Azrith adjusted the cuff of his sleeve, brushing soot from his coat like it offended him. His expression didn't shift, but the smugness behind his half-smile sharpened as he glanced around the silent chamber.
"Well, now that the formality is out of the way," he said, voice light and bitter with amusement, "perhaps I can begin again—this time without blades to the throat."
He looked at Seraphiel.
"I think you'll want to hear this, little flame. You might find it… enlightening."
Seraphiel didn't answer. Her blade was still strapped to her back, her jaw clenched, eyes tracking his every movement.
Azrith took his time.
He didn't pace. He commanded space—stepping slowly between the thrones, the trail of shadow behind his boots dragging like silk dipped in oil.
"I came here on the assumption that your kind," he gestured broadly to the Virtues seated in glowing silence, "had something to do with the sickness spreading across my realm. A curse. A weapon. A mistake, perhaps."
He stopped in the center of the room, fingers clasped loosely behind his back.
"But I was wrong."
His tone dropped. Smooth turned to serious. A low resonance stirred under his words.
"You didn't create this. Not even you could've imagined something like this. Something that strips the shape from souls. That uses faith—any faith—as a shell to walk in."
He let that hang for a moment.
Then, colder: "Entire districts in my territory have fallen. Not in battle. Not to rebellion. They simply… stopped."
He turned his head. His eyes weren't red now—they were dark, reflective. Still.
"No magic. No sound. Just silence. The kind that creeps under your skin and lays there, pulsing."
He looked at Cassiel.
"My finest scouts returned from one of those cities last cycle. One with her spine inside out. Another laughing in seven voices. The last?"
He tilted his head slightly.
"He walked into the center of my war court and whispered your sacred tongue. Then set himself on fire."
The chamber remained dead still.
Cassiel's grip on his staff tightened.
Azrith chuckled, bitter and hollow. "Oh, don't look so grim. You should be thrilled. We're finally united by a shared horror."
He turned slightly, pacing now—not frantically, but like someone leading a play.
"I thought, perhaps, this was divine sabotage. That you sent something foul through the cracks in the veil to destabilize the balance."
He paused, eyes glittering.
"But then it began feeding on sin just as easily as virtue. And I realized—"
He stopped, looking directly at Seraphiel.
"Even the worst of us wouldn't make something like this."
Seraphiel stiffened.
Cassiel gave a nod, quiet but sure.
"Seraphiel. Tell them what you saw."
She rose. Her armor still bore scorch marks. Her voice was low and clear.
She spoke of the village. The burning. The priest who'd wept, begged, then laughed. Of the darkness that wore him like a suit and tore free the moment she tried to save what was left.
"It didn't want him," she said. "It wanted to be him. It didn't steal his soul—it warped it."
She paused.
"I tried purifying it. I struck clean. But it only… changed. Adapted."
One of the Virtues sat back slowly in their throne.
Another whispered something beneath their breath, too soft to hear.
Cassiel turned toward Azrith.
"You propose a collaboration."
"I propose survival," Azrith replied.
"And how would this 'survival' look, exactly?"
"With fewer corpses, for one."
A murmur rippled across the thrones.
Azrith raised a single hand.
"I'm not here to beg. I don't do that. But I am here to tell you that if this thing—whatever it is—escapes the pit and rises into your sacred skies, you will not survive it."
He turned, voice louder now. Sharper.
"You've felt it already. She has."
He gestured to Seraphiel.
"Whatever this is, it walks between sin and sainthood. It doesn't care about bloodlines or banners. It doesn't care what realm it's in. And while you debate whether to believe me, it spreads."
He gave a cold smile.
"So yes. I propose an alliance. Temporary. Tactical. Controlled."
He began counting off with his fingers.
"Designated agents. Mutual boundaries. Access to contaminated zones. No interference. No sabotage. And no killing each other while we hunt this thing down."
A long silence followed.
One of the Virtues—tall, elegant, and clad in woven justice-scales—finally leaned forward.
"And if this alliance proves to be deception?"
Azrith smiled wider.
"You'll burn me alive. Isn't that how this works?"
His gaze didn't waver.
"But you won't need to. Because I am not here as a weapon. I am here as a king."
The Virtue narrowed their eyes.
"If this is deception, it will cost you your throne."
The chamber chilled.
For a heartbeat, even the light in the high windows dimmed.
Azrith didn't flinch.
He stepped forward once, slow and steady.
Then:
"The only reason your throne still exists," he said softly, "is because I have not yet decided that burning it would protect my people."
The words dropped like stone into water.
"I don't restrain myself out of weakness. I restrain myself because if I didn't, you would all already be ash."
His voice didn't rise. But the temperature did.
"You think my crown sits lightly on my head? No. I wear it with blood. With cost. I walked through ruin to keep the Abyss standing. I killed brothers to hold my realm from collapsing. And when this thing came for us—I came to you."
He swept his hand outward.
"I came not for your mercy. But because I saw something worse than all of us combined. And I will not let it devour the world I rule."
A stillness followed.
The sort of stillness that didn't come from peace, but calculation. Measured. Deliberate. The kind that surrounded only the most powerful beings when they chose not to speak too soon.
The Virtue of Wisdom was the first to lean forward, hands folded before her. Her voice was soft, carefully chosen.
"We hear your words, Azrith of the Deep Ring. And we do not doubt your sincerity."
Another Virtue, one wreathed in ivory light and the color of stormclouds, added evenly, "But decisions made here are not done in haste. Especially not when the balance of realms is at stake."
Cassiel stood beside them, silent as stone, watching.
The first Virtue continued, "We must deliberate. Privately. Thoroughly. Until then, you will remain in this realm. A guest, but a contained one."
Azrith laughed.
Just once.
It echoed.
"Contained," he repeated, tasting the word like a curse. "That's adorable."
He turned away from them and began to walk, slow and relaxed, toward the center of the chamber. His cloak trailed behind him like it had a mind of its own.
"I didn't come here to be kept behind walls like some relic in a vault," he said. "I came because I cared enough to bring warning first."
He stopped, the shadow beneath his feet curling like smoke rising in reverse.
"You think you have time," he said. "You think the rot will wait for your votes and your silence and your debates."
He turned, and for a moment, the mask of smugness peeled away. There was something harder beneath it—fiercer. Worn.
"You don't."
He raised a hand, casually.
Darkness began to ripple out from his fingertips, flooding into the air like spilled ink in water.
"I have a realm to rule. A court to hold. Fires to contain. I won't sit in your gardens while the Abyss burns."
Cassiel raised a hand slightly.
"You walk away from the only cooperation that may protect you."
"I'm walking away," Azrith said, "because I gave you the courtesy of telling you about this before it hit you. If you want to speak again, come find me in my realm."
He started to vanish, his body fading into silhouette as the shadows rose.
But just before he disappeared completely, he paused—half-formed, like the world was struggling to remember where he ended and where the void began.
"And Seraphiel," he said, voice cutting through the magic.
She tensed.
His gaze met hers. Serious now. No smirk. No games.
"You've stood in front of it. You saw what it did. You felt what it tried to be."
He took one step forward—and with that step, he became solid again. Shadows fell back, just enough for the room to breathe.
"I would like to speak with you. Privately. When you're ready."
She said nothing.
He didn't press.
"You are always welcome," he said simply.
And then, without another word, he turned and vanished.
The shadows consumed him in a spiral, folding inward. The pressure dropped so hard the walls sighed like lungs exhaling after being crushed.
When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left but a dark scorch etched into the marble in the rough shape of a throne.
No guards came.
No alarms sounded.
Only the faint ringing silence of a world that had just been warned—loudly.
And Seraphiel, alone among the Virtues, still staring at the space he'd once stood, her thoughts already caught between fire… and shadow.