Chapter 3: The Blood Bond
The summons came at dawn, a tendril of shimmering blood-red mist that curled under the door of Asta’s room and solidified into a single, elegant word floating in the air: Attend.
He blinked at it, shrugged, and pulled on his grimoire harness. “Guess that’s my cue.”
The walk to the northern rise was short but unsettling. The Witch Queen’s castle wasn’t just built; it had been grown. Obsidian spires rose from the bare earth like twisted black claws, veins of pulsing crimson light threading through the stone. There was no door, just a rippling surface like molten glass that parted for him with a sickly, wet sound.
Inside, the air was warm, thick with the scent of exotic spices and something metallic. It hummed against his skin. The grand hall was vast, lit by floating candles whose flames burned a steady, unnatural violet. At the far end, on a throne of woven bone and shadow, sat the Witch Queen. Before her, set on a small, ornate table, was a steaming breakfast: eggs, sausage, toast, a pile of fruit. The bizarre domesticity of it was more unnerving than any dungeon.
“Sit,” she said, not a request.
Asta marched forward, his boots echoing on the glossy black floor. He stopped at the table. “You cooked?”
“Conjured,” she corrected, a slight smile on her lips. “Sustenance is important. For both of us. Eat.”
He sat, eyeing the food. It smelled incredible. His stomach growled, betraying him. He shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth. They were perfect. “Okay, so, I’m here. What’s the deal? You need help moving furniture or something?”
Her smile deepened, showing a hint of sharp canine. “Our deal, little warrior, extends beyond the initial… transaction. The child requires a stable flow of your life essence. A connection. Today, we forge it.”
Asta swallowed his sausage. “A connection?”
From the folds of her gown, she produced a dagger forged from a single, dark red crystal. With a swift, casual motion, she drew it across her own palm. Blood welled, black as ink in the violet light. She didn’t flinch. “Your hand.”
Hesitantly, Asta extended his. She took it, her grip cold and firm. The dagger flashed again—a quick, sharp sting. His blood, bright red, pooled in his palm.
“Hey!”
“Quiet.” She pressed her bleeding palm to his. Their blood mingled. A shock, cold and electric, jolted up his arm. The world dipped, sounds muffled, colors leaching away except for the dark red of their joined life. He felt it then—a pull, a tether, a second heartbeat thrumming alongside his own, ancient and slow and powerful. It was anchored deep in his core, next to the familiar, chaotic warmth of his anti-magic.
“A binding,” she whispered, her voice inside his skull now. “Our fates are stitched. Your vitality feeds the growing life. In return, you share in my strength. My longevity. My power becomes a well you may draw from, should you need it. It is a fair exchange.”
The connection snapped taut, then settled into a low, background hum. She released his hand. The cuts on both their palms were gone, healed without a scar. Only the feeling remained—a constant, faint awareness of her, a presence in the periphery of his senses.
Asta stared at his hand, flexing his fingers. “Whoa. Okay. So, like, a teamwork thing?”
“A covenant.”
A familiar pressure stirred in his chest. A puff of black smoke erupted from his grimoire, coalescing into Liebe. The small anti-magic devil stretched, yawning widely before floating down to perch on the edge of the table. He sniffed the sausage, then looked at the Witch Queen.
“Another contract, huh?” Liebe said, his voice a rusty grate. “Bold. Didn’t think it was possible with our union already in place.”
The Queen regarded him with cool interest. “Your contract is one of mutual possession. A symbiosis. You reside within him; he wields your power. Mine is different. It is a tributary. I do not live within him. I allow him to draw from my source. It does not conflict. It… broadens the channels.”
Liebe’s yellow eyes widened. He floated closer to Asta, peering at him as if seeing a new specimen. “Huh. So the kid’s a conduit now. Our link stays. But yours… you’re just giving him a tap? Letting him sip from your ocean?”
“Precisely.”
A laugh, sharp and surprised, barked out of Liebe. “Well, slag me. That’s insane. And brilliant.” He grinned, a mouthful of needle-teeth. “You hear that, Asta? You’re not just a battery for me anymore. You’re a junction box. You could theoretically host more. Different power sources. As many as your body can handle.”
Asta looked from his devil to the ancient witch. “More contracts? Like… with other people?”
“If they offer, and your flesh is strong enough to bear it,” the Queen said, picking a grape from the fruit bowl and examining it. “Your body, reforged by my blood, is uniquely… resilient. This covenant proves it.”
Liebe nodded enthusiastically. “I’m down for it. More power in the tank means more anti-magic I can unleash through you. Makes us stronger. Win-win.” He snatched a sausage and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Just don’t go making pacts with any loser devils. Gotta maintain standards.”
Asta’s head was spinning. Contracts. Power sources. Junction boxes. He’d come for a vague “obligation” and was leaving with a fundamental rewrite of his magical biology. He took a gulp of water from a crystal goblet, trying to ground himself. “Okay. So, we’re linked. For the baby. How… how long until… you know?”
The Witch Queen placed the grape back on the plate. She looked at him, her violet eyes gleaming. “For humans, gestation is a tedious process. Nine months of waiting, of vulnerability.” She leaned back in her throne. “We are not human. My body is a crucible of ancient magic. It can accelerate, refine, incubate a life at a pace that would shatter a mortal vessel.”
A cold trickle of understanding dripped down Asta’s spine. “Accelerate?”
“Significantly.”
“How… how much time?”
A slow, deliberate smile spread across her face. She rose from her throne, a study in graceful, terrible power. Her hands went to the clasp of the heavy, embroidered hooded robe she wore. With a soft shush, she let it slide from her shoulders, pooling on the obsidian floor at her feet.
Beneath, she wore a simple, dark silk sheath dress. And it strained against the pronounced, vast curve of her stomach.
It wasn’t the subtle swell of early pregnancy. It was a full, ripe, undeniable dome stretching the fabric taut, the unmistakable shape of a child ready for the world.
Asta’s brain stopped. His jaw hung loose. The fork clattered from his numb fingers onto the plate. He stared. The hum of the blood covenant in his veins seemed to sync with a new, rapid heartbeat—two heartbeats—echoing from that impossible belly.
“The culmination,” the Witch Queen said, her voice softly triumphant, her hands resting on the crest of the swell, “is tomorrow.”
Tomorrow.
The word bounced around the empty chamber of Asta’s mind. It found no purchase, no logic to stick to. It just echoed.
Tomorrow.
His vision narrowed to that single, earth-shattering fact. The baby. His baby. Not in some distant, abstract future. Not in months.
Tomorrow.
His eyes rolled back in his head. His muscles, trained to withstand demonic power and physical torture, surrendered to the sheer, overwhelming shock. He made a short, guttural sound—a choked “guh”—and slid sideways off the chair, crashing to the cold, dark floor in a dead faint.
Liebe, still floating by the table, swallowed the last of the sausage. He looked down at Asta’s sprawled, unconscious form, then up at the gloriously, terrifyingly pregnant Witch Queen.
“Well,” the devil sighed, shaking his head. “He took that about as well as I expected.”
Liebe poked Asta’s cheek with a clawed finger. “Hey. Kid. Wake up. This is kind of a big moment.” There was no response except a soft groan. The devil sighed and floated over to the throne. “Your magic knocked him out cold. Human brains are so fragile.”
The Witch Queen watched Asta’s prone form, a faint, almost imperceptible softening around her eyes. “His spirit is robust. His mind merely requires… processing time.” She gestured with a lazy flick of her wrist. The dark marble beneath Asta shimmered, flowing upwards to form a gentle, smooth shelf that lifted him from the floor. Another wave of her hand summoned plush, deep crimson cushions from the shadows, arranging them into a wide, makeshift bed beside her throne.
She settled herself onto it with a careful, heavy grace, then guided Asta’s unconscious head into her lap. Her long, pale fingers began carding slowly through his unruly white hair, pushing it back from his forehead. The violent purple glow of the hall dimmed to a deep, ambient indigo. The humming energy in the air softened, becoming a quiet, resonant thrum.
“He’s simpler than I anticipated,” she murmured, more to herself than to Liebe. “No grand schemes. No calculation. Just a direct, overwhelming force of will.” Her hand stilled, resting on his cheek. “It is… refreshing.”
Hours bled by, marked only by the slow drift of the enchanted candles. Asta slept deeply, the rhythmic rise and fall of the Queen’s breathing beneath his head his only lullaby. Liebe had vanished back into the grimoire, leaving them in the vast, silent chamber. She watched the play of shadows on the high, ribbed ceiling, her thoughts centuries away.
Asta’s consciousness returned in soft, warm stages. The first thing he registered was a scent—jasmine and cold stone and something uniquely, powerfully her. Then, the profound softness beneath his cheek and the gentle, rhythmic pressure moving through his hair. He blinked, his vision blurry. The terrifying obsidian spires overhead had softened into dark shapes against a dim blue light.
He was in her lap.
He jerked, a spike of panic shooting through him, but a cool hand pressed firmly on his shoulder, holding him down. “Be still,” her voice said, but it was different. Lower. Softer. Stripped of its imperious command.
Asta tilted his head back. Her face was above his, her stark features outlined in the faint glow. She was looking down at him, and for the first time, she wasn’t smirking or plotting or assessing. She just looked… peaceful. A small, unguarded smile touched her lips. “Hello.”
“Uh,” Asta said, intelligently. He tried to sit up, but the weight in her lap and her hand kept him there. “I… fainted?”
“You did.” Her smile widened a fraction. “The revelation was apparently… substantial.”
“Tomorrow,” he breathed, the memory crashing back. His eyes dropped to her stomach, which even reclining, was an undeniable, massive curve beneath the silk. His brain stuttered again, but the initial, blinding shock had passed, leaving a buzzing, electric awe. “It’s really happening tomorrow.”
She nodded, her fingers resuming their slow stroke through his hair. The simple, tender action was so at odds with everything she was that it kept him paralyzed more effectively than any magic. “It is.”
“Why… why are you being so…?” He couldn’t find the word. Nice? Gentle? Human?
Her smile faded, replaced by a contemplative stillness. She gazed past him, into the middle distance of the hall. The quiet stretched, filled only by the soft sound of their breathing. When she spoke again, her voice had lost all its archaic formality, all its royal pretense. It was just a voice. A woman’s voice, tired and old and sad.
“I wasn’t always this,” she began, her fingers pausing in his hair. “A queen in a tower of bones. I had a name, once. Before the forest. Before the blood.”
Asta stayed silent, listening.
“My name was Elara,” she said, and the word seemed to hurt her. “I was a shepherd’s daughter, in a village that doesn’t exist anymore. We lived high in the mountains, where the wind could peel the skin from your bones. My magic manifested early. Not grand. Just little things. Keeping the lambs warm. Mending cuts on my father’s hands. A healing magic, born from a healer’s heart.”
A sharp, vivid image flashed in Asta’s mind, not from his own imagination, but pushed gently into his awareness through the blood covenant: a young girl with straw in her hair and calloused hands, kneeling in the dirt, her palms glowing with a soft green light over a lamb’s broken leg. Her face was round, hopeful, and so very young.
“They found out,” Elara continued, the words flat and drained. “A traveling preacher saw me. Called it a devil’s blessing. They came for us at night. Torches. Pitchforks. The simple, stupid fury of frightened people.” Another image: fire against a dark sky. Screams. Her father shoved to the ground. Her mother pleading.
“They dragged me to the town square. Said they would ‘purge’ the devil from me. Their method was a pyre.” Her voice was a dry whisper now. “They bound me. Lit the wood. I remember the heat. The smoke. The sound of my own family screaming.”
The scene burned in Asta’s mind: the crackle of flames, the searing pain, the crowd’s hateful faces turned orange by firelight. The young Elara, terrified, trapped.
“That’s when it changed,” she said. “The pain wasn’t just on my skin. It was in my veins. My blood heard the call of the fire. It answered.” The memory shifted violently. The green healing light around the girl’s hands deepened, darkened, erupted into a violent, swirling crimson. The ropes holding her burst, not from strength, but from the inside, as if the fibers themselves revolted. The fire didn’t just go out; it was sucked into her, a vortex of heat and light that tore into her and then exploded back out in a wave of raw, screaming force.
When the vision cleared, the square was silent. Charred. Still. The young girl stood alone in the center, smoke curling from her fingertips, her eyes wide with a horror that had just discovered its own power.
“I killed them all,” Elara stated, no pride, no remorse, just a cold, factual truth. “Every single one. My parents… they were in the blast radius. There was nothing left.” A single tear traced a path through the dust on her cheek, the first crack in the millennia-old armor. “I ran. Into the deep woods, where the old things slept. I learned. I adapted. The healing magic was gone, twisted into something that could only manipulate what was already there—the blood, the life force. I built walls. I made subjects. I became what they feared, because it was the only thing left to be.”
She looked down at him then, her violet eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “I haven’t spoken that name in a thousand years. I haven’t… cried… in eight centuries.” A sob hitched in her throat, raw and shocking. “You broke something open in me, Asta. With your stubborn, screaming heart. You looked at me, a monster, and saw a person who could fix your friend. You traded your own flesh without hesitation. You made me remember what it felt like to… to not be alone.”
She was crying openly now, silent tears streaming down her face, her regal composure shattered. She was just Elara, a broken, ancient girl, holding the boy who had somehow, impossibly, reached her.
Asta’s own eyes stung. He understood now. The throne, the cruelty, the manipulation—it was all a shell, a fortress built around that scorched square and a shepherd’s daughter who had lost everything. He reached up, his calloused hand awkwardly wiping a tear from her cheek. “Elara,” he said, testing the name. It fit her, the her beneath all the power.
She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes. Then, her body went rigid. Her eyes flew open, wide with a different kind of shock.
A strange, warm wetness spread across his lap where her hips rested.
She let out a sharp gasp, a sound utterly devoid of magic or majesty. It was pure, human surprise. “Oh.”
Asta stared. “Oh? What’s ‘oh’?”
“My water,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “It just broke.”
For a second, Asta’s mind went completely blank. Then it rebooted in a frenzy of panic. “Okay! Okay, hospital! We need Finral! A gate! A doctor!” He scrambled out of her lap, looking around the vast, empty hall as if a medical team would materialize.
“No!” The command was back in her voice, sharp and immediate. She gripped his wrist, her strength undeniable. “No hospitals. No outsiders.” Her face was tight, a mix of pain and fierce determination. “They would see her as a specimen. A curiosity. They would want to study her, study me. They would take her.”
“But… but you need help!” Asta pleaded, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Elara took a deep, shuddering breath, another wave of discomfort tightening her features. “I have you.” Her eyes locked onto his. “The covenant. Our blood is tied. You can feel her, can’t you? Her life, next to mine?”
He could. It was the extra heartbeat, the second thrum alongside Elara’s in the back of his awareness. A tiny, frantic rhythm.
“My magic is blood,” she gritted out, leaning back on the cushions. “I could guide her out myself, but the pain… it’s a distraction. I need your hands. You have my power in you now. You can see it. You can use it.”
The weight of it crashed onto him. He looked at his hands—the hands she had rebuilt. He felt the hum of the ancient, terrible power sleeping in his veins, a well he’d barely touched. He looked at her face, pale now, sweating, her eyes blazing with trust and a primal fear.
“Okay,” he said, the word leaving him in a rush of breath. He dropped to his knees beside her. “Tell me what to do.”
“See the flow,” she instructed, her voice strained. “Don’t force. Guide. Your will is the channel. Your intent is the midwife.”
Asta placed his hands gently on the taut, huge curve of her stomach. He closed his eyes. He pushed past his own panic, past the overwhelming reality of the situation, and reached for the new sense inside him—the blood sense. The world dissolved into a tapestry of pulsing light and fluid currents. He saw Elara’s life force, a vast, dark red, powerful river. And within it, a smaller, brighter, tangled cord of light—their daughter.
He saw the problem. The way was not yet open. The path was knotted, tense.
“Gentle,” Elara whispered, a groan edging her voice. “Like untying a knot in a thread.”
Asta focused. He didn’t grab or pull. He nudged. He visualized the pathways softening, widening, welcoming. He poured his own boundless, stubborn energy into the intent: Safe. Open. Come out. He felt his borrowed blood magic respond, a warm, precise energy flowing from his palms, harmonizing with Elara’s own. He worked not against her body, but with it, an extension of her will.
He lost track of time. There was only the flow, the rhythm, the two heartbeats—one steadying, the other quickening. He felt a shift, a sudden, profound opening. Elara let out a sharp cry that turned into a groan of immense effort.
And then, there was a new sound.
A thin, indignant, powerful wail.
Asta opened his eyes. Cradled in his hands, slick and perfect and squalling, was a tiny, furious human being. She was red and scrunched, with a shock of damp, white hair just like his, and her little fists beat the air with undeniable spirit.
He was holding his daughter.
The world narrowed to her tiny, crying face. The fear was gone, vaporized by a wave of awe so complete it left him breathless. He looked up at Elara. She was propped on her elbows, exhausted, her hair plastered to her skin with sweat, her face a map of utter relief and raw, vulnerable love.
He carefully lifted the baby, this tiny, miraculous person, and placed her on Elara’s chest. Elara gathered her close, her tears starting anew, but these were different—clean, bright tears of joy.
“She’s here,” Asta whispered, his own voice thick.
“She is,” Elara breathed, her fingers tracing the baby’s cheek. She looked from her daughter’s face to Asta’s, her expression softening into something he’d never seen before. Pure, unguarded happiness.
A thought, clear and perfect, formed in Asta’s mind. It was a blend of his name, a piece of his own stubborn hope, and the name of the shepherd’s girl who had been lost to fire, now found. “Elaina,” he said, the name feeling right as it left his lips. “Her name is Elaina.”
Elara froze. She stared at him, her violet eyes swimming. A sob tore from her throat, but it was followed by a laugh, a bright, disbelieving sound. “Elaina,” she repeated, tasting the name. It was her past and his present, woven together. Her tears fell onto the baby’s head. “It’s beautiful.”
Asta panicked. “Is it okay? Did I mess up?”
She leaned forward, over their daughter, and kissed him. It was not a demanding or possessive kiss. It was soft, grateful, and real. When she pulled back, she was smiling through her tears. “It’s perfect.”