Defiance.
So delicious. Where once she had been soft and meek, her spirit now burned.
A trace of her warmth lingered, now embedded like a thread at the center of his being.
A slow grin curled across Rune’s face.
She had no idea what she’d done.
Rune surveyed the cavern with a faint smirk and the mountain faintly vibrated beneath his feet in welcome, sensing the return of its master. “Greetings, old friend. Get rid of the cursed thing, will you?”
The stone cracked, the earth opening at his command, and swallowed the offensive chains out of sight. Gone to the depths where no one could ever find them again.
He strode forward toward the wall and the surface instinctively crumbled away, opening a deep, pitch-black chamber for him.
It was good to be back.
Rune strode onward, his shadows seeping into the familiar fissures of the stone, claiming them as if they were veins of his own body. The long tunnel warped with his will, narrowing, stretching, until at last, it opened into another chamber where faint firelight licked the walls. He came upon a balcony carved high into the rock, overlooking the grand hall below.
The cavernous space yawned wide, its walls studded with ember-lit crystal veins that glittered like arteries. Columns of blackened bone spiraled upward to support the ceiling in grotesque shapes. Below, his court swarmed around a massive fire-pit, flames licking high. The air reeked of smoke, sulfur, and sin. Voices echoed in a depraved harmony, laughter tangled with moans, the clash of flesh and steel alike. Drakons screeched above in the recess of the cave. Demons below either feasted, fornicated, or fought, their pleasures and viciousness indistinguishable.
A violent contest had already begun. Two demons tore into one another in a frenzy of claws and teeth while a ring of onlookers roared for blood, the stone slick with dark blood beneath their feet.
And on a low dais, sat the Dominions. They lounged in high-backed chairs wrought of stone, bone, and jewels. Not quite thrones, but close enough to suggest otherwise.
He would deal withthatlater.
Rune turned from the sight and pressed deeper into the castle. The fortress was less a structure than a living thing carved into the mountain. It breathed life into the corridors that twisted on a whim, staircases that led to nowhere bent into passage with his will.
Low growls stirred in the dark as his wargs emerged. Hellhounds with flensed faces that were half-claimed by death, bone bared beneath torn flesh. Their eyes burned like living embers, a hint of eternal flame glowing within their long snouts crowded with sharp teeth.
Each beast stood nearly as tall as Rune himself. They sniffed him, licking at his hands, their shadowed tails wagging with greeting. He patted their massive backs, and they fell into step behind him as he moved on.
He came upon a doorway carved with the effigy of a dragon.
The war chamber opened to him like a wound, stone groaning as it peeled back to grant entry. Fissures webbed the floor, glowing faintly red, as though fire slept beneath the rock. Above, a barbed iron chandelier loomed, suspended by coiling shadow, its red candles bleeding wax onto the crescent table carved from volcanic glass.
They were already waiting.
Calla lounged in her seat, spinning a small dagger in her clawed fingers. She was draped in tight leather, pale lavender hair braided in a coronet, her red lips curved in a sharp smile. A spread of ledgers, scrolls, and lists lay before her. Even here, she made chaos into order.
Across from her, Hadeon leaned against the wall with his thick arms crossed, his Warhammer resting beside him. Thetorchlight shone over the planes of his tawny skin that held a hint of red, large horns curling over his head. Second commander of his legions.
On the other end of the table Deimos crouched in his chair like a cat. Pale, still, and silent. Four small horns peeked out beneath his waves of midnight hair. A cluster of Shades hovered at his shoulders, flickers of iridescent phantoms whispering their reports into his pointed ear. Deimos listened intently, his thin, barbed tail swept the floor in slow pensive arcs.
The web of Rune’s court was strung tight here in this chamber. Calla, who bound the seven factions to order. Hadeon, who forged his ranks. Deimos, who made secrets his currency.
Shadows slid off Rune like oil as he entered, fanning across the carved floor.
All three immediately stood straight and dropped to one knee, bowing their heads.
“Sire, you have returned,” Calla said with deep respect. “Your chains…”
“Were removed.” Rune strode past them and went to the rear facing wall as it gave away to a window, displaying the night sky. Argyle lingered below the range, partially obscured by rain clouds now fading away. The stars blinked above like the watching eyes of gods who no longer dared intervene. Yet something about them didn’t look quite right.
With an idle motion of Rune’s hand, the Harbingers rose to their feet.
“Then Alora came to you?” Calla asked, her tone stunned.
