The demon realm’s royal carriage rolled forward with a sickening sort of luxury. Through the thick glass of the small, arched window, Haviel watched the final, pathetic remnants of the wedding party dissolve into the graying dusk.
A few servants and lower-tier attendants raised their hands in polite, deeply practiced farewells. Automatically, like an office worker nodding at a security guard while slinking out the lobby doors at 9:01 PM, Haviel raised his hand to wave back.
He froze, his fingers hung awkwardly in the air before he dropped his hand like a hot stone. Why the hell am I waving? He didn’t know these people.
It wasn’t that he was still struggling to accept that his life had entirely derailed. But the sheer absurdity of everything still sat on his chest like a damp weighted blanket. And to make the whole relocation vibe even more suffocating, he wasn’t exactly alone in there.
Jevon sat directly across from him.
Now, technically, this wasn’t the first time they’d been stuck in an enclosed space together, but come on. Just look at how little room they had.
The carriage continued down the road with an almost ridiculous level of smoothness. It didn’t bounce, shake, or creak. Honestly, it felt more like riding an elevator than a horse-drawn vehicle. Haviel noticed it within the first thirty seconds and immediately decided he hated it. It felt wrong. Suspicion-arousing, really.
Jevon, meanwhile, looked so entirely relaxed that it felt like an insult to Haviel’s frazzled nervous system. The king sat with one long leg crossed over the other, his robes draping effortlessly around him, looking for all the world as if being sealed inside a moving royal prison box with a profoundly bewildered human bride was just a typical Wednesday afternoon.
Which, honestly, only made Haviel feel about ten times more like an imposter who had snuck into first class with a forged ticket. He forced his eyes onto the seat beside Jevon’s hip, determined to focus on anything that wasn’t those massive, ceiling-threatening horns or that sharp, aristocratic jawline.
After roughly ten minutes of heavy, suffocating silence, Haviel’s internal structural integrity completely cracked.
"Uuummm... Your Majesty," he called, his voice cracking slightly before he cleared his throat to regain some semblance of professional dignity. "How long is this... commute? The journey. How long is it supposed to take?"
Jevon didn’t blink. His eyes shifted slowly toward Haviel, entirely unbothered by the sudden burst of noise. "Three days by carriage," he answered without a hint of hesitation. Then one corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "Though, it would only take a few hours if we flew."
Haviel latched onto that final sentence like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver. Flying. Faster. Simpler. Significantly less like a three-day exercise in slow, psychological torture.
Wait, they actually fly? Like, wings? Not teleportation? "Oh, then why aren’t we flying then?" he asked, the question tumbling out before his filter could stop it. "If it saves that much time, why the carriage?"
The look on Jevon’s face shifted at once. Not angry, exactly. Just neutral in a way that made Haviel realize he’d probably said something incredibly stupid.
"Flying across human-controlled territory," Jevon explained, "is strictly restricted under the treaty law. It is considered a violation and an act of military aggression." He shifted slightly, the silk of his robes whispering against the leather. "It is not a matter of personal preference, Haviel. It is a hard political boundary."
An internal siren began to wail in Haviel’s mind. Great. Fantastic. Excellent work, Harvey. This was now the second time in less than twenty-four hours that he had managed to sound completely, aggressively ignorant about demon politics in front of the actual sovereign of the Demon Realm. At this rate, he was speed-running his own downfall.
Jevon wasn’t done, either. He leaned back slightly, his eyes narrowing just a fraction. "Furthermore, this is not a mere leisure trip. This is a formal diplomatic transfer of a treaty partner. Everything has a protocol. If we were to simply bypass the border checkpoints and vanish into the sky, it would imply we have something to hide. It would reflect poorly on my court, and it would suggest your house lacks the proper respect for international procedure. Taking shortcuts because we’re impatient usually creates bigger problems later."
"Right. Haha. Of course. Protocols. Love them. Can’t get enough of them." He tried to wave it off, his hands doing a nervous little flutter in his lap. "I just... I guess I assumed you guys didn’t really care about bureaucracy. You know, being demons and all. I thought it was more of a... do-what-you-want type of vibe."
As soon as the words left his lips, he wanted to swallow them back down, along with his tongue.
That comment landed entirely wrong.
Jevon tilted his head, his dark hair shifting over his shoulder, those massive black horns catching the dim light of the carriage’s magical lanterns. His gaze became pointed, quiet, and uncomfortably sharp. "Do you assume," the King said softly, his voice dropping into a register that made the hairs on Haviel’s arms stand straight up, "that demons act solely on impulse? That we are driven entirely by mood and chaotic whims, lacking the capacity for governance or law?"
Oh, god. I’ve insulted an entire demographic. Every warning light in Haviel’s head turned on at the same time. "No! No, no, no. That’s not what I meant at all! Your Great Dem.... Your Majesty. Truly. I just meant... from the outside, you guys look so powerful, right? Like, if you wanted to fly, who’s going to stop you? It was a compliment! A poorly phrased, highly uneducated compliment about your supreme military capability. I have immense respect for your world. I’m just stupid. It’s a human trait. Cultural misunderstanding!"
He knew he was overexplaining. He was practically sweat-inducing at this point, his hands making frantic, defensive gestures in the small space between them until he finally ran completely out of breath and collapsed back against his seat, wheezing quietly.
Jevon let the silence stretch. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds of pure, agonizing silence while he simply watched the human breathe.
A faint chuckle escaped him. Jevon shook his head, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.
"You are incredibly tense," Jevon finally said, his tone returning to that calm, infuriatingly steady baseline. "You do not need to hold yourself so rigidly for the next few days."
Haviel’s shoulders were practically glued to his ears. "I can’t exactly relax," he muttered, the absolute exhaustion making him bolder than he probably should have been. "I am sitting four feet away from a literal monarch. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not feeling particularly cozy."
Jevon watched him, looking like he wanted to say something but thought better of it. "Is it truly my status that paralyzes you?" he murmured, leaning forward just an inch. "Or is it because I am a demon?"
Haviel stared at him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a very loud voice was screaming: You already know the answer to that, you giant, terrifying, ridiculously intimidating man! Why are you making me say it out loud? Is this a trap? It feels like a trap!
But instead of speaking, Haviel chose the only safe corporate strategy left: total silence. He clamped his mouth shut, lowered his gaze to the floors, and refused to engage.
Thank God, Jevon didn’t push it. The King didn’t demand an answer, nor did he take offense when Haviel chose not to answer. He simply observed Haviel for a long, quiet moment, like a scientist trying to deduce the behavioral patterns of a particularly strange, hyperactive rodent, before leaning back into his own corner and letting the quiet settle over them once more.
Slowly, the frantic thumping of Haviel’s heart began to downshift. The conversation had died a natural, if slightly awkward, death, mostly because Haviel had officially reached his absolute maximum emotional and mental capacity for the day. The terrifying spikes of adrenaline began to recede, leaving behind a profound, hollow ache in his bones.
Exhaustion, heavy and relentless, finally began to catch up with him.
He hadn’t properly rested. Not since he had stepped off that construction ledge. Since then, it had been a non-stop gauntlet of dying, waking up in a different body, trying to escape a forced marriage, tackling a demon king into a bushes, and somehow ending up married anyway. His brain was frying. His eyelids felt like they were lined with lead. Sleep was no longer a suggestion, it was an aggressive takeover bid, pulling at his consciousness whether he approved of the terms or not.
Blinking heavily, Haviel risked a tiny, guarded glance across the carriage.
Jevon’s head was tilted back. Those glowing amber eyes were half-lowered, the intense light behind them dimmed to a soft, sleepy flicker. His chest rose and fell in a slow, unbroken rhythm.
Haviel blinked again, a faint, groggy sense of confusion rippling through his thoughts. Wait. Do demons actually sleep? Like... normal people? I thought they just plotted murder or stared into the dark all night. But looking at the relaxed line of Jevon’s shoulders, it really did seem like the King was resting.
A strange, small sense of safety settled into the carriage. If the apex predator in the vehicle was off the clock, then maybe... just maybe... it was safe for the low-level clerk to take a break too.
Haviel let his head lean sideways against the velvet padding of the wall. The carriage’s smooth, steady movement, which he had despised just minutes ago, suddenly felt oddly soothing.
The seat across from him gradually blurred out of focus. His eyes slipped shut, and his thoughts slowly drifted away as sleep finally caught up with him.