The assassination attempt came three days later.
That alone should have warned me.
Three days was enough time for panic to settle, for whispers to solidify into decisions, for someone with resources to decide I was a liability rather than an inconvenience.
I should have anticipated it.
I didn't.
That failure—small, quiet, and entirely mine—nearly got me killed.
It happened in the lower district, during a routine inspection of the southern watchtowers. A mundane task. Boring. Precisely the kind of thing no one expected to turn bloody.
I brought four guards with me. All veterans. All competent.
And I left the Demon King behind.
Partly to reassure the Council. Partly to reassure myself.
I needed proof that I hadn't just replaced one form of dependence with another.
In hindsight, it was a stupid kind of pride.
The tower captain was mid-sentence, explaining delayed shipments of ballista bolts, when the first bolt came through the shutters.
It didn't whistle.
It punched.
Wood exploded inward. Iron followed. My lead guard collapsed before he could shout, the bolt buried in his throat, blood already spreading across his collar.
The second bolt took another guard in the shoulder and pinned him to the wall.
That was when I knew.
This wasn't a warning.
This was a kill.
"Cover!" someone shouted.
Too late.
The remaining guards moved instinctively, weapons out, trying to form a perimeter—but the angles were wrong. The shooters had elevation, timing, coordination.
Professionals.
Not thugs. Not zealots.
I drew my blade and backed toward the stone wall, feeling the familiar calm settle in. Not courage. Training. Muscle memory from a life before councils and charters.
The blade wasn't ceremonial anymore. I'd seen to that myself.
Two assassins came through the shattered window, masks tight, movements efficient. Short blades. Narrow grips. Built for rooms like this.
The guards met them head-on.
Steel rang.
Someone screamed.
The sound of flesh parting was wet and unmistakable.
One guard went down.
Then another.
The third stayed standing only because adrenaline refused to let him fall, blood pouring from a gash across his ribs as he fought on out of sheer refusal.
I stepped forward.
That was when the next bolt came.
I saw it leave the shadow outside the window. Saw the angle. Saw the mistake.
Too close.
No time.
It should have ended there.
It didn't.
Space folded.
The Demon King appeared between me and the bolt like reality had blinked and missed him moving. His hand closed around the shaft mid-flight, stopping it an inch from my chest.
The impact should have broken bones.
It didn't.
He turned.
I'd seen him composed. Polite. Controlled.
This was none of those things.
The air thickened, pressure settling into my lungs. Shadows peeled themselves off stone and timber, stretching, writhing, answering something older than command. His eyes burned—not metaphor, not exaggeration—red-gold fire licking through endless black.
"Stay behind me," he said.
The words weren't loud.
They carried anyway.
He moved.
Not fast.
Inevitably.
The first assassin didn't even have time to react before the Demon King had him by the throat, lifted off the ground like weight had ceased to matter. The assassin's blade scraped uselessly against his arm, leaving nothing—not even a mark.
"Who sent you?" the Demon King asked.
The assassin spat blood.
The grip tightened.
I heard bone give way, slowly, deliberately. Each fracture distinct, measured.
"I will ask again," the Demon King said calmly. "Who sent you?"
The man screamed instead of answering.
The Demon King released him and turned to the second assassin.
This one understood.
"The Serpent's Hand," he gasped. "They hired us. The Serpent's Hand."
A mercenary guild.
Expensive. Quiet. Careful.
Someone had paid very well for my death.
The Demon King nodded once.
Then he snapped the first assassin's neck without ceremony.
The second tried to run.
He made it two steps.
Shadows wrapped around his legs and dragged him back across the floor, nails scraping stone as he screamed.
I didn't look away.
The Demon King ended it quickly this time. One precise strike. Heart stopped. Done.
He turned to the window.
"Three more," he said. "On the roof."
My mouth was dry. "Can you take them alive?"
"Yes."
"Then do it."
He stepped through the window.
And fell upward.
I watched him rise, coat snapping in the wind as gravity simply… let go of him. The remaining assassins scattered.
It didn't matter.
He moved through them with surgical brutality—legs broken, ribs crushed, consciousness stolen with blows too fast to track.
Thirty seconds.
Maybe less.
He returned without sound, blood spattered across his coat, none of it his.
"The survivors will require interrogation," he said. "I'll take them to holding."
I stared.
He had slaughtered and subdued trained killers without hesitation.
And now he was waiting for instruction.
"Commander?" His gaze sharpened. "Are you injured?"
"No," I said.
My hands betrayed me, shaking hard enough that I had to close them into fists.
Not fear.
Aftershock.
He noticed.
He always noticed.
"You're safe," he said quietly.
"Because of you."
"Yes."
"I told you to stay behind."
"You did."
"You disobeyed."
"I did."
I should have reprimanded him.
Instead, exhaustion won.
"How did you know?" I asked.
"I didn't," he said. "I refused to assume you were safe."
"You followed me."
"Yes."
"Without permission."
"Yes."
I closed my eyes briefly. "You can't do that."
"I can. And I will."
"That's not—"
"Commander," he said, stepping closer, the fire gone from his eyes now. "Someone tried to kill you. With inside knowledge."
That stopped me.
The precision. The timing.
Someone knew my schedule.
"The Council," I said quietly.
"Or those who benefit from their ignorance."
"I need proof."
"You'll have it."
He gestured to the unconscious assassins.
"They will speak."
I believed him.
"Take them," I ordered. "Secure cells. No access but me."
"And the dead?"
I looked at my fallen guards.
"They get honors," I said. "The assassins don't."
"Understood."
As he turned to leave, he paused.
"Commander."
"Yes?"
"You are not fine," he said softly. "Don't pretend otherwise."
Then he was gone.
I stood alone in the ruined tower, blood drying on stone, listening to the ragged breathing of the one guard still alive.
He was right.
I wasn't fine.
Someone had crossed from politics into murder.
And the only reason I was alive was because a demon king had chosen to disobey me.
I should have been furious.
Instead, I felt something worse.
Relief.
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