The bells rang before the moon rose.
Not church bells — these were iron chains striking bone, each toll rattling the ribs of the Black Cathedral. From every shadow, the Devil's guests emerged — cloaked figures with faces of wax, the hollow-eyed dead, beasts with crowns of ash.
They moved like a tide toward the nave, drawn by the summons.
Tonight was the Devil's wedding.
And his bride — unwilling, unknowing — was Isadora.
---
The nave had transformed.
The pews were gone, replaced with a single banquet table that stretched into the dark.
Its legs were femurs.
Its cloth was flayed skin stitched into sheets.
Candles burned in skulls, their wax dripping like white blood.
The Devil stood at the head of the table, dressed in black as deep as a starless sky.
His hair fell in perfect darkness.
In his hands, a crown of black iron, veined with molten gold — the Crown of Hell.
---
Isadora was brought in by faceless attendants.
Her gown was white at first glance — but closer, it was bone-white, sewn from funeral shrouds.
The veil was red, almost glowing, as if lit from within.
And around her wrists, the faintest shimmer of chains — invisible to her eyes, but not to Lucien's.
Lucien stood at the far end of the hall, in the shadow of a broken pillar.
Every instinct screamed to run to her.
But if he moved too soon, he'd be cut down before he reached her.
---
The Devil raised his hand.
> "My guests," he said, his voice echoing like wind through a tomb.
"We gather not for a feast of the living… but for the joining of fire and ash.
My bride comes to me free of false love.
Empty, so that I may fill her."
The table erupted in cheers — hollow and sharp, the sound of bones clashing.
---
Lucien's heart pounded.
He could see it — the way she stood stiff, eyes scanning the hall.
Somewhere inside her, she knew this was wrong.
Somewhere… the memory of him was pressing against the wall the Midwife had built.
He stepped forward — just one pace.
---
The Devil turned his gaze to her.
> "Isadora," he said, voice softening into a silk noose.
"Take my hand."
She hesitated.
Her eyes darted over the table… and for a flicker of a second, they landed on Lucien.
Her lips parted — as if to speak.
---
The Devil's smile froze.
He followed her gaze.
And then he saw him.
> "Ah," he said. "The echo returns."
The hall rippled. Shadows swelled, teeth bared in the walls.
> "Will you watch her wed me, Lucien?" the Devil asked.
"Or will you try to stop me, and die at her feet?"
---
Lucien stepped into the light.
His voice was low, but it carried.
> "I'm not here to stop you."
He paused, eyes locked on Isadora's.
"I'm here to remind her who she is."
---
And then he spoke her name.
Not the name the Devil used.
Not the name the Midwife had carved away.
Her true name.
The name he had whispered the first time she gave herself to him.
The name he had cried into her hair when he thought he was losing her.
The name he had never said aloud in the Devil's hearing — until now.
---
Isadora's breath caught.
Something split in her chest.
Memories came like a flood breaking stone.
The riverbank. The ruined chapel. His hands. His mouth. His love.
Her choice.
Her fight.
The chains around her wrists shattered.
---
She staggered — clutching her head.
The Devil's smile turned to a snarl.
> "No."
Lucien moved, running down the table, scattering skull-candles and plates of rotting meat.
The guests screamed. Some lunged for him, but the shadows recoiled from his blade.
He reached her — and she was already reaching back.
---
Their hands met.
And the hall exploded into fire.
---
The Devil roared — a sound that cracked the marble beneath them.
> "YOU WERE MINE!"
Isadora's voice was steady.
> "I was never yours."
She drove Lucien's blade into the banquet table.
The fire leapt from steel to flesh to stone — consuming the feast, the guests, the walls.
---
The Devil's form swelled, skin splitting into shadow and horn and flame.
But the fire ate faster.
The cathedral's mouth closed on him.
Lucien pulled her close as the roof caved in.
The last thing she saw was the Devil's burning eyes, fixed on her, as the stone swallowed him whole.
---
Then — silence.
---
They were alone in the ruins.
The wedding feast was ash.
The crown lay melted at their feet.
Lucien turned to her.
> "Do you remember me?"
She smiled faintly through the soot.
> "Every piece of you."
He kissed her — a kiss that was victory and grief all at once.
---
But far below, in the cathedral's buried heart…
something still breathed.
And the Devil's whisper curled up through the ashes:
> "The feast is over… but the hunger remains."
End of Chapter Twenty.