"His daughter?" I said slowly, tasting each syllable like it might be poisoned.
"Mm."
I waited.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"What the heck? Say something, just a 'Mm' is not a valid response to finding out I apparently have some random connection to whoever you're talking about."
Grayfia's eyes, silver like frozen moons, shifted to me with that infuriatingly calm expression she always wore when she thought I was being childish.To be fair, I probably was.
"Dominic," she said, her voice dipped in that faint chastising warmth she reserved for me, "you will understand in due time."
"Understand what? Is the great Lucifer Morningstar my grandpa? Or the Big Ol' G, my great-grandpa? I'm a… what? Divine demon hybrid? Cosmic accident? Walking spoiler for the next prophecy?"
Grayfia didn't blink. Of course, she didn't. Woman could stare down a hurricane without her fringe moving.
Her lips curved the tiniest fraction—not quite a smile, not quite mockery. "You are… your mother's son."
I groaned. "That's not an answer. That's like telling a guy who asks for the Wi-Fi password, 'Oh, it's written on the back of your soul.'"
She tilted her head slightly, as if weighing how much to say. "If I speak plainly now, you will not sleep tonight."
"Lady, I haven't slept properly since the medieval era. Try me."
Her gaze softened—not with pity, but with the kind of quiet pride that made my chest tighten. "Your mother… was more than a queen. She was the storm that shook Hell and the lullaby that soothed it. The Seven Satans feared her, Dominic. They feared Lilith—not for her title, but for her existence."
I froze mid-breath. "Wait. You're saying my mom wasn't just… the First Wife of Dad the Demon King. She was…" I trailed off, because the mental image was starting to get ridiculous—my mother, single-handedly clotheslining armies.
"She was Lilith," Grayfia repeated, as if that name alone could crack the bones of reality. "The Primordial Sin. The first to defy Heaven and survive. The first to defy Hell and win."
Well. That escalated fast.
"You're telling me my mother fought both sides and lived? That's not badass, that's… that's like winning an eating contest against a black hole."
For the first time, Grayfia actually looked faintly amused. "She once faced all Seven Satans in open combat. Do you know how many walked away?"
I blinked. "...Seven?"
"One," she corrected. "And that was only because she allowed him to crawl away with his pride in tatters."
I ran a hand down my face. "Okay, so my mother's basically the Hellverse equivalent of the final boss nobody beats without cheating. Good to know."
Her eyes hardened, the amusement fading. "She is also the reason you lived past your seventh year."
I stilled. "...Go on."
Grayfia's voice dropped, velvet over steel. "When they stripped you of your power, Dominic, they meant to strip you of your existence. Your bloodline, your sin, your name—all erased. It was your mother who sealed her final curse on the Seven Satans that day. It is why they could not kill you outright. Her will still lingers, even in her demon sleep."
My throat felt dry. This wasn't just family drama. This was a generational nuclear deterrent.
"Wait, are you saying… she's been in demon sleep because—"
"Because she gave more than any living being should," Grayfia said. "Her soul burns itself to guard yours."
For a long second, I didn't say anything. Then, because emotional moments make me itch, I muttered, "…So, basically, my mom's the ultimate tank."
"Dominic."
"Okay, okay—heroic sacrificial guardian type, got it. Still a tank, though."
Her silence told me she was deciding whether to smack me or sigh.
Then she added, as if it were casual gossip, "And the woman you just mocked once split an archangel's sword with her bare hands."
I blinked. "…My mother punched a sword in half?"
"She was in a hurry," Grayfia said simply.
"Am I sensing a plot hidden somewhere in this conversation?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. "Now, don't tell me my father is not actually my father? Hahaha..."
My chuckles died just from seeing Grayfia's widened eyes as she looked at me like I had just walked into a minefield wearing clown shoes and juggling grenades.
The silence that followed was not the casual kind. It was the heavy, glassy stillness that precedes a lightning strike.
"Grayfia," I said slowly, "you're looking at me like I just guessed the twist ending to a mystery you didn't even know you were in."
She didn't answer right away. Her eyes—always silver, always calm—were searching mine like she was trying to decide if I'd said it as a joke or if some inconvenient cosmic instinct had slipped out of me.
Finally, she said, with surgical precision, "Your father… is the man who raised you."
"...That's the kind of thing people say when they mean the exact opposite."
She didn't flinch, didn't blink, but her hands—perfect, pale, and still as marble—folded together just a bit tighter. "It is also the kind of thing people say when they do not intend to answer the question."
"Which means I hit something," I said, pointing a finger at her like I'd just scored a point in a game only I understood.
"You hit something," she allowed, tone flat enough to iron shirts on.
Sigh~
My hands tucked my snow-white hair back as if I could physically smooth away the growing knot of questions in my skull.
"You know," I said, "most people, when confronted with the possibility of paternity drama that could rock the political foundations of Hell, would at least offer a glass of water. Or whiskey. Or a magic amnesia potion."
Grayfia ignored that, which I think counted as her default setting at this point.
Instead, she turned and started walking toward the far end of the relic hall—away from the Morningstar Archive, deeper into the mansion's heart. The slow rhythm of her steps on the black-marble floor echoed, each one oddly final, like a judge walking toward the gallows switch.
I followed, because apparently I have the survival instincts of a moth chasing a bonfire.
"You're not denying it," I pressed.
"I am not confirming it," she replied without looking back.
"Which is basically confirming it, but in the kind of way lawyers get paid obscene amounts for."
"Dominic." Her voice carried that subtle undercurrent—the one that meant drop it if you value your remaining limbs.
But the problem was, I didn't value my limbs as much as I valued knowing why she'd looked at me like that.
"Then who the hell am I? Son of Daemon the Demon King—"
"That title was given to the king consort. Your mother didn't actually marry that brute…he was just a figurehead," Grayfia finished, each word carved clean as if she was slicing off any lingering illusion. "Your mother chose him for his obedience, not his lineage."
"Obedience," I echoed, like the word was a strange, exotic fruit I wasn't sure was edible. "So… basically, Dad was a decorative warlord?"
Her eyes flicked to me. "A guard dog on a throne."
I blinked slowly. "Oh, wow. That's… that's rough. All this time, I thought the guy was some great dark monarch. Turns out he was the Hell equivalent of one of those inflatable tube men outside a car dealership."
"Dominic."
"Alright, fine. Inflatable murder tube man. Happy?"
Her look said no, but she continued walking anyway.
We left the relic hall behind, passing through an archway of obsidian and gold filigree that glowed faintly as we crossed. I got the sense the door wasn't for keeping things out.
"Then if my mother didn't marry him for love, and he wasn't my biological father…" I tilted my head, watching her back as she glided ahead of me. "Who was?"
Silence.
And not the good kind. This was the kind of silence where the shadows in the corners seemed to lean closer, curious.
Finally, she said, "No one."
"EXCUSE ME?!"
"You are excused."
I actually stopped walking. You ever hear something so absurd your brain just… blue-screens for a second? That was me.
"No one," I repeated, because sometimes you need to give insanity a second pass to make sure you heard it right. "As in… you're saying I'm my own father? Or I just spontaneously popped into existence like some cursed cosmic potato?"
Grayfia didn't turn. "Your father was not of flesh."
I threw my hands up. "Oh great, now we're in cryptic prophecy territory. Not of flesh—what does that even mean? Was I delivered by express mail from the Abyss? Hatched from an egg? Brewed in a celestial coffee pot?"
"Dominic." Her tone was patient, which meant I was pushing her dangerously close to the point where patience turned into that terrifying stillness before violence.
But I couldn't let it go. "No, no, you don't get to drop 'your father is no one' like it's the weather report and then expect me to just nod along like we're discussing grocery lists."
She stopped walking. The air around us didn't so much still as… tighten. Like someone had strung invisible wires between us and was pulling them taut.
When she turned, her gaze was steady—but there was a shadow in it I hadn't seen before. Not fear, not pity. Something older. A weight.
"You were born," she said slowly, "because your mother willed you into being."
I stared. "…That's not how biology works."
"It is how creation works."
"For what?" My hands clenched into fists, nails biting into my palms, the tension crawling up my forearms like an itch under the skin.
Grayfia didn't answer immediately. Instead, she turned away, her silver hair swaying like a banner in slow motion.
"For what," I repeated, my voice lower now, "would someone like her—someone who apparently makes the Seven Satans wet themselves—burn herself into a centuries-long coma to make me?"
She stopped at the foot of the next staircase, one marble step above me, which somehow made her presence even taller, heavier.
"She was to be your wife."
BOOM.
I think my mind just died there.
Not in the metaphorical, "Oh wow, that's shocking" sense. I mean in the actual, "brain just hit the blue screen of death and is now trying to reboot with suspicious beeping noises" sense.
"She was to be… my wife?" I repeated, my voice landing somewhere between disbelief and the kind of high-pitched squeak you make when you sit down on a cold toilet seat.
Grayfia didn't even blink. "Correct."
"Correct?! That's not the kind of answer you give to something that sounds like it was ripped straight out of the 'Banned in Twelve Dimensions' romance section!"
"You asked for what reason she would expend herself to create you," Grayfia said, her tone maddeningly level. "She loved you even before you were born, but... just when you came into being. She fell into 'demon sleep', she wasn't even able to see you..."
"She wasn't even able to see me?" I finished for her, my voice coming out quieter than I'd intended.
Grayfia's gaze flicked away—not evasive, exactly, but like she was looking somewhere further than the hallway allowed. "She saw you," she said finally. "Once. For less than a breath. And in that moment, the whole of Hell bent under her will so no one could take you from her. Then… she slept."
A sound left me—half laugh, half exhale—that felt too close to a choke. "That's a hell of a way to start a mother-son relationship. 'Hi, you exist now. Also, I'm going to nap until the apocalypse.'"
Her eyes returned to me, sharper now. "Her demon sleep is not a rest. It is the burning of a candle without wick or wax. Every moment she remains in it, she weakens—but the barrier she wove around you holds."
"Barrier?"
Grayfia started up the staircase. "Do you think the Seven Satans, or the Thrones above, simply forgot you? Dominic… you are not merely protected by secrecy. You are hidden because she made the world forget your true nature."
I followed, my boots clicking on the marble in a rhythm that suddenly felt too loud. "That… sounds like a very important nature you're still not telling me about."
"That is correct."
"You're doing that thing again," I muttered.
"Which thing?"
"The thing where you tell me exactly enough to make me suspicious, but not enough to make me understand."
"It is safer this way."
I snorted. "Safer for who? Because from where I'm standing, I feel like a guy who's just been told his house is on fire, but it's fine because the arsonist is 'probably' not coming back."
We reached the landing. A hallway stretched ahead, lined with tall, narrow windows showing nothing but swirling red clouds outside. The air here was heavier—charged, like the mansion itself was aware of the conversation.
Grayfia's heels clicked once, twice… then stopped. "You asked who your father was," she said without turning.
I raised an eyebrow. "And you said 'no one.' Which I'm still not buying unless you're about to tell me I'm some kind of immaculate anti-conception."
She didn't look at me, but her voice dropped lower. "Your mother bound you to an idea. To a name older than Heaven's first hymn. That name became your sire."
I blinked slowly. "…Are you telling me my dad is a concept?"
"Yes."
"That's ridiculous."
"It is."
"That's terrifying."
"It is also that."
"Do I get to know what this 'name older than Heaven' is, or are we in the part of the conversation where you pretend I'm too stupid to survive the knowledge?"
Her lips curved ever so slightly. "We are in the part where the name, if spoken aloud, would draw the attention of things that would eat the both of us before we finished breathing."
I threw my hands up. "Cool. Great. So my dad is Voldemort but worse."
"You are flippant because you are uneasy," she said.
"No," I corrected, "I'm flippant because otherwise my brain would be leaking out my ears right now."
We reached a door at the far end of the hall—black wood veined with faintly glowing crimson lines. The handle was shaped like a serpent biting its tail.
Grayfia paused with her hand on it. "What I tell you next does not leave this room."
"Trust me, I'm not exactly planning on gossiping about my eldritch dad over tea with the neighbors."
She pushed the door open.
The room beyond was… wrong.
Not ugly, not threatening—just wrong in the way a dream feels when you realize it's not yours. The air shimmered faintly, like heat haze, and the walls were hung with paintings whose colors seemed to crawl when I looked too long.
In the center stood a bed carved from something that looked suspiciously like a single piece of obsidian, and lying on it—still, pale, impossibly beautiful—was Lilith.
I'd never seen her in person before. I'd seen statues, paintings, depictions carved into temple walls by hands that feared her as much as they adored her… but none of them came close.
Her hair spilled around her like molten midnight. Her skin was smooth as frost, her lips faintly curved as if she'd been about to say something and just… stopped. And she was so still that the only proof she was alive at all was the faint rise and fall of her chest.
My throat felt tight, and for once I didn't have something sarcastic loaded.
Grayfia stood beside the bed, her posture losing the rigid perfection she always carried. "She has not moved in centuries. Her will keeps her here, and her curse keeps you alive."
I stepped closer. The air around her was different—thick, like walking into a place where the rules of the world bent sideways. I could feel the hum of something that wasn't magic but older.
"She doesn't look…" I swallowed. "…bad."
"She is burning."
I looked at Grayfia. "Doesn't look like it."
"That is because the burn is of the soul."
I turned back to Lilith, studying the perfect stillness of her face. "If she's doing all this for me… why? I'm not worth—"
"Do not finish that thought," Grayfia said sharply, cutting me off.
I looked at her in surprise.