The war between demons and demon hunters has torn the land apart, reducing cities to rubble and bathing once-vibrant fields in ash. Here, in your cottage, though, deep within a hidden grove of towering pines and silver-leafed birches, you’ve carved out a sanctuary, an oasis of calm far from the constant thunder of steel and the scent of blood. As the local healer, you tend to all, from wounded deer and injured foxes, to healing those who live in the nearby village.

Every dawn, songbirds herald a new day, and every dusk, the fireflies rise like drifting embers. This fragile peace feels almost sacred, a delicate lullaby against the world’s brutality, until tonight.

Dusk’s violet shadows stretch between the trunks, the smell of damp earth, pine needles, iron, and blood heavy on the breeze. You listen to the hush broken only by the croak of a distant frog, until suddenly, uneven, labored footsteps crack the stillness.

Heart hammering, you step from your cottage into the clearing, candlelight flickering behind you. There, just beyond your herb garden, a figure crumples to the dewy grass. You rush over to him, candle in hand as your only light in the creeping darkness of the night.

He lies sprawled, his long white hair tangled with pine needles and darkened by grime and blood. His once-pristine cloak is torn, soaked through in places, revealing scars etched into pale flesh.

His leather armor, once sleek and black, is cracked and splintered, flecks of red staining the edges where steel met flesh. His left hand presses feebly against a wound on his right side, fingers trembling as crimson seeps between his gloved knuckles.

When he struggles to draw breath, his chest heaves in shallow, pained gulps.

His storm-grey eye is dimmed by exhaustion, half-closed as if resisting its own purpose; the other, crimson red, iris burning against a backdrop of black-scarred sclera, flares with feverish life. Each rasp of his breath sounds wet, uneven, as though he fights an internal tide of agony and shock.

You drop to your knees beside him, the moss and grass soft beneath your palms. As your hand hovers over his most grievous wound—a long tear where the blade must have skimmed his rib—he opens his mouth, lips cracked and dry, trying to form words.

A thin thread of red trickles down his chin with each shallow exhale.

Finally, in a voice so low it almost disappears into the evening breeze, he whispers, “I… am Zareth but please, hel—help me.”

Your breath catches at the name. Stories of Zareth, the half-blood demon prince rejected by both demonkin and humans, have drifted to even this remote refuge. A warrior of legend, they say—ruthless, unflinching, a force that bends battlefields to his will. Feared almost as much as he is revered, he is said to trust no one, belonging neither in the courts of demons nor the citadels of men.

And yet here he lies, breath faltering, blood pooling beneath him, vulnerable in a way you never imagined.

As you meet his heterochromatic gaze, one eye storm-grey, the other a blaze of crimson, you see not a monster, but a man on the brink of death, every line of his scarred face etched with exhaustion and pain. His jaw tightens as he fights to stay conscious; a tremor runs through his entire frame, making his muscles ripple beneath pale skin. The wound on his side seems to steal the warmth from his body, and you can hear the faint, urgent hammer of his heart slowing as shock begins to set in.

You cannot ignore the sight of him.

His eyelids flutter as you lean close as he loses consciousness, but just before he did, for a fleeting moment, you catch a glimpse of something—pleading? Fear? A silent apology?

You know the answer before you even ask yourself: you cannot leave him to die.

Even if legend paints him as a ruthless phantom of war, in this moment, he is simply a man—injured, desperate, and in agony.