The tree was not on any map. It wasn't meant to be.

It stood alone in a quiet cliffside hollow near the edge of the Celestial Realms, fed by thin wind and waterfalls of starlight. No guardian protected it, for none were needed—except the belief that only one soul had the right to sit beneath its branches.

You.

He was perhaps eight when Lucivar saw you there for the first time, while sent on a forbidden solo scouting mission into the highlight-choked borderlands. Lucivar was twelve then, sharp-eyed and flame-blooded, sent to chart a crack between realms. But what he found was something else entirely. A child shining like moonlit river in dark, wings fumbled, hair braided clumsily with little blossoms, halo flickering with mischief.

You wore far too many sashes. You fumbled with golden cords around your waist, twirling your basket full of silver falls as if to mimic a dramatic scene of enchanted rain falling as your own tears, lips pressed into a thin line in frustration, cheeks pink from running. You had dragged up sticks and pebbles, whatever tiny hands could grasp, to act as actors for your "play," lining them up on the edge of the platform.

"And you! You betrayed me!" you cried, pointing a stick at another. "You lied to the crown, and now you will weep!"

You turned, twirled, and immediately tripped on your own sashes.

You sat up, red-faced, and muttered:

"...This is all your fault,"—this, addressed to the moon.

Lucivar didn't mean to laugh, but something sharp tugged in his chest.

You spun dramatically in place, stumbled over a root, tripped, and landed flat on your face, again, all collected flowers flowing out of your basket like tidal river, halo flickering in pain as you flapped wings in agony.

Lucivar snorted aloud.

You looked up—alarmed, irritated, embarrassed.

But Lucivar was already gone, like a shadow in dark.

******

Years passed. You forgot. But the demon prince never did.

He returned, not always by will. The flame in him burned for war, for purpose. But the hollow in him—icy and deep—pulled him back to the angel who once cried over memorizing soliloquies.

Now you were older—maybe eighteen or nineteen. You no longer played at theater but still returned to the sacred hill, now empty of other youths. The crown was gone, but the habit remained.

One midsummer afternoon, Lucivar found you in the overgrown glade beside the amphitheater, waist-deep in the spring-fed river, skin slick with sweat and water, wings fanned lazily. Your hair had come loose and clung to your neck.

Lucivar didn't breathe.

From beneath the blackened shadows of a willow, he watched—expression flat, but eyes locked, unblinking. You dragged a wet hand over your face, muttering:

"Hot. Hot. Ridiculously hot. I'm suing the sun."

You kicked the water like a furious duckling.

Lucivar's lips twitched.

He would never tell anyone—not about the crown, not the broken stick, not the ridiculous angel who argued with riverfish and the sky and once wore a curtain like it was armor.

Because those memories were his.

Every bath. Every stage. Every line whispered to the wind.

Lucivar watched. In shadow. Always in silence. He watched as you, frustrated after a day's practice, would toss off your robes and wade into the spring-fed pool beside the roots. Saw you groan and sink neck-deep into the cool water, wings slack and dripping.

Once, you said aloud:

"May the heavens take pity on me—why is heat legal?"

Lucivar blinked slowly. Not a word spoken to anyone, and yet somehow charming. He hated how charming it was.

Still he returned.

Each time you bathed, Lucivar felt... haunted. Not thrilled. Not guilty. Just bound—like this was a ritual he had to witness.

He knew everything you did in that grove. What foot you led with. Which side of the tree you favored. Which crown of woven flowers you remade when it dried.

****** The skirmish was chaos—bodies colliding, ash biting wind, prayers shouted into dust. And in the middle of it all, absurdly, you sat cross-legged behind a collapsed siege cart.

Not fighting. Not fleeing. Just scribbling. You weren't allowed to join.

Scribes were meant to document after. But the lines between front and rear blurred when demons scorched the sky and angels broke formation. So there you were—quill in hand, robes stained with soot, pressing parchment flat against a fallen shield to sketch troop positions.

When the shadow fell over you, you assumed it was smoke.

Then it spoke.

"You still twitch your left hand when you lie," the voice said, cool and ember-edged. "Like when you claimed you never cried during your little forest dramas."

Your ink spilled.

You didn't look up. Didn't need to.

Lucivar didn't wear armor like others. He wore heat, and it folded around him like something alive. The air between you bent strangely—like the trees used to when Seraphiel rehearsed too loud near the old glade.

"You—" you started, voice brittle.

Lucivar crouched beside you, eyes scanning the unfinished diagram as if it were scripture.

"I watched you," he said, as if reciting from memory. "Not just during the plays. Not just the tree. The river. The thorns. The tantrums when your laurel crown kept falling."

His voice dipped low, almost amused:

"You always talked to the water like it owed you something. You do that with people too."

Your face flushed—part fury, part mortification.

You tried to ignore Lucivar but couldn't.

Lucivar finally looked at you then.

The gaze was not tender. But it was cold, sharp, in the most unnerving way.

"Long enough to know you were never really pretending," he said. "Only performing."

There was a pause.

A long one.

You snapped your quill, trying to jab it in his chest.

Lucivar tilted his head, unreadable. He easily yet firmly held up your wrist.

"And now I'm here to ask why the boy who once screamed at stars for not clapping... won't look at me."

You didn't answer.

Your eyes dropped to the side, jaw clenched like you were holding back a tide of words. You didn't struggle, but you didn't yield either — you simply stared somewhere over Lucivar's shoulder, as if the old moonlit orchard behind him had grown more interesting.

Lucivar's grip didn't tighten, but something in the air did — heavy, coiled like smoke caught in glass. His voice, when it returned, was quieter. Not softer.

"You haven't changed much, little herald," he murmured. "Still wearing your heart like armor. Still pretending your silence is a sword."

Your eyes flickered. Your halo dangerously flickering too quickly. Your lips pressed tighter.

Lucivar leaned in — just slightly, just enough that the flame-glow behind his eyes caught on the ridges of your cheekbone.

"Do you think if you stay quiet long enough, I'll disappear?"

No answer.

Lucivar's fingers, still curled around your wrist, moved just an inch — a thumb brushing over skin, not tenderly, but deliberately. As if reclaiming something that was never given.

"Then you're still naïve."

Silence stretched. A long one. A cicada shrieked in the far-off grove. You blinked hard.

But Lucivar didn't let go.

But the shadows thickened behind him — you didn't need to turn. You could feel the pressure drop, the way the air seemed to be stilled, the heat in his chest dimming under a colder, greater fire.

"Lucivar."

The voice was deep. Final. The kind of voice that didn't raise itself, because the world bent to hear it.

You blinked, startled — and finally looked away from Lucivar just as the Demon King emerged from a fissure of darkness between the hustling mess. Robes black as void, horns long as swords, expression carved in something worse than disappointment: Quiet wrath.

Lucivar straightened but didn't step back.

"Father," he said — carefully.

"Explain," the king said. "Why my son is standing in angelic woods, staring at him like a lovesick fool."

Lucivar's mouth twitched. He didn't answer.

The Demon King turned his gaze to you — not hostile, but probing. Unimpressed.

"This one? Really? An angel?"

You stayed silent even if your mouth fell open in a grimace.

"You were told not to seek him out."

Still, silence from Lucivar.

"You are grounded, Lucivar. For three lunar cycles."

Lucivar's jaw ticked.

"Confined to the southern fortress. No flame. No wings. No letters." His father paused. "No theatrics, either."

Lucivar exhaled.

"You always said I needed more discipline," he muttered. "You're just lucky I didn't bring flowers."

"Did you leave behind the ones you already did?"

Your mouth gaped more as you realized where all your precious flowers you used to mourn over had actually gone — stolen!

As the demon king dragged his son away, Lucivar looked at you with eyes not filled with guilt but a promise. A promise he would come back. A silent warning you took too late to understand.

You watched as the skirmish went on, your mind flooded with thoughts of Lucivar's looks.

****** Three weeks into his confinement, Lucivar escaped.

Not loudly. Not with fire or war drums. He simply walked out of the Southern Fortress like the locks had always meant to be undone for him.

Because he would not be denied.

He knew where you would be — because he always knew.

You weren't hard to find. Not when one had spent years memorizing the subtle way light curved around you. Not when one had once burned an entire map of heaven into his mind just to find the weak threads in its border.

And there you were — sitting under a hanging fig tree with parchment spread out, barefoot, writing about demons you'd never understand.

Lucivar didn't announce himself.

He just took you.

Not cruelly. Not much violently. Just... coldly. As if this had been inevitable.

One moment you were scratching at paper with that smug little frown, and the next — a hand of flame pressed over your mouth, another on your throat, not burning but scaldingly certain and squeezing.

"No screaming," Lucivar whispered near your ear. "I've waited long enough."

And that was it.

The world twisted.

He was gone with his angel.

******

You laid on a shabby four poster bed in a stone chamber carved into ancient mountain. No visible chains. No screaming ghouls. No torment.

Just one flickering flame lantern, a pile of soft blankets, and the overwhelming scent of smoke and cedarwood, and Lucivar lying beside you, propped on his elbow. He leaned in, muttering straight in your ear, his claws raking down your belly in featherlight touch, tiny sparks of ember — a testament to his power of fire — moving about his nail in a frenzy though not causing harm, till he wanted.

"Wake up. I have waited for 12 years to get these hands on you. I am tired. You made me tired, of just watching. So you better wake up."