The Devil's Duchess-Chapter 73: The hidden shadow

The estate pulsed with preparation. Guards hurried past her in clusters, weapons polished in the torchlight. The air crackled with unease, as though the walls themselves knew something dangerous was afoot.

Marcella slipped through the commotion. She knew Berith was many things, calculating, merciless, infuriating—but reckless? Not usually. And yet here he was, risking his life without a word to her.

He hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her.

That thought stung deeper than she wanted to admit.

She finally burst out into the courtyard, breathless. The night air hit her like a splash of cold water, carrying the hum of crickets. Torches lined the walls, their flames licking high into the velvet dark.

Somewhere beyond these walls, Berith was walking straight into the jaws of danger. Alone.

Marcella gripped the edge of the stone railing, leaning forward as if she could will herself to see him through the shadows stretching over Velmira. Her mind replayed the maids’ words again and again. He’ll walk the streets. He’s bait.

Her stomach twisted.

"No," she muttered. "Not without me."

Marcella spun on her heel, gathering her skirts in her fists. She didn’t know how she would catch up to him whether she would steal a horse, bribe a guard, or simply run through the city barefoot if she had to but one thing was certain.

If Berith thought he could cast her aside and bleed for Velmira alone, he had gravely underestimated her. Marcella was his wife whether he admitted it or not and tonight, she would make sure he remembered that.

The governor’s gates loomed ahead, two guards stood there, halberds crossed, their eyes scanning the grounds.

Marcella slowed, steadying her breath. To demand her way through would draw suspicion. To beg would waste time. So Marcella did what she did best. She smiled.

"My husband," she began, her tone calm but underpinned with urgency, "is already outside these walls. Do you truly believe you’ll be forgiven if I’m kept from him while he courts danger?"

The men stiffened. One tried to speak, but her gaze pinned him down.

The halberds lifted.

Marcella swept past them without another word.

Beyond the walls, Velmira stretched before her. Lanterns sputtered weakly in the wind, market stalls were shuttered, and families pulled children indoors as rumors hissed through the alleys.

Word had already begun to spread: the Duke of Cardania himself was walking the southern quarter.

And where the duke walked, danger followed.

Marcella clutched her skirts and began to run.

*******

Berith strolled, his cloak trailing behind him like a phantom’s shadow. His face betrayed nothing, though his mind was already mapping escape routes, hidden vantage points, chokeholds in the streets.

Let them come.

If the predators wanted prey, tonight they would choke on it. He would be their prey. But on his terms.

The first pulse of energy reached him as he turned down a narrow street lined with sagging laundry lines and rain-swollen barrels. It licked against his skin, sharp and foul, crawling down his spine with a familiarity that made his teeth ache.

Demonic.

His jaw tightened. Of course it was.

The disappearances, the gnawing fear across Velmira—it was no common crime. His kin, the Montclairs, had left their mark on these lands before, and Berith had suspected their hand in this from the first. The family always chased chaos, always searching for a way to revive their Lord.

And yet...

The taste was wrong.

This wasn’t Montclair energy. Too jagged, too unrefined.

From the shadows, the energy began to bleed into form.

A claw.A snarl.A body that dragged itself from nothingness, skin slick with shadows that clung like tar.

Then another and another.

Five creatures stood before him now, their forms grotesque mockeries of men, spines bent, jaws split too wide. Eyes glowed like diseased embers, throats rattling with hunger.

Berith’s lips curved, not in amusement but in something darker.

"So. Not Montclair’s pets after all."

He straightened, letting the cloak fall fully away. The pulse of his own power unfurled like a storm breaking its chains. His irises burned scarlet, his skin lit by an otherworldly gleam as the devil in him awoke.

The creatures hissed, recoiling, then lunged. Berith moved faster. His hand swept, and in a flare of blackened light, his demonic sword materialized, its blade humming with hunger.

He carved through the first creature, shadow-blood spraying against the cobblestones. It fell but then it rose again.

Berith’s eyes narrowed.

Another strike, this time severing limbs. Yet the pieces writhed, pulling back together, the creature reformed as though death had only been a breath.

"Tch." He swung again, bisecting another. It too slithered back into form.

Not Montclair demons. Not bound by his bloodline. These were something else.

And Berith admitted grudgingly—something worse.

The first demon lunged again. Berith caught it midair, driving his blade through its chest. He snarled as shadow ichor hissed along the steel, eating at the edges of his weapon. The thing writhed, then collapsed into a pile of twitching tar before reassembling once more.

Persistent vermin.

Berith’s own demonic aura surged higher, the cobblestones beneath him cracking as the full weight of his power pressed outward. The shadows around him coiled, forming a storm of red and black that cut through the suffocating night.

"Enough."

He swung his blade in a wide arc. Power rippled outward, tearing through two creatures at once. For a moment, silence reigned. Then both began crawling back into form, bones snapping, limbs writhing.

A low growl vibrated from his throat. These weren’t demons he knew. They weren’t Montclair creations.

This meant someone else is also involved behind the disappearances and they had the audacity to use Velmira as their breeding ground.

Berith’s fury was a living thing. He plunged forward again, each strike faster, harder, until the street reeked of tar and smoke. His cloak was slashed, his cheek smeared with blackened ichor. Still, he cut them down, again and again, until the cobbles gleamed with the remnants of corpses that refused to stay dead.

******

Marcella stumbled into the quarter, her skirts tangled, her chest burning. The air was thick—tainted, as though breathing in smoke that clawed at the lungs.

She slowed, pressing a hand against a wall. The hairs on her arms rose. The energy here... it was suffocating, monstrous.

Then she saw him, not the duke she knows but the devil.

Her heart thrashed against her ribs.

His form was alight with an aura she had never seen—scarlet eyes gleaming like fire, darkness curling around him in vicious arcs. His sword shimmered with unholy light as he cleaved through the monsters swarming him.

So, this was the truth Berith hid.