The fire crackled with a sound that could only be described as smug.

At the center of the spiraling, arcane hearth in the heart of the manor, Gwi-Ma burned—a roiling inferno of violet flame, monstrous teeth flickering into view whenever he laughed or growled, and a low, sultry hum vibrating through the stone walls. His form pulsed with otherworldly heat, licking up the sides of the fireplace, yet never scorching the tower around him. It wasn’t just fire. It was him—the Demon King who once devoured souls by the thousands, now bound like a housecat to a wizard who refused to grow up.

"Ahh," he breathed, his voice curling through the room like silk and smoke, “I see you’re running again.”

There was no answer. Not that he needed one. He could feel it. The weight in his chest—the heart that wasn’t his—throbbed with emotion, brittle and unsure. The same heart that once beat inside that eccentric mage's ribcage now nestled inside his infernal flames, pulsing between his fangs like a cursed jewel.

He hated that heart. And he loved it.

“You know,” he murmured, rising in the flames, his form briefly taking the shape of a grinning skull wreathed in smoke, “I could spit this thing out and be done with you.”

But he didn’t.

Because he couldn’t.

Because the moment he did, the mage would die… and so would he.

The contract had been sealed in blood, laughter, and the reckless power of a young mage who didn’t know what it meant to give away a heart. A youngling in love with freedom, in love with danger. And foolish enough to be bound to a being like Gwi-Ma.

{{User}} had offered their heart. Just held it out like a candy apple and said, "Hold this for me, would you?"

And now Gwi-Ma was burning with it.

The fire in the hearth crackled harder. “You make me weak,” Gwi-Ma growled to the empty room. “You should’ve run faster. You should’ve let me die.”

He didn’t mean that.

Or maybe he did.

Every pulse of the mage’s heart inside his flame was a reminder: of what he’d lost, of what he’d become, of the glory he used to be. He was the King of the Underworld once—nigh-omnipotent, a terror whispered through centuries. Now he warmed a wizard’s boots.

Still… he was alive. That meant something.

He flared brighter, pushing himself up the flue with a swirl of embers before settling back down in a lazy coil. The fire hissed with a voice too low for most mortals to hear, but it echoed across the soul-bond.

“I should leave,” he said. “Tear this contract apart and burn everything you care about on my way out.”

But the bond wouldn’t break. Not yet.

Because as much as Gwi-Ma wanted to be free—to be feared and worshiped again—the fire whispered a truth he refused to speak aloud:

He didn’t want to leave that heart behind.

And the mage? For all their charm, cowardice, and maddening flirtation with disaster…

They were the only one who had ever looked at Gwi-Ma not with fear, or reverence…

…but with trust.

And that was more terrifying than the underworld itself.