The Collection grew.
What began with assassins frozen mid-strike had become a gallery of warnings. Vampires, witches, wolves — all gleaming effigies sealed beneath the estate. Their golden faces shimmered in torchlight, fear carved into eternal perfection.
Justin visited more often than Elise liked. She would find him there, standing among the statues, fingers brushing the edge of a golden sword or the cheek of a petrified assassin. Sometimes, his abyssal eyes glowed faintly as if the fire inside him saw something more in the gold than she ever could.
"Justin," she said once, her voice echoing against gilded walls. "This room is not for you."
He adjusted his glasses, gaze lingering on the statues. "They're mine."
"They're corpses," Elise snapped. "Beautiful corpses. You should destroy them."
But he shook his head. "No. They remind me. Of what happens when people try to take me. Of what I can do."
Her heart tightened. The Collection wasn't just a warning anymore. It was becoming something else.
—
And then one day, it changed.
Justin was thirteen when he noticed it. A throne stood at the chamber's center — not wrought by human hands, not carried by servants. No one could say where it had come from. Solid, flawless, massive. Pure gold.
It wasn't there the day before. And yet there it sat, gleaming, waiting.
Justin circled it warily, his shoes clicking against the stone. The seat was wide, the back high, horns of flame etched into the gilded design. It looked less like furniture and more like a crown made manifest.
His breath caught. He felt it — the weight of it pulling at him, whispering. Sit. Claim. Rule.
For the first time, he was afraid of his own Collection.
Elise found him there an hour later, standing frozen in front of the throne, his fists clenched at his sides. She didn't ask where it came from. She already knew.
Mammon's whispers brushed her son's ears every night. This was no different. This was temptation, shaped into form.
"Don't touch it," she said, voice sharp.
Justin's jaw tightened. "It's mine."
Her hands gripped his shoulders, turning him away. "No. It's his. That's not a seat — it's a chain. If you sit, you won't stand again."
Justin's abyssal eyes flickered faint white fire. For a long, breathless moment, she thought he might fight her. Then he turned, striding to the edge of the chamber.
The next day, he sealed the throne in glass. A great case of enchanted panes, covering it from every angle, as though it were a relic in a museum. He told himself it was caution, not weakness. That he needed to resist it.
But every time he returned, the throne waited, gleaming through the glass.
And every time, he struggled with the thought of sitting.
—
The whispers spread among servants and guards.
Some claimed the throne appeared on its own, conjured by the prince's blood. Others swore it had been dragged from Hell itself. All agreed on one truth: it was waiting for him.
Elise tightened the wards. She forbade anyone from entering the chamber without her son.
But she knew the truth — it wasn't thieves she feared. It was Justin.
And the day he finally chose to sit, there would be no turning back.