Days passed.
Cain had not been moved from the cell, though the guards came more regularly now. They no longer stared at him like a cursed relic, but none dared speak to him. Food was slid through a hatch at inconsistent hours. He couldn't tell if their silence was kindness or caution.
He had offered no resistance, no threats. Maybe that was enough for them to loosen his restraints. The rune-bind was gone. He could speak if he wanted. No one asked him to. His cell still offered no comforts.
In quiet moments, he tested the body. Fingers. Shoulders. Legs. Each motion stirred memories that were not his. Muscle memory forged in pain. This body was taller than he remembered being. Stronger. And while it didn't seem to need food to survive, eating had helped it begin restoring itself with unnatural speed.
"Eliseo." They kept calling him that.
He never saw the need to correct them, after all, he was the one inside the body now.
Cain had grown used to the silence. The drip of condensation. The scrape of a rat in the stone cracks. The shuffle of a guard's boots outside the door. His world had shrunk to a single damp room and the weight of a borrowed body he was only beginning to understand.
So when it spoke, it wasn't with thunder. It was with breath.
A whisper. In his own voice. But wrong.
"Comfortable?"
Cain froze.
The voice wasn't audible. It pressed into his thoughts like a warm nail, curling behind his eyes and burrowing deep.
"You again?" Cain said, low and hesitant. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. It was the same presence that had dragged him here.
The voice gave a low chuckle.
"Do not take that tone with me, boy. I'm not in your head, Cain. You're in mine. Or at least... what's left of it."
Cain stood suddenly. The chains at his ankles clinked as he staggered back into the wall.
"You dragged me out of peace," he hissed. "You took everything."
"No," the demon murmured. "I gave you everything. Life. Power. Flesh that doesn't rot."
Cain's fists clenched.
"And Eliseo?"
Silence lingered a moment. Then came a sigh that didn't sound human.
"An impatient worm. His mind couldn't bear what his body could. A shame, really. So much lost potential."
Cain rubbed his temples. The voice clawed at the edge of his thoughts like migraine.
"You'll get nothing from me."
"I already have what I need."
The voice faded on a soft chuckle, sinking back into the corners of his skull.
Cain didn't sit. He stood by the wall, posture relaxed but alert, eyes already on the door before it creaked open. Aurelia stepped in alone.
She paused in the doorway, hesitant. Her eyes scanned him from head to toe, quietly measuring the difference between memory and now. He held her gaze, silent. Watching.
She stepped further in and shut the door behind her. The silence thickened. He hadn't meant to speak but the name fell from his lips anyway. soft, uninvited.
"Aura."
Her breath caught. Just barely. Cain blinked, masking the reflex with a slow exhale. "Strange… how easily the old names come back," he said, voice hoarse but composed. Despite the fact that it wasn't him that said it.
Aurelia moved closer, stopping halfway across the cell. Keeping her distance, she at least still remembered the incident that got him thrown in the dungeon and wasn't foolish enough to tempt fate. "You haven't called me that in years."
Cain frowned and looked away, memories that weren't his had faded in and out during his time in the dungeon though not truly stuck. It was like the soul of the former owner was clinging on for as long as it could.
She tilted her head slightly, uncertain. Sad. "You've changed."
"I wouldn't remember."
He let the words hang, testing her.
Aurelia lowered her eyes. "I wasn't sure how much you recalled, uncle mentioned your memory has faded."
Something flickered in her expression, pity, maybe. Or wariness.
"There's war coming," she said, almost as an afterthought. "Galilee from the south. Draste to the east. The Dominion's losing ground. Supplies are low, reinforcements thinner by the week. We're too far from the core to matter."
"Then why keep a dungeon running?" Cain asked, careful to sound bitter but not curious.
Aurelia studied him, "The High Chamber argued for months about what to do. Killing you meant throwing away a weapon. Letting you go meant handing that weapon to the enemy. In the end, they chose silence. Keep you buried, just in case.""
Cain let out a breath, "And what do you think?" he asked. "That I'll crack again? Tear through the walls and rip your uncle in half?"
She didn't answer immediately. "No," she said. "But I think… whatever's going on with you now is not the same man that was locked down here."
She stepped a little closer, placing a cloth bundle on the stone floor. "I brought food. I wasn't supposed to. But I thought it might help."
She stepped back toward the door. "My uncle doesn't want me speaking to you. He thinks I may do something stupid."
She left without another word and Cain exhaled slowly, mind already moving through what she'd said. Galilee. Draste. A keep on the edge of nowhere, bleeding men and attention.
All he needed was one chance.
Some Days Later
The stillness hadn't left, but it had changed shape Cain felt it in the air now. Tighter. More strained. The guards outside moved with less discipline and more urgency. They came late, sometimes not at all. Once, for nearly a full day, no one brought food. Even the rats seemed fewer.
He had grown stronger. Quietly. His hands no longer trembled when he flexed them. His voice no longer cracked when he whispered to himself. The body was remembering what it had once been.
Aurelia hadn't returned. Not in days. That unsettled him more than he expected. When she did speak to him, it was often short. Careful. She asked how he felt. Never what he thought. Never what he planned.
He didn't blame her.
Still, she hadn't come. And now the guards outside whispered in hushed tones about something coming from the east. Something moving fast. One of them had mentioned smoke. Another, a missing patrol. Cain sat in his corner, shackles still clasped loosely to his ankles, the iron more ceremonial than secure now.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep wasn't supposed to come. Not here. Not in this body. Whatever the demon had done to it the body lacked the need to eat or sleep for long periods of time but tonight? Tonight he wanted to rest.
Cain found himself walking barefoot on a field of gold. Grasses swaying gently in the breeze, skies brushed with violet and fire-orange hues. The light was warm. Familiar. It stirred something in him, something that didn't belong to this life.
Ahead stood a small house. Wooden. Quiet. Smoke rose lazily from the chimney. Laughter echoed inside. A woman's voice humming a lullaby. He didn't know the tune but it made something ache in his chest.
He walked closer. He couldn't stop himself. His legs moved without command. As he reached the porch, the door creaked open. A child stepped out, brown-haired, gap-toothed, maybe six years old.
The child smiled and said "Eliseo?"
Cain froze.
The child's eyes flickered. Not natural. The color bled out. Pale. Empty.
"You left us," the voice said, though it wasn't the child's anymore. It was deeper. Older. "You let it in."
The sky twisted above. The light began to dim, shadows spreading across the grass like rot. The house behind the child blackened. Warped. It breathed.
The child smiled wider now and a second pair of eyes opened across its cheeks. Then a third. The voice came again, split across all of them.
"You wear his body. Do you know what it's done? What it was made for?"
Cain took a step back and the sky exploded.
He shot upwards, eyes darting around his cell as horns wailed in the distance, screaming, clanging steel and thundering boots
Cain looked towards the cell door, a voice barked commands in a language he didn't recognize. Screams followed. The dungeon shook, dust raining from the ceiling. Someone was dying close by. He had heard of war in history books, movies. But to face it? That was madness.
He was unsure of how deep within the dungeon he was, or if there were more cells than his own. He assumed there would be but if he was confined to a Keep to hold just him it would not be surprising from what he has heard.
Shouting rang out just beyond the cell. Boots pounded against stone, followed by the sharp crack of steel clashing. Then, silence. A single breath passed.
Then something slammed into the door.
Cain flinched, more from instinct than fear. The strike echoed through the chamber, followed by a scraping drag and the hiss of splintering wood. Another impact. Then another. The door groaned under the weight of each blow, metal warping, the wood behind it beginning to crack.
He backed up slowly, chains tugging at his wrists and ankles, cold reminders of his limits. There was nowhere to run, no weapon to grasp, no magic he understood enough to wield. This body might've once carved through armies but right now, he could barely recall how to hold a blade.
The next strike left a dent near the lock. Cain raised his arms, half out of reflex, half out of readiness. He couldn't punch through iron, but maybe he could take one of them down with him. Maybe. If they came close enough.
Then the thought came, sharp and quiet.
Why?
Why fight?
Why try?
A strange calm settled over him. Not apathy. Just a kind of clarity. If he died here, if he was cut down in this cell by someone who didn't know who he really was, then perhaps that was enough. It would be over. No demon. No past. No pretense.
He lowered his arms.
The next impact blew splinters across the floor. The lock gave.
Cain didn't move.
Three men spilled in over broken wood and iron. Their armor gleamed, dented but clean, the edges etched with white and blue checkered cloth, banners of some foreign allegiance.
The first one entered without a helmet, which Cain immediately thought was stupid. His face was young. Too young. But war aged men fast and the lines around his eyes told a story older than his years. The short sword he held was already stained.
He stopped cold the moment his eyes landed on Cain.
Confusion crossed the soldier's face. Surprise? Hesitation? Fear? He stepped in slowly, sword raised, posture cautious. The other two flanked him, weapons ready for resistance.
There was none.
Just a ragged man in chains, shirt torn, arms limp, barely breathing.
The lead soldier surged forward and slashed.
Steel carved through Cain's chest in one smooth arc, rending cloth and flesh. Blood sprayed the wall with violent precision. A wet sound escaped Cain's throat as he staggered backwards, collapsing to one knee, clutching at the wound. It burned. He burned. Every nerve in his body screamed as warmth poured down his ribs.
Terror overtook him. He didn't belong here. He wasn't supposed to die here.
The soldier stepped forward again, slower this time, a smug curl to his mouth as he raised his blade to finish the job. Another nameless corpse for the pile.
Then something whispered.
"I do not think so."
The voice slithered through Cain's thoughts, colder than before. Sharper. Furious.
"OODBLAY."
Cain heard the chant aloud. A word of no known tongue. It rippled through the air like a crack of lightning behind fog. The soldier froze mid-strike, blade caught above his head.
Cain looked up.
A hole appeared in the soldier's neck. Not a wound. A perfect tunnel. As if something had bored through the muscle, clean and unnatural. The man tried to gasp. No sound came.
Cain barely had time to blink before the blood, his own blood, peeled off the stone wall like a tide reversing. It twisted mid-air and launched forward in jagged spikes. They impaled the soldier with a wet crack, lifting him for a heartbeat before hurling him backwards.
He hit the wall and didn't move again.
"Rise," the voice commanded.
Cain rose. Slowly. Unsteady.
But the pain was gone. The gash across his chest had sealed, not even a scar left behind. His rags still hung torn and bloodied but the body beneath them was unbroken.
Two soldiers remained. One screamed some sort of an ugly sound in a tongue Cain couldn't place and bolted back into the hall. The other charged.
Cain's body moved on instinct. No thought. No hesitation. It was like something completely took over him yet he was in control.
The soldier raised his mace high and roared. Cain stepped in, grabbing the weapon's handle mid-swing. Their strength collided for a half-second. Cain won. With a twist and a surge, he yanked the mace free and drove a fist into the soldier's face.
The crunch was sickening. Bone shattered beneath his knuckles. The soldier dropped.
Cain stood over him, mace in hand, breath steady. In the silence that followed, the demon purred with satisfaction.
"Now we begin."