The storm had finally loosened its grip.
For hours, the colossus that is the mobile city of Kazdel had crawled through the breath of the Catastrophe. Its colossal frame rumbling like a wounded beast, treads grinding across cracked obsidian flats and scorched earth. Ash swept over its high black walls in choking waves, hissing against the barrier pylons as if seeking a way inside. The light of the Catastrophe still burned at their backs, blue and white and cruel-its tendrils lashing the horizon long into dusk.
But by nightfall, they had outlasted it. The storm receded into the east, leaving silence and darkened sky in its wake.
And then, like a revenant from myth, Kazdel rose before them.
A city of shadow, flame, and steel, still bristling with the scent of war. Its walls, built tall from war-worn alloy and volcanic stone, shimmered faintly under the dull red glow of its internal pylons-energy harvested from the Damazti Clusters deep below. Towering bastions stood silent watch at each corner of the city, their runic plating scorched black from the hours they'd spent braving the storm to meet their sovereigns halfway.
To some, it was a fortress.
To others, a grave waiting to be filled.
To the Sarkaz, it was home.
Their only home.
The Lord of Fiends stood still as the wind pressed against her tattered cloak, her eyes taking in the silhouette of the city-its old bones, its restless breath, the way it never quite stopped groaning beneath its own weight. Behind her trailed what remained of their campaign: warriors, mercenaries, and nobles alike, scarred and silent, carrying not just wounds, but stories too bitter to voice. None had emerged from Leithanien untouched.
Her brother walked beside her, calm and grave, bearing the unconscious form of the outsider in his arms. Ascalon. Still bound, though her injuries had been treated-by Theresis himself, no less. Her breathing was shallow, but steady.
The gates of Kazdel were already open.
And waiting beyond them were the factions of the Royal Court.
To the left stood the Pale Assembly-a solemn host of noble-blooded Sarkaz, clad in elegant, high-collared garments of black and silver thread. At their head was a man as pale as old marble, white-hair and sharp red-eyes, his posture straight as a drawn blade.
He watched the returning procession without a word, arms folded behind his back. His expression, as always, was difficult to read-half curiosity, half calculation.
To the right stood a more unsettling congregation.
Figures dressed in tattered robes of midnight black and shining whites, veiled and masked. Gold-etched cervidae skulls adorned their faces, horns curling upward like remnants of some forgotten deity. They carried black scepters carved from bone and lacquered wood, held close to their chests like funerary relics.
Their leader stood in front of them. Beneath the hood, long silver-blonde hair spilled across his shoulders. His hands held a gnarled black scepter. At his side, a woman stood draped in robes of black and white, cradling something long and wrapped-a sword, perhaps, though no light dared touch it. Her mask was golden. Her silence, absolute.
No words were exchanged. Not yet.
The night wind passed between the two hosts like a hush before judgment, stirring sand across the wide basalt causeway leading into the heart of Kazdel.
Theresa slowed her pace. Her fingers curled loosely around her staff. She knew what they saw: a weary queen, returning from a war that should never have been hers to wage. A battered company, shadows of their former strength. And in her brother's arms, the mystery that had already begun to twist the Court's thoughts into whispers and speculation.
She felt it. Heavy on her shoulders.
Not just the return. Not just the watchful eyes.
She exhaled once, eyes fixed on the black gates ahead.
They were home. But already, Kazdel was preparing its questions.
Dust clung to her boots and the hem of her robes, but Theresa walked with measured grace, the girl still cradled in her arms. Behind her, Theresis matched her stride, silent, unreadable, the unconscious figure still bound and motionless in his arms.
And then, like a ripple over still water, the two delegations moved.
Black-robed seers draped in ragged cloth knelt as one, scepters lowered, their golden deer skull masks glinting under Kazdel's pallid moonlight. Beside them, the pale congregation of the vampires followed suit. Cloaks brushed against stone, heads bowed low, and the air filled with a wordless reverence that only Sarkaz born could truly comprehend.
It was the Confessarius who broke the silence, his voice neither warm nor cold, but filled with a ritualistic certainty that reached across the plaza like a sermon carried by the wind.
"Kazdel is yours, your Majesty." he declared, head still lowered, both hands clasping the long, black staff embedded with obsidian shards. "By the Black Crown, We bow before the rightful king returned."
The Vampire Prince Duq'arael remained kneeling, crimson eyes flickering upward beneath strands of white. Reverence colored his stance-but something more ancient stirred in his mind.
For the moment they entered, he had sensed it.
A scent.
It had trailed behind the king and her brother like a crimson ribbon through the air. At first, he thought it a trick-perhaps perfume spilled on armor or fabric worn too close to the holy. But no. It was too vivid. Too strange.
Pure. Clean. Untainted.
That was the only word for it. Sweet to the point of rot, soft to the point of unnerving.
It didn't belong here.
His eyes drifted, subtly, toward the figure in Theresis' arms-bound, limp, faceless under torn bandages and dirt. The scent clung to that shape like mist to a grave.
Duq'arael frowned.
He could not tell if it was man or woman-not by sight, not yet. The body was too tightly wrapped in that white suit of what is possibly an armour, the features of their face is too obscured by that helmet, and even the half of the face is still hidden under the glass dome.
But his senses, stirred with a growing certainty. The longer he inhaled, the more distinct it became.
There-yes. Beneath the foreignness, the scent softened at the edges. No cologne, no steel, no musk of man. Something else. Familiar in its contrast.
A woman.
He knew it now, without question. The scent betrayed it-delicate and maddening in equal measure.
Beside him, the Confessarius did not stir, yet something in the tilt of his head revealed the same conclusion drawn through different means. His golden mask angled slightly toward Theresis. Not just to the captive, but to the fresh bruise shadowing the prince's nose-faint but unmistakable in the firelight.
Theresis, the general, the warrior prince, is wounded.
A rare thing.
Too rare indeed.
And the prisoner had not been discarded. No one else dared carry her. She remained in the arms of the Black Prince himself.
Interesting...
Theresa, feeling the weight of their gazes, gave a simple gesture with her open palm, a flick of her fingers restrained by the presence of the sleeping girl in her arms.
"Stand," she said, her tone calm but firm. "I cannot return your bow with my hands occupied."
And they did-both seers and vampires rose as one, graceful and silent.
But still their eyes lingered, glances sliding toward the unconscious figures both royals carried. The prophecies of Scareye whispered louder in the minds of the devout.
And in the hush that followed, the home of the fiends watched its Lord of Fiends return-not alone, and not unchanged.
The Vampire Prince let his gaze linger a moment longer on the bound figure in Theresis' arms. His pale fingers idly adjusted the folds of his cloak as a thin, knowing smirk curled at the corner of his lips.
"Interesting specimen you have there, my Prince," he quipped, voice smooth and rich like aged wine, carrying the faint accent of his bloodline's ancient dialect. His eyes gleamed crimson behind a veil of amusement. "A war trophy from Leithanien, perhaps?"
Theresis didn't answer immediately. His silence might've seemed curt, but those who had known him long enough knew it was deliberate. His jaw tensed slightly at the implication.
The Vampire Prince pressed on with a glimmer of mockery. "Did she also cause those injuries on you? I imagine it takes quite a woman to rattle the infamous Sword of Kazdel."
Theresis' eyes remained fixed elsewhere-on the Confessarius, whose golden-antlered mask glinted with sunless light. The dull bruising around the bridge of the Prince's nose had not escaped the masked man's gaze, though he said nothing.
"I require your best healers," Theresis said, voice even and cool as stone. "Now."
The Confessarius inclined his head in a graceful bow, arms folding over his chest in solemn reverence. He extended a long, gloved hand toward the space beside him. A figure emerged-graceful, composed, and quiet. The horns rising from her head were like smooth ivory blades, curved slightly toward the back in horizontal symmetry, contrasting against the dark shroud of her robes.
"Qui'saršinnag, my daughter-shall be of service to your needs, my Prince."
Theresis regarded her in silence for a moment. The weight in his arms shifted slightly-the Outsider stirred faintly, but did not wake.
"She will work alongside the Babel doctors," Theresis finally said. "As a gesture of cooperation between the Court and the outsiders under my sister's protection."
Qui'saršinnag bowed slightly, her head tilting without a sound. Her voice, when it came, was clear and reverent, carrying the refined lilt of Kazdel's old nobility.
"It will be of no problem, my Prince. I am at your service, and the Crown's."
Theresa, silent through the exchange, shifted the weight of the sleeping girl in her own arms. Her gaze moved slowly between her brother, the masked woman, and the Confessarius.
In her grasp, little Ascalon's breath was shallow but even, and though her hands were also bound during the journey home, there was a strange sense of tension in her limbs-as if even in unconsciousness, she was resisting something.
"Then let us not waste time," Theresa finally spoke, her voice calm but heavy with command. "The girls must be stabilized. Both of them."
Without waiting for a response, she turned. The delegations parted before her as one, bowing their heads once more to their King.
++++++++++
The wind howled across the jagged spires of Kazdel like the wail of a dying god. It tore through the valleys and cliffs, slamming against the battered walls of the city's obsidian tower - once a forgotten ruin, now an unwilling seat of power. The blackened stone, carved from the mountain's bones in ages past, pulsed with unnatural warmth, as if even the rock itself strained under the weight of desperation.
Within its highest keep, beneath a vaulted ceiling where faded banners hung like forgotten prayers, a crescent-shaped war table dominated the gloom. Candles struggled against the draft, their flames weak and shivering, casting long shadows across the haggard faces of those gathered.
The air stank of sweat, ash, and vapor sniffer - a chemical crutch that too many turned to these days just to stay upright. The scent clung to the rotting tapestries and mixed with the acrid tang of old steel and torn parchment.
At the table's center sat Theresa, cloaked in black and white, her expression unreadable. She looked not like a King of Fiends, but like a statue carved from sorrow - hollow-eyed, pale, and still. The sapphire-like Originium in her throne flickered faintly with dull, unfocused light, like a heartbeat fading beneath skin.
To her right, Theresis - eyes sunken, jaw clenched. The bruises around his eyes hadn't fully healed, a faint mark still discolored the bridge of his nose where a strike had landed some time ago. His grey armor bore newer scratches, hastily patched, and his fingers tapped out a rhythm of agitation on the table, cold and mechanical.
To her left sat Queen Laqeramaline of the Elegiac Court, draped in mourning silk that shimmered like smoke trapped in form. She moved little, her face veiled, her hands folded like a woman waiting for a eulogy to end.
Flanking her were the splintered courts:
The Court of Blood, all red smiles and unblinking eyes, lounged like crows perched over a corpse, their Sanguinarch's stained lips curling in silent amusement.
The Nachzehrers of the Withering Court, ancient and hollow-cheeked, whispered among themselves with voices like leaves in a crypt. Their king was wrapped in gravecloth and bone rings, his gaze distant and unnerving.
The Damazti Cluster lounged with arms crossed, eyelids drooping in feigned boredom. But even they were fidgeting now.
And furthest away, Scareye of the Scar Market leaned back in his chair, spinning a dagger between long fingers. The blade's shadow flickered unnaturally, dancing like smoke on his gloves. The scowl on his face was deeper than usual.
A flickering map, projected by Sarkaz Witchcraft, sprawled across the table - Kazdel, Leithanien, and their torn borderlands, peppered with red markers. Too many red. Blue flickers died out one by one.
"The Western pass is lost," a Damazti muttered, rubbing his forehead. "Their artillery's been repositioned along the high ridge. We hold nothing beyond the foothills. Two more weeks, maybe less, and they'll be shelling the forward camps directly."
"A frontal push is death," hissed a Court of Blood noblewoman, her skin pale as paper. "We lost three companies the last time we tried. They're bleeding us with patience."
"Perhaps it's time we turned their own sorcerers," she added, half-smiling.
"Bribery?" the Great Banshee's voice was dry as dust. "Leithanian mages trade in fear. Fear of the Witch King. Not coin. They burn turncoats in iron trees. You'd have better luck paying the fire to spare them."
Theresis exhaled through his nose, leaning forward.
"There is no flanking maneuver. No golden tactic. What artillery we do have was either looted from our own dead, outdated ones are dragged from rusted stores, or stolen back from enemy hands. Supplies are a mess - half the southern caches were hit by enemy raiders. The rest are filled with expired rations or hoarded by local lords and chiefs more worried about their next feast than the war."
He paused. His voice hardened.
"Whatever ground we hold, we hold on borrowed blood."
Scareye snorted from the shadows. "Tell that to your Free Men, Prince Theresis. They fight under your banner - and yet just yesterday they ransacked another Scar Market convoy headed to the forward lines. Took everything. Killed the guards. Medical kits, even clothes."
He twirled the dagger once more.
"If you want your allies to act like enemies, I'd rather deal with enemies who at least march in the right direction."
"They are not mine," Theresis growled. "They serve Kazdel. They serve the Crown. Poorly, yes - but they fight."
"They rob and kill," Scareye shot back. "What's the difference these days?"
"And what is the difference between them and yours?" Theresis growled.
Silence fell.
The wind outside wailed louder. Somewhere far below, a support beam groaned as if the tower itself resented holding them all together.
Then, the rasp of old parchment broke the silence - the Nachzehrer King's voice.
"A clever poison, Prince Theresis," he said slowly. "Strike their veins. Choke their supply lines. Starve them. Yes. But poison takes time. And we... are out of time."
His gnarled finger pointed toward the Wastes, the southern fringes of Kazdel - where dust storms swallowed caravans and monsters outnumbered men.
"The Free Men have been... stirred."
That silenced even Scareye.
"They move without order. Without leash. And yet they burn with something. Madness. Faith. Despair. They're drawing others to them - deserters, mercenaries, even some of our own kin. Something is shifting in the bones of Kazdel. It may break us. Or... it may be the final scream of a dying land."
Laqeramaline closed her eyes.
Theresa remained silent, unmoving, her lips pressed in a line too thin to read. A King on a crumbling throne, watching her kingdom drown in ash.
Once again, as it always has been.
Babel's symbol - the white tower - flickered on a banner above the door, untouched by dust or smoke. They had long stopped attending these meetings. They ran camps now, far behind the lines, patching wounds they couldn't name, feeding ghosts and orphans. They belonged to Theresa, but they no longer answered to war.
No one in this room did, anymore.
Only to survival.
Only to the silence that came next.
++++++++++
-Laqeramaline's POV
The voices around me dimmed into a dull drone, as though the stone walls themselves swallowed their arguments. My sight clouded; the war table blurred.
When I blinked again, I stood in the Convallis.
The mists were thick, thicker than I remembered, curling like wounded serpents across the ground. Silence stretched across the valley, broken only by the faint keening of my sisters—distant, warning, uncertain.
At the mouth of the vale, I saw him.
A lone traveler, ragged, steps faltering as though the road itself had drained the marrow from his bones. His cloak bore faint streaks of red, torn and faded, yet they clung stubbornly in the mist like banners that refused to fall. The way he carried himself, even half-dead, stirred something in me: there was a hawk's bearing in his posture, defiant even in ruin.
No one should be here. No one had ever entered without our hand to guide them.
"Why do you not lift your gaze, traveler?" I asked, my voice drifting on the mist. "The wind above you knows the path."
His head turned slightly, blind eyes clouded, his lips cracked by thirst. "My eyes are ruined," he said hoarsely. "Not by age, but by treachery. I saw halls burned, banners trampled, kin scattered. Now I do not dare look upon skies that are no longer mine."
A pang stirred, but I pressed him further: "Then why reject the ones who would lead you? Was there not a hand offered?"
He gave a bitter smile, sharp with pain. "A hand came gilded in promises. I clasped it, believing honor bound us—but it was a thief's hand. While I held it, my crown was torn away, my people betrayed, and the earth I swore to guard was swallowed whole."
The mist shifted uneasily at his words. Lies. Betrayal. He carried them like chains.
"And yet," I whispered, "you speak to me. Do you not fear my song? That I could strip the marrow from you with a single note?"
His answer came steady, though his body trembled. "Then sing, Banshee. Let my last breath be truth, not falsehood. Let me fall to your dirge, not to deceit."
I should have sung. I wanted to. But no dirge came. Only silence.
Instead, I stepped forward. My mist kissed his lips, cool against the fever in his breath. "No. Not this time. Wounded, yet unyielding one—come. I will not give you death. Let the song of the Banshee lend you sight, and let your scars remember something other than loss."
His hand found mine. Rough. Calloused. But warm. He did not flinch from me. He held on, as if I were the last remnant of a truth the world had denied him.
And so I led him deeper into the Convallis, the mists parting where his foot fell. They watched him as though recognizing something… something I could not yet name.
But I felt it. The whisper of a bond not yet forged. A shadow of prophecy trailing like smoke behind us.
I turned to him, voice trembling. "Tell me… your name."
His lips parted.
"My name is—"
"Ramale?"
The voice dragged me back, sharp and steady. I gasped, the vision dissolving into stone walls and guttering candlelight.
Theresa's hand was on my arm, cool, grounding. Around me, the war table was silent, the others staring. Theresis' eyes lingered on me—keen, unreadable, but softened with concern.
"You were... gone from us," Theresa murmured, low enough that only I could hear.
I straightened,