The desolate plain was a canvas of gray rock and shattered obsidian under a sky the color of a fresh wound. Veridia stood twenty paces from her sister, the silence between them a tangible thing, colder and sharper than the wind that whipped strands of dark hair across her face. The alliance, born of mutual desperation, had fractured the moment the curse was broken. Now, all that remained was the raw, familiar architecture of their hatred. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, her mind was her own—a quiet, sovereign kingdom free from the phantom limb of Seraphine's senses. The silence was magnificent.
The air did not tremble; it tore.
A jagged rip of impossible color split the blood-red sky, not a portal but a raw wound in the firmament. From the tear, colossal, shimmering images bled into existence, dominating the heavens with their terrible majesty. To the left, the laughing, chaotic face of Lord Kasian, his eyes twinkling with the promise of a final, glorious wager. To the right, the serene, beautiful visage of Matron Vesperia, her expression one of artistic, divine expectation. Their combined gaze was a physical pressure, the weight of a trillion hungry eyes.
A voice boomed from the sky, shaking the very stones beneath Veridia's feet. It was Kasian, drunk on the spectacle. **"Contestants! Patrons! Welcome to the moment you've all been waiting for! The grand, the glorious, the winner-take-all… RIVALRY FINALE!"**
Matron Vesperia's voice followed, a silken counterpoint to Kasian's roar, each word chosen to paint a masterpiece of despair. **"Your final performance awaits. A tragedy in two acts. Deep within the obsidian heart of Dis, the City of Sorrows, lies the Heart of the Betrayer. An artifact of exquisite pain and peerless power, forged from the final tear of a forgotten god. Your objective is simple, my dears. The first to claim it… wins."**
Veridia's mind, a cold, sharp engine of pure calculation, seized on the words. *Dis.* A prison city for the most ancient and powerful enemies of the Network. A fortress of despair. This wasn't just a race; it was a suicide mission designed for maximum ratings.
**"And what a prize!"** Kasian bellowed, his laughter echoing across the wasteland. **"The odds are magnificent! For our victor: a full and total Pardon! The Curse of the Sieve, erased! The pathetic life-link to your dear sister, severed! You will be free, your show concluded with the highest ratings in Network history!"** He paused for dramatic effect. **"The loser? Oh, the loser gets nothing. Left to rot in whatever hell you've made for yourselves, forgotten by all. A truly delicious wager, is it not?"**
*The life-link, severed.* The thought was a surge of pure, blinding hope, immediately followed by the cold iron of the dilemma. She couldn't kill Seraphine, or she would die herself. But to win, she had to beat her. This was the true test. Not of strength, but of cunning.
**"A temporary passage will be granted,"** Vesperia concluded, her voice softening into a director's whisper. **"Seek the highest peak to the east. The gate will open, and your final stage will be set. Do try to make your suffering beautiful."**
The celestial images flickered, dissolving into the bloody sky as if they had never been. The booming voices faded, leaving behind a silence more profound and terrifying than the noise that had preceded it, thick with the scent of ozone and ambition.
***
In the echoing quiet, Veridia's world narrowed to the single figure standing across the plain. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, there was no monster to fight, no mortal to manipulate, no immediate threat to survive. There was only Seraphine. And the prize.
Seraphine broke the silence, her voice dripping with the old, familiar venom, a sound Veridia had almost forgotten she'd missed. "A race to the heart of Dis? Don't trouble yourself with the details, dear sister. You never were very good at keeping pace."
Veridia didn't rise to the bait. The anger was still there, a cold, hard stone in her gut, but it was a focused thing now, not the wild, panicked fire of her exile. She studied Seraphine, seeing not just the hated rival, but a tactical problem. The Orc-forged armor was heavy, a brute's tool. Seraphine's fighting style was direct, efficient, and utterly lacking in subtlety. A weakness to be exploited.
"I'll be sure to remember you when I'm free, Seraphine," she said, her voice flat and cold. "I won't hesitate to leave you chained to a rock in the deepest pit of that city for all eternity."
A flicker of something—annoyance, perhaps—crossed Seraphine's face. She had expected a scream, a tantrum. This cold confidence was new. "Don't forget the link," Seraphine purred, tapping a finger against her own throat. "If you kill me, you die too. A flaw in your grand plan, wouldn't you say?"
"Who said anything about killing you?" Veridia's lips curved into a slow, predatory smile. "A broken leg, a shattered spine… there are so many ways to win a race without crossing that particular finish line. I'm sure you'll be an excellent spectator from the bottom of a ravine."
The unspoken contract settled between them, heavy and absolute. The truce was over. The game had changed. This was not about survival anymore. This was about victory.
Without another word, they turned. Not together, but in parallel, their paths converging on the distant, jagged peak. The race to the starting line had already begun.
***
The summit was a knife's edge of rock against the bleeding sky, a place where the wind howled with the voices of forgotten things. The air itself thrummed, vibrating with a power that set Veridia's teeth on edge. As they reached the peak, a point in space before them began to shudder and tear.
It was not a clean, shimmering portal. It was a violent, screaming rift in the fabric of reality. It began as a hairline crack of pure blackness, then ripped open with the sound of tearing silk amplified a million times. The wound pulled inward, bleeding shadows and emitting a low, dissonant hum that felt like a physical pressure against the skull.
The rift stabilized, the chaotic edges solidifying into a jagged gateway. Through it, Veridia saw their destination. Dis. A city of impossible, twisting towers that defied gravity, built from a stone that drank the light. Streets spiraled into nothingness, and bridges of solidified despair connected spires that pierced a sky of permanent, starless twilight. It was a place of ancient, silent dread, and from the portal wafted a smell of cold iron and unremembered sorrows.
Veridia and Seraphine stood at the threshold, side-by-side. The wind whipped at them, pulling them toward the screaming maw of the portal. They didn't speak. They didn't need to.
They looked at the gate, then at each other.
In that final, silent stare, a lifetime of rivalry, of shared history and bottomless hatred, passed between them. Veridia saw it all reflected in her sister's eyes: the memory of a golden afternoon in the Vex palace, two children sharing a secret in the shadow-gardens; the sting of Seraphine's first televised mockery; the shared, soul-deep violation of the Orc shaman's ritual. It was an acknowledgment. A promise. A declaration of war.
Then, in perfect, unwilling synchronicity, they took the final step, plunging through the screaming gateway and into the heart of hell.