They were massive, wide as redwoods, the surface alive with incised sigils that shifted and crawled like creatures under skin. Two were lit. I knew them by their colors instantly: Wrath, red as arterial blood; Greed, gold so bright it flickered into the air. The other five stood dark, their surfaces flat and unreflective, waiting for something.
At the far end, the doors.
They stood open, as though the world was daring us to walk inside.
I felt the bond pulse. Once, twice, then a steady hum.
He looked at me, and the shimmer at his cheekbone was brighter than it had been even in the suite.
He took my hand.
He had never taken my hand in public. The act was not possessive; it was practical. It was a signal to the room that followed, that the two of us were no longer two, but one.
We crossed the threshold.
The inside of the Throne room was—there is no good word for it. It was not a room. It was a void. An amphitheater so wide and so high that it looked, at first, like a natural feature, some monstrous geode hollowed out by volcanic gods. The black glass underfoot was mirrored, but in the weirdest way: it did not reflect bodies, only color. The air above the crowd was thick with bands of it—red, gold, blue, white, purple, every color assigned to a domain, swirling in ribbons as though painted there by a hand I could not see.
There were thousands.
A stadium full, maybe more. Demons, yes, but not like the ones I had seen before. Here they dressed for their domains: Greed’s were all gold, rings and chains and even their teeth set with precious metal; Wrath’s were red, their hair and skin and eyes burning with the color; the Lust courts wore nothing, or next to nothing, and the effect was not erotic but intimidating, like being confronted by a roomful of apex predators in formalwear.
They did not speak. They did not move. Every face turned as we walked up the aisle, the sound of our steps on the glass a percussion that ran up the dome and back.
At the far end, on a raised island of black stone, the Throne.
The Demon King.
I had only heard what Vael had shared about him. There he was: old, so old it felt impolite to look at him directly. He was not monstrous. He was not even large. He was just—present, as though the seat had been built around him and would not know what to do if he ever stood up. His skin was the color of river stones, his hair white and thick, his eyes black all the way through.
He watched us approach.
I felt every gaze in the room at my skin. The bond at my wrist steadied. The mercury in my dress seemed to vibrate.
Vael walked me up the steps to the island. He did not pause. He did not hesitate. He took me with him, all the way to the base of the Throne.
We turned to face the room.
Every eye.
Every color.
All at once.
I did not flinch.
I did not look away.
I looked straight into the crowd, and in the back, against the pillar of Wrath, I saw her—Lydia, hair red as fire, eyes gold and wild, her mouth set in a line of recognition. Next to her, Wrath: enormous, savage, the only man in the room whose attention was split between the proceedings and the woman at his side.
Beside the gold pillar: Nora. Sturdy as stone, her dress burnished to a glare, her eyes taking everything in as though to memorize the whole day. The demon at her side—I could only guess it was Greed—stood so close to her that their arms touched, and in the briefest flicker of his gaze I saw him appraise not the room, not the event, but her.
The other pillars had their own pairings, their own courts. Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride. Each a world I could not yet name. I saw, for a half-second, the Pride court, white and bronze andperfect, the line of them so precise it could have been drawn with a razor.
I looked at Vael.
He did not look at me. He watched the room, the set of his jaw even and still. But when I looked at his hand, I saw that the shimmer at his knuckles was alive, not with tension but with a kind of delight.
He was not afraid.
