There's that... weight. Heavy, quiet. Familiar in the worst way. It presses in beneath the calm like a bad dream you can’t quite remember but still wake up sweating from. My pulse skips. My skin tightens. It’s not the trees or the clearing—it’s the feeling. I've worn it before. Different world, different sky, same damn stitching pulling tight across my ribs.

  I know this.

  Not the place. The moment.

  I move, slow and stiff, groaning as I try to peel myself off the forest floor. My joints crack like dry branches. My muscles argue the way they always do—like every morning on the farm, after too few hours of sleep and too many spent hauling feed or fixing fences that never stayed fixed. The dirt clings to my back where the blanket slipped off, cold and damp and unapologetically real. My skin feels like it's made of burlap.

  I can't get up.

  The ache in my shoulders pulses, dull and insistent. Same old song. The one that plays when you’ve spent too long pretending your body hasn’t already started the long crawl toward breaking.

  I try to roll my neck. Hear the pop. Everything moves like it’s done this before—because it has. I’m not even fully awake and my body’s already following some script I didn’t sign off on. Automatic. Routine. Like my bones remember something my brain doesn’t.

  And then I feel it.

  That pressure on my chest. Not just heavy—warm. Solid. Breathing.

  Shit.

  Ember.

  Of course it’s her.

  One of these days, we’re going to have a long, uncomfortable talk about personal space. Maybe throw in a firm lecture about boundaries. And while we’re at it, this whole “Master” thing? Needs to die a swift, quiet death.

  I don’t even have to look.

  I already know how this plays out. She’s probably draped across my chest like a smug little monarch, legs folded, arms tucked, using my ribcage as her personal throne. Because why not? Apparently, I’m furniture now.

  Bet her head’s tilted just a bit to the side. Mouth hanging open. Little snore whistling through her nose like some cursed tea kettle. Fast asleep, dead to the world. Meanwhile, her “bed” is a man pushing forty with cracked ribs, a bruised ego, and absolutely no patience for this kind of crap before sunrise.

  I sigh. Blink up at the sky, which—unhelpfully—is doing its whole radiant dawn thing, golden light and birdsong and other things that mock my existence.

  “Why is it always me,” I mutter.

  Not really asking. Just… offering the question up to whatever gods are listening. Assuming they’re even awake yet. I wouldn’t be, if I had the choice.

  "Hey. Emb—"

  My voice cracks louder than intended—sharp, raw, and just pissed off enough to bounce through the trees like a ricochet. Leaves overhead rattle. Something flaps in the underbrush. Then, not too far off, a flock of glitter-feathered sparrows launches into the air, scattering like someone shook a snow globe full of rhinestones.

  She jolts like someone jabbed her with a cattle prod. One second, she's limp and snoring; the next, she’s bolt upright, eyes blown wide—so wide they’re all pupil, no color. Frozen. No thoughts, head empty. Just pure, unfiltered panic.

  Then gravity remembers how it works.

  She tips backward with a graceless whump, hits the ground hard enough to kick up a puff of dust that shoots straight into my nose. I sneeze. My ribs scream. I groan through clenched teeth.

  She’s already rubbing her face, voice thick and sluggish. “Whaaa...?”

  I push myself up on one elbow. A bad idea. My ribs stab me like I just insulted their mother. Sharp, deep, and way too familiar. Definitely cracked. Definitely pissed. My joints creak like rusted hinges. My muscles ache in that special “you’re not young anymore” kind of way. Still, my brain—traitorous old bastard that it is—starts to come online.

  I glance her way.

  And just like that, my entire operating system blue screens.

  She’s changed.

  Not just a little. Not just a cute haircut or a new outfit. I mean changed. Gone is the tiny chaos gremlin I half-expected to find drooling on my chest. In her place sits...

  Oh no.

  Oh hell no.

  Nope.

  I blink. Hard. Twice. Doesn’t help.

  Because sitting there, blinking back at me, is a teenage demon girl.

  Her hair’s still red—more or less—but now it’s wild, sticking out in messy waves like she headbutted a thunderstorm. Her cheeks are flushed, her expression dazed, and those crimson eyes? Big. Shiny. Adorable. Way too adorable. Dangerously adorable. Her horns curve back, longer now, sleeker. Her tail swishes in lazy arcs, smug and self-aware, like it knows exactly how close I am to cardiac arrest. And the onesie? The oversized pajama thing she used to flop around in?

  Yeah. That thing’s clinging to her like some bargain bin cosplay, fabric stretched in places I’m absolutely not supposed to notice.

  My mouth moves before my better judgment can intervene.

  “What in the actual—?”

  She flinches. “What is it, Master?” she squeaks, all wide-eyed innocence like she isn’t the reason I’m two seconds from digging a shallow grave and throwing myself into it.

  I open my mouth.

  Nothing comes out.

  Because what the hell do you say in this situation? “Congrats on hitting your final form”? “Nice job on the puberty speedrun”? No. Absolutely not. Abort.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  And right on cue, the woodland peanut gallery makes things worse.

  “EGADS!” shrieks the potato—yes, the damn potato—somehow managing to look personally offended without a single facial feature. Behind him, the squirrels and raccoons—my so-called "critter knights"—brandish twigs and rusted butter knives like they’re gearing up for a holy war.

  “What twisted sorcery is this?!” the potato bellows. “What have you done to the innocent child, you depraved fiend?!”

  “I don’t know!” I snap, flinging both hands skyward. “Do I look like I planned this?!”

  “Sheesh, what’s the big deal?” Ember yawns, stretching—stretching—and of course that’s suggestive now, because the universe hates me. Personally. Vindictively.

  “I’m me. I’m Emb—”

  She stops. Freezes. Blinks.

  Looks down at herself.

  And then?

  She screams.

  It’s not a cute yelp, not some dainty anime gasp. No. It’s a full-body, glass-shattering shriek that hits me right between the eyes and ricochets off my skull like a sonic grenade.

  And as if the morning hadn’t already swan-dived off the deep end, someone starts laughing.

  Not her. Not me. And definitely not the raccoons now lining up for a duel.

  It’s the rabbit.

  The smug one. The one perched on a mossy rock like it’s a throne, little paws folded, ears tilted at a self-satisfied angle.

  “Fools,” he says, voice smooth and slow, like still water over stone. “Calm yourselves. He did nothing. This is the gods’ doing. The will of his Patron.”

  He points at me.

  Specifically. Directly.

  Like I’m the punchline to a joke I don’t remember telling.

  I sigh, jaw tight, shoulder popping as I roll it back into place. “Well. That’s official, then. Welcome to the team, Ember.”

  Stay cool, Grant. Keep it breezy. Pretend this isn’t a full-blown magical puberty crisis unfolding in surround sound.

  I flick my fingers. The system shimmer kicks in—blue and gold text glowing faint in the edge of my vision. Usually, that glow calms me. Familiar interface. Straightforward logic. Numbers and quests and a little dopamine hit from doing something right.

  Not this time.

  [Quest Completed: Name the Problem Child]

  

  Right... That’s just what I needed today. A surprise demon girl evolution before breakfast.

  Ember’s sitting up now. If looks could kill, I’d be a scorch mark. She doesn’t blink. Just stares, glassy-eyed, like she’s trying to laser through me with pure, hormonal fury.

  Honestly? I get it.

  She skipped the birds and the bees and jumped straight into trauma charts and midnight ice cream binges. Now she’s awake—and judging me like I’m the creep.

  Her fingers fidget with the collar of her too-small onesie, twisting the fabric like it’s suffocating her. Which, to be fair, it might be. From a visual perspective, the situation’s already circling the drain. There’s a wrongness here that goes deeper than clothes and proximity. Something primal. Unsettling.

  She brushes her fingers through her hair, but they catch on a knot. Her brow pinches. There it is again—that tic.

  “Hey. Asshole.” Her voice cracks across the clearing. Blunt. No fear. Just raw, teenage challenge. “What’s your name?”

  I blink. Honestly, fair question.

  And here I was, missing the tiny, feral version of her. The one that bit ankles and spoke in grunts. That version didn’t demand answers with this kind of conviction.

  “My name?” I echo, dragging a hand down my face. My stubble rasps under my palm like sandpaper. “Right. Sure. My name, little darling, is Grant Grayson Calloway.”

  I even give a little bow from where I sit—bones groaning, dignity gasping for air. Feels stupid. Looks worse. But maybe that’s par for the course now.

  Her eyes go wide. Comically wide. Like saucers—if saucers were capable of divine revelation.

  Then she says it. Soft. Heavy. Like the words are weighted with something old. “Grant Grayson… of Calloway.”

  I freeze. “Wait. No. That’s not—”

  Too late.

  She straightens like someone just yanked a string in her spine. Chin lifts. Eyes sharpen. Her voice rings out like a war horn wrapped in velvet:

  “I am Ember Grayson, of Calloway.”

  It’s not a statement. It’s a claim. Like she just carved it into the bones of the world with her bare damn hands.

  “No, no—hang on,” I sputter. “That’s not how this works—”

  “I am Ember Grayson,” she says again. Louder. Firmer. As unshakable as a mountain. “Of Calloway.”

  My brain farts. Just straight-up crashes. I gape like a fish on dry land.

  “You… You can’t just take my name! I haven’t even—wait, what?!”

  That’s when the Codex chimes.

  Ding.

  Clean. Sharp. Like a crystal fork tapping a wine glass. It slices through my mental freefall like a razor.

  Text floods my vision.

  [Notice]

  

  [Ember has been named and is now part of the family.]

  

  The words hit like a punch to the solar plexus.

  “What…” My jaw unhinges. My pulse skyrockets. “No. No, no, no—”

  Then, because the universe has a sick sense of humor, a scroll pops into existence with a little flourish. Because of course it does.

  It unfurls in the air, parchment gleaming, gold-inked like something from a royal proclamation. Script elegant. Offensively official.

  At the top, in bold:

  Adoption Papers

  Below that, in perfect calligraphy:

  Ember Grayson, of Calloway

  Child of Grant Grayson of Calloway

  I groan. Loud. Long. The kind that comes from your soul and ends somewhere in your lower back. Then I bury my face in my hands and press my fingers into my temples until stars pop behind my eyelids.

  “Damn you, Ishtar,” I mutter, teeth clenched. Of course she did this. Of course this is her idea of a joke.

  Meanwhile, Ember is thrilled.

  She beams like she just won the lottery and the lottery was me. Before I can even process that emotional landmine, she launches herself at me.

  I flinch. Not proud of that.

  She wraps her arms tight around my neck, nuzzling into my cheek like some oversized jungle cat. She’s warm. Soft. Smells like smoke and dirt and wild places. Her laugh bubbles out of her like it’s too big for her chest.

  “Yay!” she chirps. “We’re family now! My new daddy!”

  And then she winks. Actually winks. Like this was all part of her master plan from the start.

  I stare at her, defeated on a spiritual level. My arms hang limp at my sides.

  “Damn you… Ishtar…” I whisper again, with feeling.