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Then comes the chamber. Amber barefoot in torchlight, hair wild, eyes emptied of reason. Symbols painted in ash across stone. Incense chokes the air. A child laid at the center of a circle. Whitaker.

My son and not my son.

Her hands lifted to sacrifice him to whatever madness had promised salvation.

I hear myself roar, and I tear the infant from the altar, and do what I must.

I kill Benji.

Once.

Twice.

A thousand times in memory.

The tunnel drinks every drop of blood.

I sent Amber to rooms lined with padding. Now the walls are lined with children crying from the shadows. Green eyes glare through smoke. Inked skin flashes past me. Bear paws, ticking clocks, fists, and fury. Masks hang from hooks. Men run through woods under moonlight while horns call the Hunt to order. Pentagrams burn into flesh.

Chants in dead languages. The machine of my kingdom grinds forward on fear, loyalty, ritual, and hunger.

I built it.

I fed it.

I let it become sacred because that was easier than calling it cruel.

Still I walk.

Still I search.

The tunnel widens at last.

She is waiting there.

No candle touches her, yet she glows. Dark eyes fixed on me. Skin smooth. Mouth made for sin and mercy alike.

My bride in black.

The Black Wedding returns in full—bells tolling, candles dripping wax like tears, vows spoken beneath old symbols, her veil trailing behind her like smoke. Then warmth floods the cold stone world. Her body beneath mine. The first time I entered her and felt something buried in me break open. Not lust. Not conquest.

Renewal.

Her fingers at my shoulders.

Her laugh against my throat.

Her mouth around my cock until I forgot every betrayal that came before her.

Spring after famine.

Rain on scorched land.

Then the knife.

Then blood.

Then her scream.