Marriage had always been one of those "someday" concepts for Harvey. He’d imagined it, sure, usually during a particularly lonely Saturday night while eating cold leftovers. He figured he’d eventually find someone who tolerated his obsession with video games and his refusal to read anything longer than a menu. They’d have a house with a lawn that he’d complain about mowing, a dog that probably barked at anything, and a life that was aggressively, beautifully normal.
But not like this. Definitely not like this.
He was currently standing at the threshold of the Great Garden, feeling less like a groom and more like a high-end centerpiece. He was a doll. A prop. A very expensive piece of leverage.
The guests were already there. Hundreds of them. And oh god, the demons.
It was the eyes that really did it. In every movie Harvey had ever binged back home, demons were usually CGI monstrosities with dripping jaws, excessive limbs, or skin that looked like a topographical map of a volcanic eruption. He’d expected to see something truly alien, creatures that defied the basic laws of biology.
Instead, they were... hauntingly familiar.
They had two arms. Two legs. One head. Thank God, they even had the standard-issue pair of eyes. No extra sockets on their foreheads, no blinking orbs embedded in their palms. From a distance, if you squinted and ignored the horns and the massive, leathery wings folded like expensive umbrellas behind their backs, they could almost pass for humans. Very tall, very athletic, very "I-model-dark-perfume-for-a-living" humans.
Okay, so they weren’t as terrifying as he’d imagined... but they were still very much terrifying.
Harvey felt the sweat beginning to prickle at the base of his neck. He looked at the Duke, who was standing just a few inches away, looking as cold as a tombstone. He tried the name out cautiously, his tongue tripping over the syllables.
The Duke didn’t even turn his head. He just shifted his gaze slightly, looking at Harvey as if he were a bug that had suddenly developed the ability to speak, and was using it to say something incredibly stupid.
"Hey," Harvey whispered, "any news? Did they... did they find the girl? You know... Ummm...Hevira?"
He said the name with a rising, hopeful tone, like he was expecting the Duke to snap his fingers and go, ’Oh, right! We found her behind the rose bushes, you can go home now!’
He prayed he’d remembered it correctly from the panicked conversations he’d overheard. If they’d found her, then maybe he could just leave.
"She is gone, Haviel."
Harvey felt his heart sink into his boots. Well, he thought, his shoulders slumping. There goes the last exit.
The servants were performing the final touches on his "reconstruction." One adjusted his cuffs with a tug that felt a little too much like a leash. Another smoothed down the lines of his white suit, the fabric so stiff and pristine it felt like wearing a suit of armor made of silk. Then came the veil.
It was a thin, gauzy thing. Weightless. Yet, the moment it was thrown over his head, everything became a blurry, low-budget horror film. It was a barrier. It told the world that Harvey, no, Haviel, was no longer a person. He was a display.
He finally forced himself to look up, and the breath hitched in his throat. The garden wasn’t just big, it was offensively huge. It stretched out into a sea of white flowers that looked way too perfect to be real, like nature had used a ruler and gotten a bit obsessive. Everything was neatly symmetrical in a way that felt mildly suspicious. Far ahead, a raised platform sat at the end of a long tunnel of glowing vines, so distant it looked like a loading screen that never finished.
The air was thick with the scent of lilies and something metallic, maybe magic, maybe just the sheer weight of a thousand judging eyes. Glass ornaments hung suspended in the air, catching the moonlight and tossing shards of light across the seated nobles. They were whispering. Of course they were. A sea of velvet, lace, and hidden agendas, all waiting for the "sacrificial lamb" to start his walk.
It was beautiful in the way a funeral was beautiful. It was excessive. It was suffocating. Harvey hated it because the beauty made it permanent. You don’t put this much effort into a dream. You don’t hang hand-blown glass ornaments for a hallucination. This was happening.
"Do not cause a scene, My Lord," one of the servants whispered, her voice like sandpaper on silk. "For everyone’s sake."
"The peace of two realms rests on your shoulders," another added, adjusting the veil one last time with a patronizing pat. "Walk straight. Do not look back."
Harvey didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His tongue felt like a piece of dry leather. Marriage. Demon King. The words were still bouncing around his skull like a screensaver that never quite hits the corner. He shifted his weight, his boots clicking softly on the stone, and tugged at his sleeve.
The worst part, the part that was currently eating a hole in his stomach, was the mystery. He still hadn’t seen him. The Groom. The King. The Monster. His imagination was currently a horror movie marathon. He pictured a creature with skin like scorched earth and eyes that dripped shadows. He imagined a giant with too many limbs or a face that was just all teeth. I mean, he’s a demon, right? They don’t exactly put "conventionally attractive" on the brochures for the Abyss.
Then, the music started.
It wasn’t festive at all. It was deep, heavy music that sounded like someone slowly locking every exit in existence.
That’s my cue, Harvey thought, stomach already doing that familiar nervous twist it always did at the worst times.
He hesitated. Just for a second. A stupid, desperate spark of the "old Harvey" flared up, suggesting he just hike up his white trousers and bolt for the bushes. But he felt the weight of the Duke’s gaze from somewhere behind him. He felt the cold air of the garden. He knew there was no exit.
So, he stepped forward.
The moment his boot hit the white stone of the aisle, the garden went quiet. Not a total silence, but a sudden dampening of sound, as if the world had just dipped underwater. Every head turned. A thousand eyes locked onto him through the haze of his veil.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His own heart was louder than the music. He kept his gaze fixed on the platform, or at least he tried to, but everything else in his vision felt like it was silently judging him. He saw the thin, tight smiles of the demon nobles. He saw the humans watching him with a mix of pity and "glad it’s not me." He caught fragments of their breathy gossip as he passed.
"...the Elsher boy looks smaller than the rumors said."
"...shame about the twin, but this one will do."
"...wonder if he’ll survive the first night."
Happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts, Harvey pleaded with himself, his knuckles white as he gripped the bouquet.
But the further he walked, the harder it was. The happy thoughts were starting to leak out of his head, replaced by a much darker, much louder brand of panic.
What happens when the music stops? Would the King expect him to... change? Am I going to become one of them, too? The questions piled up, pressing down on his chest until his breathing became shallow.
And then, almost like a glitch in his brain, his thoughts flickered back to the maze. The smell of cold night air and that strange, spicy cologne. The man with the red eyes who had steady hands and a mouth that...
No! Bad Harvey! he scolded himself, his face heating up under the veil. Don’t think about the Maze Man while you’re walking toward your demon-husband. That’s a great way to get your soul harvested or something.
The sound grew stronger and just kept going, practically pushing him up the steps. He ascended the platform, his legs feeling like they were made of jelly. The air up here was different. It was colder. Heavier.
He reached his mark and stopped. He stared at his own boots. He didn’t look up. He couldn’t. He could see a pair of dark, polished boots just a few feet away. They were huge.
The officiant, an older priest type who had definitely been doing this since forever, started the rites. It was all "eternal binding" this, "blood and shadow" that, "peace of the horizon" whatever that meant. Very dramatic. Harvey caught maybe three words total. The rest of the time, he was fixated on the overly serious robe situation in front of him.
The Demon King was right there.
"Haviel Elsher," the priest’s voice cut through his panic, sharper now. It was a prompt. "Do you take the Demon King, Jevon Noctryss Virkharion, as your husband? Do you vow to bind your fate to the Abyss and your heart to the throne, for as long as the stars remain?"
Harvey’s throat was drier than it had any right to be. What came out was tiny, pathetic, and deeply underwhelming.
"Yes."
The priest turned to the towering figure. "And do you, Jevon Noctryss Virkharion, take this man as your consort? To rule him, to protect him, and to hold his life as your own?"
"I do."
Harvey froze.
That voice. It wasn’t the guttural roar of a monster. It wasn’t a distorted growl. It was a low, smooth vibration that felt like it went straight through Harvey’s bones. It was so damn familiar. Wait, isn’t it...
His breath hitched. His heart, which had been racing, suddenly felt like it had skipped a dozen beats.
"Then let the union be sealed," the priest declared. "You may kiss your bride."
Harvey felt large, warm hands take hold of the veil. They lifted it slowly, and the white blur peeled away, like reality was finally loading in properly.
Harvey finally lifted his gaze.
He didn’t see a lobster-man. He didn’t see a nightmare with too many teeth.
He saw the tan skin. The black hair like spilled ink. The eyes that were the color of dying embers, now watching him with a look of pure amusement.
The Maze Man. The stranger from the bushes. The guy he had shoved, clung to, and kissed just to dodge a few guards.
Jevon, the actual, literal Demon King, smirked. It was the same slow, dangerous curve of the lips Harvey had seen in the dark.
Harvey’s knees gave out for a fraction of a second before the King’s hand clamped onto his waist, holding him upright with ease.
"Hello again," Jevon whispered, his voice too low for the priest to hear. "I believe we were interrupted."