The Palace Hall of the Dominion Empire stretched like a cathedral carved from shadows and light. The ceiling rose so high it seemed to vanish into mist, pillars black as obsidian holding it up like silent sentinels. Stained glass windows cast thin streams of colored light across the floor, but even their beauty could not soften the weight that pressed upon every minister gathered there.
Silence did not reign—it was heavy, deliberate. Every cough suppressed, every shuffle of feet swallowed by the velvet air. It was the kind of silence that belonged to judgment halls, where words became swords and hesitation was death.
Upon the throne at the far end sat King Veythar of Dominion, draped in crimson and steel, his crown wrought in cruel edges. His eyes, sharp as blades, moved from one minister to another, waiting, demanding, daring them to speak first. And yet, none did.
The Palace Hall was a place built to swallow sound, not to be swallowed by it. Its marble pillars stretched like white spears toward the heavens, inlaid with veins of gold that caught the sun and scattered it in a thousand directions, so that even shadows here glowed faintly. Beneath that light, the Dominion's most powerful lords had gathered, each dressed in silks and crowns of their own making. They had come to hear their King pronounce his judgment over the outpost, to weigh losses and to rebuild their pride.
At last, the King's voice cut through the stillness, low but carrying like iron dragged across stone.
"Years of war… years of watching kingdoms fall like brittle leaves. And now—our Empire stands unshaken." His tone swelled, filling the hall. "Tell me, my lords—who among the realms can claim such power as ours?"
There was a murmur, hesitant, quickly drowned. No minister dared raise their head. The King's hand tightened on the armrest of his throne. His pride wanted an answer, his vanity demanded it.
But their voices, sharp as they had been moments ago, were reduced to nothing at the sound of a single name.
"Veythar."
It was not spoken loudly. It did not thunder like war drums. Yet the sound struck as if it had fallen from the sky itself. The syllables carried a weight no mortal mouth could bear; they pressed upon the chest of each man and woman in the hall until the only thing left to do was to bow their heads.
The Dominion King froze mid-sentence. His lips parted, but no words escaped. His eyes, once like coals blazing with command, dulled as if water had been poured upon them. And he looked — unwillingly, almost against his own nature — toward the source of that voice.
Then it happened.
A weight—not sound, not sight—slid into the hall. A gaze, cold as winter steel, pierced the King's chest before he even saw its source. His words faltered, then broke, silence slamming down harder than before.
The ministers shifted in unease, each man's heart whispering the same realization: He is here.
From the far doors, the shadows bent. A figure stepped within, robed in flowing black threaded with silver sigils that shimmered faintly like captured stars. His presence did not walk—it descended, as though the hall itself bent to allow him passage.
Azeriel.
His name was not spoken. It did not need to be. The mere act of recognition echoed in every mind, branding itself deeper than sound.The name, though not yet spoken aloud in the hall, passed through every mind in a silent wave.
The King, for all his crown and dominion, lowered his gaze. Ministers followed, bowing their heads so deeply their foreheads nearly brushed the cold stone. None dared speak, for in Azeriel's presence, words were unworthy.
It was said—before him, all voices withered. Before him, silence was not absence, but command.
The Palace Hall, already grave, now became a sanctum of dread majesty.
The King swallowed, voice breaking in humility. "Lord… Azeriel."
And at last, the silence allowed his voice to exist—just barely.
---
He did not walk so much as arrive. His entrance was not heralded by trumpet nor announced by guard. One moment the doors loomed tall and silent at the far end, the next they seemed to open of their own accord, spilling a light that was not of this world. From within it emerged a figure tall, robed in shades that shifted with every glance — now black as mourning, now deep as the ocean, now shimmering faintly with hues no artist's brush could capture.
His face bore the dignity of carved stone yet breathed with living grace. His eyes, oh — his eyes were the undoing of pride itself. Not burning, not raging, but steady: two vast orbs of pale silver, like moons watching over a dying battlefield. To meet them was to remember every sin. To avert them was to confess guilt.
The hall forgot how to breathe.
Even the Dominion King, Veythar — iron-willed, breaker of rebellions, master of the Empire — felt his knees shift under the weight of that gaze. For the first time in years, his crown seemed heavy upon his brow.
Azeriel moved forward, each step measured, deliberate, as if the hall had been built not for kings, but for him alone. And as he passed, even the torches dimmed, their flames bowing low, unwilling to compete with his radiance.
Azeriel's voice came again, gentle yet unbearable:
"You speak of dominion as though it were eternal. Yet tell me—does eternity bleed? For I see the smoke of your Azureus Outpost, and it reeks of ashes."
A murmur rippled through the lords, but it never left their throats. It died the moment it was born, smothered by fear of being heard. Not one dared to meet Azeriel's gaze. Not one dared to even inhale too sharply.
It was as though the hall itself had transformed into a cathedral. The courtiers, the ministers, the generals — men who had once bent nations beneath their feet — were now reduced to worshipers before a god.
And so began the fandom of fear.
They could not help themselves. Some bowed deeper than the King himself, foreheads pressing to marble, as though proximity to the ground could shield them from those eyes. Some trembled with the strange exaltation of being seen — yes, seen — even for a heartbeat, by a being who carried eternity in his shadow. A few even wept silently, for reasons they themselves did not understand: shame, awe, or perhaps the unbearable recognition that they stood in the presence of something greater than history.
Azeriel took a step forward. The sound of his foot touching marble was like the toll of a distant bell — heavy, resonant, echoing longer than it should. Each step was not simply movement, it was a declaration.
When he stopped, he was but a few paces from the throne. And it seemed, in that moment, that the throne itself diminished. The golden seat that had once dominated the chamber was reduced to a chair — a bauble beside the living majesty that now stood before it.
King Veythar rose half-heartedly, as though duty commanded it but his soul resisted. His voice cracked when he tried to speak.
"My… my lord—"
But no title seemed sufficient. He stopped himself, throat dry.
Azeriel tilted his head slightly, as though the words did not matter. His silence pressed harder than any demand.
And it was then that something stirred among the court. The ministers, though paralyzed, began to feel a strange thing: devotion. It was not the devotion they gave their King, rooted in politics and fear of the sword. This was deeper, primal — a need to give themselves to the gaze that had undone them. They were not citizens. They were not nobles. They were worshipers.
One by one, their thoughts fell into the same rhythm.
He is above us.
He is more than us.
He is what we are not, yet what we must follow.
A single cough would have felt like sacrilege. A laugh, like blasphemy.
And all the while, Azeriel said nothing more. He simply stood there, like a monument carved of light and shadow, allowing the truth of his presence to strangle the hall.