle advances well," said a voice beside him.

  Azaril turned to see a tall, elegant demon with small horns and pale skin disturbingly simir to his own. The demon wore robes covered in intricate patterns rather than battle armor.

  "The body circle continues to question our methods," the robed demon continued, apparently speaking to Azaril—or rather, to whoever's memory he was experiencing. "They believe physical strength should determine all leadership positions."

  "Bance requires both, Mentor Thoughtweaver," replied a voice using Azaril's mouth, though the words weren't his. "Mind and body, creation and destruction, building and fighting. The First Fme gifted us with diversity for a reason."

  The scene shifted suddenly. The peaceful pin was now a battlefield. Demons fought demons in a confused melee that made no sense by the ordered battle standards Azaril knew. Those with massive physiques and rge horns were sughtering the smaller, more graceful demons, who attempted to defend themselves with mental abilities but were overwhelmed by sheer physical force.

  "The body circle has betrayed us," gasped a dying demon at Azaril's feet—the same robed mentor from before. "They've decred mind magic weakness, mental strength an aberration. They're purging our kind from history."

  "I'll preserve what I can," promised the voice through Azaril. "The true history, the memory crystals. Even if it takes millennia, bance must eventually be restored."

  A massive demon warrior appeared through the smoke, blood dripping from curved bdes. "There's the st mind leader," he growled. "Take him!"

  The scene dissolved into chaos.

  Azaril jerked his hand away from the crystal, gasping as the archive chamber snapped back into focus around him. His heart hammered in his chest, and the pressure behind his eyes pulsed with sympathetic power.

  "What... what was that?" he managed to ask between ragged breaths.

  Grimshaw carefully returned the crystal to its box. "The true beginning. Or rather, the true ending that became our beginning."

  "Those demons... they were like me." Azaril stared at his hands, still feeling the phantom sensation of the memory. "The smaller ones, with mental abilities."

  "Yes," Grimshaw nodded. "Once, long ago, demon society valued two kinds of strength equally—physical might and mental power. They were called the body circle and the mind circle, two halves of a banced whole. Until the betrayal."

  "The body circle turned on the mind circle," Azaril said slowly. "They sughtered them and then... erased them from history?"

  "Almost completely," Grimshaw confirmed. "A few survived, going into hiding, suppressing their abilities to blend in. Over generations, the mental gifts became rarer, appearing unexpectedly in bloodlines that seemed to carry the dormant trait." He fixed his blind gaze on Azaril. "Bloodlines like the royal one."

  The implications struck Azaril like a physical blow. "Are you saying the Queen—?"

  "I say nothing about the Queen," Grimshaw interrupted sharply. "Specution about Her Majesty is more dangerous than any forbidden text."

  Azaril fell silent, processing what he had learned. The strange power he possessed wasn't an aberration or weakness as everyone cimed. It was an ancient demon heritage, systematically purged and suppressed by those who saw mental abilities as a threat to physical dominance.

  "There's more," Grimshaw said, reaching into the box again. This time he withdrew a scroll, this one made of a silvery material that caught what little light existed in the archive. "This was written much ter, after the purge was complete and the new demon society was established."

  Azaril took the scroll carefully and unrolled it. The script was archaic but readable, the account written by someone who had managed to preserve fragments of the original demon history.

  "Before the great division," he read aloud, "demons of the mind stood equal with demons of the body, each strength honored in its domain. Physical might built our fortresses, while mental power created our greatest works. When the purge came, mind demons who survived hid their true nature, but the gift persisted, passed through blood to descendants who might someday restore the bance..."

  There was more, but the sound of distant footsteps interrupted Azaril's reading. Grimshaw quickly took the scroll back, returning it and the crystal box to their hidden compartment.

  "Royal guards," the archivist whispered. "Regur patrol, but we can't risk discovery."

  Azaril nodded, moving to a nearby shelf and selecting a conventional historical volume—something appropriately boring about ancient territorial disputes.

  The footsteps grew louder, then two guards appeared at the end of the aisle. They wore the insignia of the Queen's personal guard, their expressions alert despite the te hour.

  "Prince Azaril," the lead guard said with evident surprise. "We didn't expect to find anyone in the archives at this hour."

  "Couldn't sleep," Azaril replied casually, holding up the historical tome. "I find ancient border negotiations soothing."

  The guards exchanged gnces, clearly finding this strange but not suspicious. Weakness of a different sort, but not worth reporting.

  "And you, Archivist?" the second guard asked Grimshaw. "It's unusual to find you working so te."

  "When you're as old as I am, young warrior, sleep becomes more suggestion than necessity," Grimshaw replied with a dry chuckle. "Besides, Prince Azaril had questions about historical precedents that might rete to our current border challenges."

  The guards seemed satisfied with this expnation. "We'll continue our patrol then," the leader said. "Good night, Your Highness. Archivist."

  After they departed, Azaril and Grimshaw remained silent until the footsteps faded completely.

  "That was too close," Azaril whispered. "If they had arrived a few minutes earlier—"

  "But they didn't," Grimshaw cut him off. "Nevertheless, we should conclude for tonight. Take this with you." He pressed a small, seemingly ordinary scroll into Azaril's hands. "It appears to be a tedious account of volcanic farming attempts, but apply heat to the lower corner and additional text will appear."

  Azaril carefully tucked the scroll into his robes. "Why are you showing me all this, Grimshaw? Why now?"

  The ancient archivist's milky eyes seemed to focus on something far distant. "Because the patterns are repeating, young prince. The raid economy fails. Resources dwindle. And when demons face scarcity, they don't innovate—they turn on each other, purging whatever they deem 'weak' to preserve resources for the 'strong.'"

  A chill ran through Azaril as he understood the implication. "You think another purge might come?"

  "I think," Grimshaw said carefully, "that knowledge of our true history might be the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself. And you, Prince Azaril, with your unique gifts and royal position, might be the only one who can use that knowledge effectively."

  The weight of that responsibility settled on Azaril's shoulders. He was the weakling prince, the embarrassment of the royal family. And yet, according to these hidden records, he might carry the legacy of a different kind of demon strength—one that had been systematically erased from history.

  "I should go," Azaril said finally. "The longer we talk, the greater the risk."

  Grimshaw nodded. "Study the scroll I gave you. We'll speak again when it's safe."

  As Azaril made his way back up the spiral staircase, his mind raced with implications. The pressure behind his eyes—his mental ability—wasn't a defect but a heritage, a different kind of demon strength that had once been valued equally with physical might.

  Perhaps, in the fragments of lost history, he might find not just knowledge but a path forward—both for himself and for a demon society facing increasingly unsustainable challenges.

  The corridors of the royal fortress were quiet as Azaril returned to his chambers. Once safely inside, he examined the scroll Grimshaw had given him, finding it exactly as described—seemingly a dry account of failed agricultural experiments in volcanic soil. But when he carefully applied heat to the lower corner, hidden text began to appear, glowing faintly in the darkness.

  "The mind circle preserved seeds of knowledge that the body circle sought to destroy," the hidden text began. "When bance returns, these seeds may flourish again..."

  Azaril read deep into the night, absorbing forbidden knowledge that challenged everything he had been taught about demon history and his own pce within it.