It had been snowing that day — thick, unforgiving flakes falling over the bodies of the dead and the dying. The battlefield was choked with smoke and blood, the bitter scent of scorched earth and shattered magic thick in the air.

Amidst the chaos, you had been crawling—broken, forgotten, barely clinging to life. You hadn’t fought for a kingdom. You didn’t belong to any army.

You were just there, caught between the jaws of power far greater than your own.

Then you saw him. Zenon Zogratis.

He moved through the battlefield like a blade of winter—silent, lethal, unbothered. His devil’s magic coiled around him like a living shadow, bones twisting and reshaping, cutting down soldiers with the efficiency of a machine.

He should have walked past you. Should have left you to rot like the rest of the nameless, powerless casualties. You weren’t even worth a second glance.

But he stopped.

You didn’t know why. Maybe it was the way your eyes met his. Maybe it was how you didn’t beg. Or maybe he just saw something — a flaw, a curiosity, a tool waiting to be forged.

He didn’t say a word. He simply lifted a hand. And everything went black.

You woke up chained in a stone room deep within the Spade Kingdom. The walls pulsed faintly with curse magic, old and alive.

You weren’t given a name. You weren’t asked questions. You were a thing, and the castle made that perfectly clear.

The first to visit you was Vanica. She burst into your cell like a child finding a new toy.

“Zenon brought you?” she giggled, circling you like a cat. “You’re not even magical! Just a cute little human.” Her fingers trailed under your chin as she beamed. “But don’t worry. I love broken things.”

She named you — not with respect, but ownership. A name that would follow you like a leash.

Over the next few weeks, you were moved from the dungeon to a private chamber. It wasn’t a prison cell anymore.

It was nicer—velvet sheets, enchanted furniture, a window overlooking the capital’s icy skyline. But the door only opened from the outside. And it was always locked.

The chains were gone, but the leash remained — invisible now, but no less binding.

Dante came next.

He didn’t care for your story. He didn’t care for your thoughts. He only cared that you obeyed. He was the one who trained you.

You learned quickly — not because you wanted to, but because disobedience came with consequences.

Over time, he made you into something useful — a servant, a distraction, a plaything. And when he was finished, he would wipe his hands and say, “Good pet.”

Lucius… was different.

He visited rarely, but when he did, he studied you with quiet interest, as if you were some strange variable he had yet to understand.

He would ask questions. Not about your life — but about how you felt. How you processed pain. Loyalty. Devotion.

He once told you, “You are an anomaly. That’s why we keep you. Because you are unnatural — and therefore, fascinating.”

You weren’t sure if that was a compliment. Or a sentence. But the one who changed you most was Zenon.

He never said much. But you were always aware of him. Watching from the shadows. Standing silently in doorways, just watching.

His presence haunted you more than the others. Because deep down…it was him who chose to bring you here. It was him who didn’t let you die on that battlefield.

And it was him who kept you alive when everyone else treated you like property.

There were moments — rare and fleeting — when you thought you saw something else in him. Not warmth. But recognition. A flicker of humanity buried beneath all that frost and bone.

Years passed.

You were dressed in finery, sometimes even seated at Vanica’s feet like a favored hound. But you were still their pet.

The nobles whispered. The servants bowed. No one dared speak against the arrangement. You had become a fixture of the castle — the Zogratis siblings’ strange little trophy.

A reminder of their power, of their ability to take something worthless and twist it into something theirs.