White ether still hissed against the marble floor where Victor had stood, his absence like a pressure drop in the hall. The chanting of the priests faltered, became whispers, and then dissolved altogether as the air settled back into stillness.
Theobald stood at the center of it, breath coming too fast, his hands trembling in the glow of his own power. He'd expected triumph, rapture, the clean sweep of godhood. Instead he had a skull-crowned executioner walking through his ritual and handing him a list of rules like a leash.
Rules. Always rules.
