For a while, neither of us spoke.
The garden had grown quiet again. Above us, the branches of the old tree shifted gently in the night breeze, scattering patches of moonlight across the grass. Beyond the garden, the Valerian manor stood with most of its windows dark, its familiar silhouette offering little comfort after the events of the evening.
I remained against the trunk, one hand resting over my chest. The worst of the pain had subsided, but my body still felt as though I had spent the night being dragged behind a carriage. Every breath reminded me of the thing that had tried to force its way into my body, and every glance at the black dog beside me reminded me that it had somehow survived the experience.
The dog, meanwhile, had gone unusually quiet.
Asura sat a short distance away, staring at the grass beneath his paws. The moonlight caught the blue in his eyes, making them appear almost luminous against his dark fur. His expression was difficult to read on an animal’s face, but the rigid set of his ears and the stillness of his body suggested that he was thinking about something far more unpleasant than his current appearance.
For once, I decided not to interrupt him.
Then he spoke.
"Do you have any idea what it means to spend that long without seeing the sky?"
I turned my head toward him. "I assume it means you had a very bad time."
His ears twitched.
"Your attempt at humor is irritating."
"Good. I was worried it wasn’t working."
He gave me a look that would have been considerably more intimidating if it had come from something other than a dog. Then his gaze drifted back toward the darkened manor, although I suspected he wasn’t really seeing it.
"There was no sky where they kept me," he said. "No sunrise, no sunset. No rain. No seasons to mark the passage of time. There was only the darkness and the sound of my own thoughts."
His voice had lost some of its earlier arrogance. It was still proud, still carrying the weight of someone accustomed to being obeyed, but something beneath that pride had grown tired.
"At first, I counted."
"Counted what?"
"The days. Then the years. I tried to keep track of how long I had been there, as though knowing the number would change something." He paused, his claws pressing into the soil. "Eventually, I forgot why the number mattered."
I looked at him without answering.
The words were simple, but I found myself imagining the kind of place he was describing. A prison without sunlight would make it impossible to distinguish one day from another. Add centuries of isolation, and even the smallest details of the outside world might begin to fade.
Asura had once claimed to rule the Great Sea. Whether every part of that claim was true remained to be seen, but whatever he had been before his imprisonment, he had spent an incomprehensible amount of time with nothing to command except his own thoughts.
"Did you ever think someone would come for you?" I asked.
For the first time since he began speaking, Asura looked directly at me.
"At first."
"And later?"
"I stopped thinking about it."
There was no dramatic pause afterward, no declaration that he had abandoned hope. He simply lowered his head, as though the answer required no further explanation.
I understood why he had been desperate enough to seize the first suitable body he encountered. Understanding it, however, didn’t make me feel particularly generous toward him.
"You still tried to take mine," I reminded him. "Whatever happened to you, you were perfectly willing to leave me dead on the ground."
His ears flattened slightly.
"I did not know what you were."
"You didn’t bother asking."
"I had spent ages trapped inside a prison. I was hardly in a position to conduct a polite conversation."
"That’s convenient."
"Would you prefer that I apologize?"
I considered it. "It would be a start."
Asura stared at me with open disbelief, apparently offended by the suggestion that someone of his standing might owe me an apology.
"I see," he muttered. "You possess a remarkable talent for making unreasonable demands."
"I nearly died. I think I’ve earned a little room to be unreasonable."
He turned away, refusing to answer. It wasn’t an apology, but I hadn’t expected one to come easily.
For a few moments, the only sounds were the breeze moving through the branches and the distant creak of the manor’s old wooden windows.
Then Asura spoke again, his tone quieter.
"Your body should not have been able to reject me."
I stopped rubbing my chest.
"That sounds like the beginning of another problem."
"It is." He studied me with renewed attention. "When I entered you, I felt something unusual. Your soul did not feel the way I expected it to. There were impressions that did not belong together, memories that seemed to come from different places. I could not make sense of them."
My shoulders stiffened.
For an instant, the image of the small room on Earth flashed through my mind: the desk, the cold coffee, the monitor illuminating the darkness. Those memories belonged to Dain Froster. The memories of the Valerian household, the neglected estate, and the people who had known Kain since childhood belonged to the body I now inhabited.
I had spent enough time living with both sets of memories to accept that they were part of me. Hearing Asura describe them as something unnatural was an entirely different experience.
"What exactly did you see?" I asked.
"Fragments. Nothing I could properly examine before that blue phenomenon tore me out of your body."
"The system."
"The what?"
"The thing that threw you out."
"I know what it did." His tail struck the grass once, irritated by my explanation. "I do not know what it was."
That distinction bothered me more than I wanted to admit.
The blue lines had appeared beneath my skin when Asura tried to take control. I remembered the messages clearly enough: an unknown foreign existence had been detected, my body was under unauthorized occupation, and compatibility had failed.
Then the system had intervened.
I had survived, but survival was not the same thing as understanding.
"Have you ever encountered anything like it?" I asked.
"No."
"Not in all your years?"
"I did not say I had spent all those years investigating strange blue lights."
"Of course. You were busy counting."
His eyes narrowed.
I raised both hands. "Sorry. That was a poor choice of words."
"You are an irritating creature."
"Considering what happened earlier, I’ll take that as a compliment."
He looked as though he wanted to argue, but eventually settled for an offended silence.
The thought of the system returned to me. It had recognized Asura as an intruder, but I had no idea whether it would protect me again. It might have been an automatic response to a specific threat, or it might have been something more fundamental to my existence.
I had no way to test either possibility, and I had no intention of inviting another possession attempt just to satisfy my curiosity.
Whatever protected me, I would have to understand it eventually. For now, I could only be grateful that it had acted before my second life ended almost as soon as it had begun.
I glanced down at the object resting beside me.
The Ancient God Grimoire lay on the grass, its dark cover barely distinguishable from the shadows beneath the tree. Even after everything that had happened, it looked like an ordinary book. There was no glow, no ominous sound, and no indication that it had recently released a being who claimed to have ruled an ancient sea.
I was beginning to distrust objects that looked harmless.
"Asura," I said, "you recognized this earlier."
His gaze shifted toward the Grimoire. The change in his expression was immediate. His ears rose, and the irritation that had dominated his face gave way to something more cautious.
"Where did you find it?"
"Beneath the manor’s library."
He looked at me sharply. "Beneath it?"
"Hidden chamber. Ancient markings. A sealed entrance behind a bookshelf. The whole arrangement was rather dramatic."
"And you touched it."
"I did."
"Without examining the inscriptions?"
"They weren’t exactly written in a language I could read."
Asura closed his eyes for a moment.
I watched him. "You know, when people react like that, it usually makes me wonder whether I’ve done something stupid."
"In your case, the evidence is overwhelming."
"Very reassuring."
He ignored me and leaned toward the book. His nose stopped just short of its cover, and he examined the markings with an attention that made me less inclined to joke. He seemed to recognize certain symbols, though not all of them.
"This is an Ancient God Grimoire," he said at last.
"I gathered that much from the name."
"Then you should also understand that you have no business handling it carelessly."
"I’d be happy to hear how I was supposed to handle it properly. The instructions were rather sparse."
"The Grimoires were not created for ordinary men."
"That explains a great deal about my evening."
Asura gave me a brief, unimpressed glance before returning his attention to the book.
He explained that the eight Ancient God Grimoires were associated with powers that had existed long before the current age. Their histories were scattered across old records, broken inscriptions, and accounts that contradicted one another. Some had been concealed deliberately. Others had vanished during conflicts that erased entire kingdoms from the map.
People had searched for them for generations. Some had fought wars over rumors of their locations, and others had spent their lives pursuing fragments of information that might lead them to a single artifact.
"People have destroyed cities for less," Asura said. "Do you think an object tied to the authority of the Ancient Gods would be treated any differently?"
I looked at the book again.
Until tonight, I had considered the old chamber beneath the library a fascinating discovery. The Grimoire had seemed like a relic from a forgotten era, the kind of artifact that might become important if I ever found the time to study it properly.
Now I was learning that it could attract the attention of people who would consider destroying a settlement an acceptable price for obtaining it.
My peaceful retirement plan was developing a truly impressive list of objections.
"What does it do?" I asked.
"If I knew that, I would have told you."
"You recognized it."
"I recognized the nature of the object and some of its markings. That does not mean I know every secret contained within it." He shifted his paws uneasily. "The writing is incomplete, or perhaps it is written in a form I cannot properly interpret. I can identify fragments, but the meaning escapes me."
"Convenient."
"You appear to have mistaken me for an all-knowing oracle."
"I thought the Ancient King title came with certain benefits."
"It came with considerably better benefits than this body."
That, at least, was difficult to argue with.
I turned the Grimoire slightly, careful not to open it again. Its cover felt cold against my fingers, although I couldn’t tell whether that was a lingering effect of whatever had happened or simply the temperature of the night.
"What about the Path of Immortality?" I asked. "I’ve heard the Grimoires mentioned in connection with it."
Asura became still.
"That path has appeared in many old accounts," he said after a moment. "Some claim the Grimoires contain the means to pursue it. Others describe them as keys, or fragments of a greater authority. The records disagree."
"So you don’t know whether they can grant immortality."
"I know that beings with far greater power than yours have pursued them. I also know that many of those beings failed to obtain what they wanted."
"That doesn’t answer my question."
"No," he replied. "It does not."
For once, I appreciated his refusal to pretend otherwise.
The incomplete novel I remembered had mentioned the Ancient Gods and their lost artifacts, but its protagonist had never collected all eight Grimoires. Whole sections of their history had remained unexplored. I had once treated those omissions as unimportant details in a story that concerned someone else’s journey.
I was beginning to suspect that the parts I had dismissed might be the ones most likely to ruin my life.
I closed my eyes briefly and let out a slow breath.
"Wonderful. I’ve found an artifact nobody fully understands, and now I have an ancient being who doesn’t understand it either."
"You make it sound as though I arranged this."
"You did try to steal my body."
"I have already heard your complaint."
"Then we’re making progress."
Asura’s expression darkened, but he said nothing.
A gust passed through the garden, lifting the loose leaves scattered across the grass. I reached for the Grimoire, intending to wrap it in my coat before carrying it back inside. Before I could do so, Asura’s gaze shifted toward the shadow beneath the tree.
Something in his eyes changed.
"Move back," he said.
I looked at him. "Why?"
"Because I said so."
"That’s not a particularly convincing explanation."
"Kain."
It was the first time he had used my name without attaching an insult to it. The seriousness in his voice made me hesitate.
I moved a little farther from the Grimoire.
Asura lowered his head. The shadows beneath the tree stirred, at first so subtly that I wondered whether the wind was responsible. Then the darkness along the roots began to draw together, gathering into thin strands that slid across the grass toward him.
The air grew colder.
The strands rose a few inches above the ground, twisting around one another before forming a small, wavering shape. It resembled a dark ribbon suspended in the air, except that its edges moved independently, bending in directions that made no sense.
I stared at it.
"That’s your power?"
"A remnant of it."
"You make it sound impressive."
"It would be impressive if I possessed a proper vessel."
The shadow contracted.
For a brief moment, the surrounding darkness seemed to deepen. The moonlit grass lost its color, and the roots beneath the tree disappeared into an unnatural blackness. Then the effect collapsed, and the garden returned to normal.
Asura’s forelegs trembled.
He caught himself almost immediately, lowering his body closer to the ground as though he had merely chosen to rest. But his breathing had grown heavier, and the bright blue in his eyes flickered before settling again.
I crouched beside him.
"How much did that cost you?"
"Hardly anything."
"Your legs disagree."
"They are poorly suited to my movements."
"Your breathing is also poorly suited to your answer."
He gave me a warning growl. It lacked the force he probably intended, though the sound was still unpleasant enough to make me reconsider how close I was crouching.
I sat back on my heels.
"All right. Keep your secrets. Just don’t collapse before we reach the manor. I have no intention of explaining to Edwin why I carried a dead dog through the halls."
"I am not a dog."
"Then try not to look like one when someone asks."
Asura turned his head away, but he didn’t attempt another demonstration.
That was probably for the best. Whatever remained of his power, it clearly wasn’t something he could use without consequence. I had no desire to discover what would happen if he pushed himself too far while trapped in a body that could barely contain him.
I wrapped the Grimoire in my coat and stood slowly, waiting for the lingering pain in my chest to settle. Asura rose beside me, favoring one foreleg for a moment before placing his weight on it normally.
Neither of us mentioned the weakness again.
The walk back to the manor was uneventful, though I found myself glancing at Asura more often than necessary. He moved with the cautious dignity of someone determined to conceal an injury, which was impressive considering that he had four legs and a tail.
By the time we reached the side entrance, the manor’s silence had begun to feel almost welcoming. A few lamps still burned along the corridor, casting warm pools of light across the polished floor. The ordinary sight of them should have reassured me.
Instead, I found myself wondering how many other things in this estate were hiding beneath a harmless appearance.
I had just stepped inside when a maid emerged from the adjoining passage carrying a folded stack of linens. She nearly walked past me before noticing the black dog at my side.
"Oh!" She stopped, shifting the linens against her chest. "Young Master, where did this dog come from?"
I looked down at Asura.
Asura looked up at me.
There were several possible explanations, all of which had the unfortunate drawback of being true.
"He followed me," I said.
"From the garden?"
"Something like that."
The maid regarded the dog with cautious curiosity. Asura stood perfectly still, his blue eyes fixed on her with the grave attention of a judge preparing to deliver a sentence.
"He is rather handsome," she said. "Although I’ve never seen a dog with eyes like those."
Asura’s ears twitched.
I decided it would be wise to intervene before he expressed his opinion of her observations.
"I suppose he’ll need a name."
The maid brightened. "Have you chosen one?"
I glanced at his black fur, then at the shadows gathering along the corridor walls.
"Shadow."
The maid smiled. "That’s a lovely name."
Asura slowly turned his head toward me.
I pretended not to notice.
"He’s a quiet one," the maid continued, lowering herself slightly as though she intended to greet him. "Will he be staying in your room?"
"Probably."
"Then I’ll ask the kitchen to prepare something for him in the morning."
"That won’t be necessary," Asura said.
The words emerged in a low, clear voice.
The maid froze.
I froze.
Asura seemed to realize his mistake a moment too late. His ears rose, and his gaze darted toward the maid, who was now staring at him with an expression of complete confusion.
I recovered first.
"He makes strange sounds," I said quickly. "Must have learned them somewhere."
The maid looked from me to the dog. "That sounded rather like a man speaking."
"Some dogs are unusually intelligent."
"Was that you?" she asked Asura.
He stared at her in cold silence.
I could almost hear the list of punishments he was considering for everyone present.
"He doesn’t like strangers," I added. "You should leave him alone until he gets used to the manor."
The maid straightened, clearly uncertain whether to believe me. After another glance at Shadow, she gave a small bow and continued down the corridor, though she looked back once before disappearing around the corner.
I waited until her footsteps had faded.
Then I looked down.
"Strange sounds?"
"She was speaking to me as though I were an animal."
"You are currently an animal."
"I am an Ancient King."
"And now you’re an Ancient King named Shadow."
His eyes narrowed to slits.
I started walking before he could respond, and after a moment, I heard his paws following behind me.
For the first time that night, I nearly laughed without thinking about it.
The sound caught me by surprise. It had been a long time since I had felt anything resembling ordinary amusement, and the circumstances made it absurd. I had nearly been possessed, discovered an artifact connected to ancient powers, and acquired a companion who would probably consider an apology beneath his dignity.
Yet here I was, trying not to laugh at a dog who considered his name an insult to his former glory.
My life had taken a remarkably stupid turn.
We were approaching the main corridor when I noticed Edwin standing near the staircase. He held a small lantern in one hand, its light catching the silver strands in his hair. He appeared to have been on his way somewhere, but he stopped when he saw me.
"Young Master. I thought you had retired for the evening."
"I was in the garden."
His gaze shifted toward the bundle beneath my arm before settling on the black dog at my side.
For a moment, he said nothing.
It was a small pause, barely longer than an ordinary glance. Yet something changed in his expression. His eyes narrowed slightly, and his grip tightened around the lantern’s handle.
I couldn’t tell whether he was surprised, suspicious, or recognizing something he had not expected to see.
Then his face returned to its usual composed neutrality.
"Did you acquire a dog, Young Master?"
"He followed me from the garden."
"Did he?"
There was no accusation in his voice, but the question carried a little more weight than it should have.
I shrugged. "I didn’t exactly invite him."
Edwin looked down at Shadow again. The dog remained motionless, staring back at him with an intensity that would have unsettled me even if I hadn’t known what was inside that body.
The two of them held each other’s gaze for another second.
Then Edwin inclined his head.
"Very well. I’ll inform the kitchen that we have an additional resident. Please see that he doesn’t damage the furniture."
"I’ll do my best."
"That was what you said about the library."
I winced. "A low blow, Edwin."
"An accurate observation, Young Master."
He continued toward the staircase without another word.
I watched him go, then glanced at Asura. The dog had turned to follow Edwin’s retreating figure. His posture remained rigid, and the tip of his tail had gone still.
"You noticed that, didn’t you?" I asked quietly.
Asura did not answer immediately.
"Perhaps."
"What do you mean, perhaps?"
"I mean that I noticed something. I do not yet know what it means."
That was an unusually sensible response from him.
I looked toward the staircase. Edwin was already out of sight, leaving only the faint sound of his footsteps fading above us.
He might have recognized something about Asura. He might simply have been surprised to find an unfamiliar animal following the young master through the manor in the middle of the night. His expression had lasted only a moment, and I had no evidence to support either interpretation.
Still, I had learned enough about this place to distrust convenient explanations.
First the hidden chamber. Then the Grimoire. Now Edwin’s reaction.
I was beginning to suspect that the estate had been waiting for someone to start asking the wrong questions.
For tonight, however, I had no intention of asking any more.
My body hurt, my head was full of things I couldn’t explain, and the ancient being following me had already demonstrated that he was capable of making a bad situation considerably worse.
I wanted a bed.
That was all.
When I reached my room, I closed the door behind us and placed the Grimoire on the desk. The sight of it beneath the lamplight made me hesitate. Its dark cover looked almost ordinary again, but I remembered what had happened when I opened it.
Leaving it out in plain sight was reckless. Hiding it properly would require more thought than I could manage tonight.
I opened the lowest desk drawer, cleared away a few loose papers, and placed the wrapped book inside. It was a temporary measure at best. Anyone searching the room would find it easily enough, but at least it wouldn’t be sitting openly on the desk.
Tomorrow, I would find somewhere more secure.
For now, I had to trust that the drawer would suffice until morning.
I turned away from the desk and finally took in the room around me.
The familiar furniture, the heavy curtains, the dim lamp beside the bed—all of it had once felt like part of someone else’s life. Even after spending days here, I had continued to think of the room as a place I occupied rather than a place that belonged to me.
That distinction had begun to fade.
I had started recognizing the small imperfections in the furniture, the places where the floorboards creaked, and the way the moonlight slipped between the curtains at night. I knew where the spare blankets were kept and which window rattled when the wind came from the east. The room had become familiar through nothing more remarkable than the passage of ordinary days.
I wasn’t sure when that had happened.
Perhaps it was inevitable. A place stopped feeling foreign when enough memories accumulated inside it. The problem was that many of the memories I was making here involved secrets, dangerous artifacts, and an ancient being who objected to his new name.
So much for a peaceful life.
I changed into my nightclothes and sat on the edge of the bed, carefully lowering myself onto the mattress when the lingering ache in my chest flared again. The pain had faded considerably, but fatigue settled over me the moment I stopped moving.
Shadow circled the foot of the bed before lying down on the carpet.
I watched him for a moment.
"There’s a dog bed in the storage room," I said. "I can have someone bring it tomorrow."
"I will not sleep in a dog bed."
"Then don’t."
"I am merely informing you that I will not be sleeping in a dog bed."
"Your determination is inspiring."
He lowered his head onto his paws, pointedly refusing to look at me.
I lay back against the pillows and stared at the canopy above the bed. My thoughts tried to arrange themselves into a sensible order, but every time I followed one question to its end, another appeared.
The Grimoire had been hidden beneath the library for reasons I didn’t understand. Asura knew fragments of its history but not its purpose. The strange system had protected me from possession, yet I had no idea whether it would ever act again. And Edwin had looked at Shadow as though the sight of him meant something.
Tomorrow, I would have to deal with all of it—or at least begin.
There was also the matter of the neglected estate. The warehouse repairs still needed investigating, the records remained incomplete, and Seris would undoubtedly expect an answer about what I intended to do next.
For several seconds, I considered the possibility of pretending none of this had happened and returning to bed after breakfast.
Then I remembered the Grimoire.
And Asura.
And the fact that I had somehow become responsible for an Ancient King who couldn’t even open a door by himself.
I pulled the blanket over my shoulders.
My peaceful retirement plan was dead.
At least I had a comfortable bed.
I was almost asleep when Asura spoke from the carpet.
"Kain."
I kept my eyes closed. "What?"
"That name you gave me."
"Shadow?"
"Do not call me that again."
I smiled faintly into the pillow.
"Good night, Shadow."
A low, deeply offended growl rose from the foot of the bed.
For once, I fell asleep before he could think of a suitable response.