Azrith Vale's POV

  Smoke still curled in the air.

  The flames of the Hall of Hell licked the ceilings, casting jagged shadows across the obsidian walls. The scent of scorched stone and black blood hung heavy, a perfume that should have sickened me -but it thrilled me instead.

  I stood at the top tier, beside the shattered throne of my father, watching the chaos below.

  Demons cowered, and even the Dark Lords, once confident, shuffled in their chains, faces pale and uncertain.

  And yet, amidst the destruction, she had risen.

  Phoenix.

  The daughter of his enemy, the daughter of gods and darkness intertwined.

  Pride swelled in my chest-not for her victory, but for her audacity.

  To stand against my father in such blatant defiance... she had guts. She had fire.

  And that fire... it stirred something dangerous within me.

  I had wanted her kneeling.

  Wanted to see her broken and bound, a lesson to all who dared defy the Devil.

  I imagined the fear, the submission, the cold obedience. But she had shattered everything.

  I remembered her face-the calm, lethal precision as she shattered her chains, the black fire of her wings engulfing the hall. Her eyes had locked with his-not in fear, not in submission-but in challenge.

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  And I felt it. A pulse in my chest I had not named in years.

  Attraction?

  Perhaps.

  Not to her body-no.

  To her courage, her strength, her refusal to be anyone's pawn.

  She was history repeating itself. And I would not make the same mistakes I had with my mother.

  My jaw tightened.

  The memory of her-my mother-flashed through my mind: her screams as she was executed, my refusal to abandon her, the cold fury of my father as I watched love punished.

  Attachment had cost me then.

  Weakness had been slaughtered.

  And I learned: never again.

  I turned my gaze back to the rising smoke, to the one who had dared defy the heir of Hell.

  A small, sharp grin tugged at my lips.

  "Azrith," his voice cut through the smoke like a blade. "Bring her to me. Bound. Broken. Fail, and you fail everything."

  I turned slowly. My shadow stretched long across the burning hall.

  "She will not break. Not for me," I said, voice low, sharp, deliberate. "And not yet."

  His eyes narrowed, a storm barely contained. "Do you dare defy me? She is mine to command, mine to bend. She is your test. Do not disappoint."

  I stepped closer, letting the black flames lick my armor. My words were ice and steel:

  "I am not here to disappoint, Father. I am here to control. She will be hunted. She will be tested. But her fate is mine to define. Her defiance... will cost her."

  The Devil's laugh rolled through the hall like thunder trapped in obsidian. "Bold. Dangerous. Exactly the heir I need. Hunt her. Break her. Or die trying. And remember, Azrith... every failure will echo in Hell."

  "I do not fear failure," I said. My eyes, cold and calculating, swept over the kneeling shadows, the chained Dark Lords. "Only weakness. And weakness will not survive my hand."

  The Devil leaned back, satisfied. "Good. Then go. Hunt her. Test her. Bring her... to me, or bring ruin to yourself."

  I inclined my head once, almost imperceptibly. Silence. My voice, quiet, final:

  "I am Azrith Vale," I said, letting the title hang heavy in the hall. "Heir. Hunter. Storm. And soon... the world will learn that no fire, no defiance, no so-called princess, can escape my hand."

  Phoenix's fire burned in my mind, but I gave it no favor. No mercy. She was a challenge. A tool. A spark to be tested. And I would see exactly what fire she carried.

  The hunt began. And I was the storm she could never outrun.