The Deathhead House was silent.
Not the kind of silence that comes from peace. The kind that settles when something has died—and no one wants to speak of it.
Stone walls, cold with breathless air, loomed around Angel as he walked. The torches lining the halls flickered, casting elongated shadows behind him like memories trying to catch up. The floor beneath his boots was smooth from generations of pacing, of waiting, of rotting.
He didn't look back.
This place was a tomb disguised as tradition. A fortress for those chosen to become what should never be born. Deathheads. Weapons carved into the shape of men.
Angel was one of them. But he didn't wear it like the others.
Where they boasted their rank, their scars, their bloodstained rites—Angel moved with disdain. He saw through the rituals. The arrogance. The sermons about sacrifice. He heard the rot beneath their words and smiled quietly at how hollow it all was.
They thought they knew death.
They didn't know Angel.
"Name?"
The gatekeeper at the inner sanctum didn't lift his eyes. Protocol, nothing more.
Angel didn't answer.
"Name?" the gatekeeper asked again, louder.
Angel stepped forward, slow. His breath didn't waver. He held his silence like a blade.
Only when the man finally looked up did Angel speak. A whisper, barely audible, but sharp.
"There is no name. Only what's left."
The gatekeeper's face twitched. He stepped aside
Angel entered the sanctum alone.
Inside, the chamber was wide and empty, lit only by the pale glow of blackfire burning in iron sconces. At the center: a circle etched in stone. A summoning ring, carved into the bones of the first Deathhead. A place where familiars were bound and fate sealed.
This would be the first time Angel stood in it.
He didn't hesitate.
As he stepped into the ring, a voice echoed—not from the room, but from inside him. One that had been waiting.
"You've come too far to turn back."
Angel didn't respond. He knelt in silence, the flame dancing in his eyes.
He didn't come to turn back.
He came to erase the path forward.
He hated this world. Not for what it was—but for what it pretended to be. For how it dressed cruelty in reason. How it called submission virtue. How it praised the blind and punished the seekers.
He was no savior. He didn't want to be.
But if there was a way to unmake the lie—
He would walk that path. Alone, if he had to.
And if he had to become a monster to do it?
So be it.
Angel exhaled.
The circle around him pulsed.
The blackfire rose.
And in the shadows behind his breath, something ancient stirred.