She was already sweating, shirt sticking to her back beneath the outer layer.
Dante's shirt. She was still wearing it under the coat. Fabric that still smelled like him, like safety.
Between the furnaces, pipes ran everywhere—overhead and underfoot, a maze of metal and glass. Through the transparent sections, amber light flowed like honey, pulsing toward a central point beyond her sight.
Gears the size of houses turned with grinding sounds that made her teeth ache. Steam vented from valves with shrieks that sounded almost like voices. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.
Her stomach twisted. The sweet-rot smell suddenly made horrible sense.
He was processing them. Souls. Refining them like materials.
"Good. You're awake."
Her whole body went rigid.
Caelum stepped into view, and he wasn't the serene guide from the paradise realm anymore. He moved with jerky energy. His white and gold robes were still immaculate, somehow clean amid the filth, but his eyes burned with fervor. The eyes of someone who'd stopped pretending sanity mattered.
"I was beginning to worry the transport had damaged you." He circled her pillar slowly. "That would have been wasteful. You're far too valuable to lose."
"Where—" Her voice came out raw, throat burning from ash. "What is this place?"
"My refinery." Pride colored his voice as he gestured broadly. "The heart of my operation. Where I've been building real power for millennia while the other Death Lords squandered theirs on sentiment."
The wailing suddenly made sense. This was production—manufacturing on a massive scale.
He stepped closer, hands trembling with excitement.
"Do you know how frustrating it's been? Watching you tour the other courts, seeing you with him. The Reaper. That monster who hoards his power for nothing."
"Dante doesn't?—"
"He wastes everything!" The shout echoed off metal, fury twisting his features. "All that death magic, all that potential, and he just sits there surrounded by his suffering souls while the rest of us share scraps!"
Monster. He'd called Dante a monster.
"I've been planning this for decades," Caelum continued, words spilling faster. "Positioning pieces. Sabotaging the wards slowly enough that no one noticed."
His laugh was sharp, brittle.
"And then you arrived. The ward-architect bloodline awakened after being dormant for so long. At first, I thought you'd ruin everything." His eyes fixed on her with renewed intensity. "But then I realized you were the key I didn't know I needed."
He stopped directly in front of her. Close enough that she could smell meadow flowers beneath the industrial reek.
The contrast made her stomach heave.
"You were supposed to see it," he said quietly. "The superiority of my vision. I showed you paradise. And you chose him instead."
"Whatever you're doing here, it's not peace." The words came out stronger than she felt.
"It's better than peace." He grabbed her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. His fingers were cold, wrong in the furnace heat. "It's purpose. Let me show you."
He released her and stepped back, spreading his arms.
"Every soul that dies peacefully comes to me first. Thousands over the ages. The other Death Lords guide them onward, help them rest, waste all that potential on sentiment."
His lip curled with disgust.
"I extract what matters. Their essence, their power. What remains after extraction serves me. Perfect order from the chaos of individual will."
