The exact nature of a demon hybrid is not entirely known. From what interrogations and repenting sessions have revealed, we have never actually encountered a true hybrid. Instead, the demon more uses human hosts as a sort of symbiotic parasite, with the power of both increasing over time. Does this mean that we have never encountered one because it would not benefit the demon? Perhaps it is simply not possible for one to exist.

The door closed as Gwindon and Lilith left, and a great silence followed. Koshchei looked to Icara at the table and inspected her health with a glance. She had a slight color to her skin, but still kept a shallow breath. A glance down at his wrist showed an almost visible pulse on his own hand. With a small smile, he pushed the plate aside and stood up from his seat.

“Well, they should be out for a good while. No sense in wasting our time here waiting for them of course. Would you be interested in seeing more of the castle, Icara? I have an idea of somewhere else to take you, and I think it might be able to help with the pains you’ve been suffering from.” Koshchei said.

She lifted her head up at his suggestion and nodded before joining him on her feet. He moved to another door leading into the room and opened it, gesturing for her to enter first. Icara stopped just before leaving the room and turned to him.

“Where exactly are you taking me?”

“The room where the king and queen of Alastair died. Your parents, if you still believe yourself to be their child.” Koshchei said with a serious look.

“W-Why would I want to go there?!” Icara asked, recoiling back at his statement.

“You’ve been feeling sick since the grave, haven’t you? Something gnawing at your core for an unknown reason, and it only grows stronger whenever you see some evidence of your past life getting forced into your mind, right?”

She quietly glanced at the floor and nodded, rubbing her stomach.

“If you actually visit the room, you might have another attack, but it’d put you in a position to actually cure these pains. You want that, right?”

Once more she nodded and pushed into the hallway ahead. Koshchei smiled at her acceptance and closed the door behind him. They wound their way up some stairs and to the far end of the castle itself. They came to a set of large doors with two men guarding it, whom Koshchei ordered to open the room and return to the entrance hall.

They entered and immediately Icara remembered the day itself. Nothing abnormal of foreboding had occurred prior to the actual death, it had been a day like any other in her life before then. The room itself was a large gathering hall with a long table at the center, seated at the end by a proper pair of thrones. Icara slowly moved to the ornate seats and place a hand on the armrest where her father sat in her childhood.

It was from this room that the king would perform his civic duties to the kingdom, listing or agreeing to laws for the people to follow, measuring the value of his lands for the year, discussing politics with his advisors. Though Icara had been too young to really understand what they spoke about, she could feel a small sense of nostalgia pass through her. Then came the memories of their deaths again.

The reminiscing was replaced with agony as she doubled over onto the floor while Koshchei casually approached her from behind. He knelt beside her tormented body and placed a hand on her shoulder. All she could do was gaze up at him in fear and rage, the memory of their deaths suddenly mixing with her present feelings of pain.

“You see, Icara, you’re the hybrid of a demon and a human child. It’s an exceptionally rare thing for something like that to happen, so there’s no doubt you have a very mixed mental state. This pain that you’re feeling? That’s the child Icara raging against the the adult Icara that you are now. The human part of you is refusing to accept that fact that you lived, and is making you suffer from the conflict.”

“But I’m not dead! I’m me!” She pleaded.

Koshchei shook his head slowly. “That’s exactly the issue, Icara. The demon portion of your mind has only grown stronger and stronger as you aged. Unfortunately, I think something must’ve gone wrong with your creation. You’ve ended up with only partial retention of your memories from before the conversion, and your body has taken to the assumption the old Icara is dead. Luckily, I think I know of a way for you to get better!”

She struggled up to her knees while he spoke and looked up at him. Despite the intense hatred for him from the old memories, the pained part of her welcomed the chance at relief. Even though she couldn’t speak, Koshchei nodded confidently as if he understood clearly that she would accept his help.

“What’s happening is a conflict inside of your mind, so it should be as simple as accepting one side of that conflict in order to keep moving forward. You obviously shouldn’t agree with the more human side of you, the one that wants you to be dead, so why not try to accept your demonic origins instead?”

“But I’m Icara Valarus, not some aether child!” She shouted back at him, wincing as she spoke. “How can I accept that fact that I’m not who I say I am, the person who I have memories of being?”

“Well you don’t have to completely reject your past self in order to accept who you are now, Icara, that’s why I feel completely safe using that name for you. The conflict is whether or not Icara is dead. Considering you are wholly alive yourself, you simply must own up to how you survived at all.” Koshchei explained, moving over to one of the thrones and sitting down in it. “Being a hybrid is how you lived past not only that attack, but every trial you’ve endured beyond that.”

“What are you talking about? There was never an instance I don’t have an explanation for how I got through it. I’ve had help before, like when I first escaped the camp, are you trying to tell me that was all a lie?!”

“No, but the very basis for your survival hinged on the hybridization. Think about it, your blood was prized as seasoning because it was royal blood, right? If you had been a normal royal, the taste would dull and return to normal with time. Because of your nature, you were abel to fool them long enough to escape. How many times past that point did you benefit from the increased vitality? The unparalleled drive to victory or survival?”

She shut her eyes tight, unable to ignore what he said. Her life as he explained it was flashed before her eyes. The times she struggled in a fight, and felt some unnatural instinct to win, the manner in which she felt the drive to kill at a moments notice. Thoughts she had always assumed were the product of a difficult life were forced to the forefront of her mind and put into doubt. She could have died the moment the slavers got her, or the moment she tried to escape. Mercenaries and soldiers all had their chance to fight her and lost their lives for trying.

“How... how can I accept such a violent part of me. If what you’re saying is true, than I could shoulder off the blame on that part of my mind and accept the other half. Maybe I would die, but at least that chaotic element would be gone!”

“But it need not be a bad thing, Icara!” Koshchei snapped at her. “We have soldiers on the wall and patrol, there are knight for every kingdom, even the church has a sect for combat. It is not because humans are a warrior race or anything of the sort, but it’s because conflict is inevitable. You can embrace the chaotic side of yours and use it to ensure the conflict remains free of one more confusing jumble.”

“I can...?” Icara asked, the pain in her gut lifting for a moment.

“Think about what would happen if you put those instincts and abilities of yours to use. Sure you would become more like a demon, but as you shape yourself, you will shape that half of yourself in turn! That power and ability can be put to use for doing what you want with it.”

“But there’s nothing I want now. For the past few years, all I could think about was getting revenge. I didn’t even realize it meant having to rule afterward. My entire drive just feels like an arrow prepared to get lodged in some distant target, but never stray from that path. There’s nothing I even want!”

Koshchei moved from the throne and stood above her. He offered out his hand to her and she took it, rising up to her feet once again.

“Icara, do you remember what I said in the game room? About how I could take so much land, yet lacked a tactical mind?” He asked her. “Well the case will not always be the same. Sometimes combat is needed, and I’ve thus far had to rely on human commanders and the like to do things for me. Even in cases where overt force is not needed, I can’t trust everyone to blindly follow my orders. But what if I didn’t need them to at all?”

Icara moved to the queen’s throne and rubbed one of the handrests idly. She remembered once as a child that she was allowed to rest on her mother’s lap during a meeting if she stayed quiet. Though the politics went far above her head, it felt good just to be held by her. After a moment of silence, she turned back to Koshchei, feeling the hatred whither in her heart but not blink out completely.

“Tell me what I’d do clearly. No tricks.”

Koschei grinned at the response and nodded his head. “Of course, I wouldn’t dream of it now. You’d be a special character all in to yourself amongst my armed forces. Deployed both as commander and agent. With your ability, we could easily maintain the state without oppressive measures. Perhaps we could, with time, find other failed hybrids like yourself and save them from their destructive paths. Even if it does seem a bit... hedonistic, you could sate your desire for destruction and survival without fear of repercussion.”

“Yet all I would have to do is accept this... demon side of me. To become more like the thing that made me like this in the first place?”

“In a way, yes. You’d also be securing your own independence from the demon. Taking a power he might never have intended for you to have, and using it for your own means rather than what he wanted.”

Once more Icara closed her eyes and calmed the thoughts that raced through her mind. The depth of despair she had just escaped still lingered on the edge of her mind, as well as the pain in her stomach. She willed the both of them out of her thoughts and a new sensation coursed through her body. It was neither pleasure nor pain, but she fell from the throne in a heap and panted in distress. Her bones creaked and muscles flexed tightly, every inch of her felt the change.

Koshchei watched with the same grin as earlier while she twitched in place on the ground. He pulled a seat from the table and sat down in it, folding his arms as he watched his handiwork at play. The movements of her body were slowly, but strange noises seeped out in little flashes to mark the changes with her body. At the same instant they occurred, the pulse from before surged across his wrist and up his arm. His breath grew deep and slow while he watched, feeling his own vitality magnify from the scene.

“Well done, Icara! I’m sure nothing will stand in your way for a long time.” He said, clapping his hands together.