The Council Chamber was a cavernous hall of black marble, lit by floating orbs of violet fire. Twelve high-ranking nobles sat around a massive table carved from a single piece of dragon-bone.
At the head sat Malachi, his chin resting on his hand, looking utterly bored as the voices rose in a rough crescendo.
"The border villages are in ashes!" Mephisa, slammed her fist down. "The rebellion grows, funded by shadows we cannot trace, yet our King is leisured enough to take a new consort. A human toy while the kingdom burns!"
"The Serpent of Carnage is still at large," another council member added, his voice a raspy hiss. "It slaughters our scouts and vanishes. We demand the King's focus, not his distractions."
Malachi didn't blink. His golden brown eyes scanned the room with a terrifying stillness.
"The Serpent of Carnage will be handled tomorrow," he said, his voice dropping into a low, predatory growl. "I will personally lead the vanguard. As for the consort... he should be none of your worries. He is a private matter of the crown."
The room erupted. "A private matter?!"
Mephisa shrieked. "The laws of the First Blood are absolute! To bring a human into the Royal Lineage is a stain on our history! We demand the boy be executed. Cleanse the palace of this filth before the rebellion uses it as a rallying cry!"
The silence that followed was deafening.
Malachi stood up slowly. The air in the room suddenly felt heavy, like the atmosphere before a catastrophe.
CRACK. He slammed his palms onto the bone-white table, and it shattered into a thousand shards.
The red marking on his forehead, the seal of the Destroyer, shined with a blinding, bloody light.
"DO NOT. TOUCH. THE BOY," he roared, his voice vibrating in the very marrow of their bones.
Without another word, he turned his back on them and walked out, his cape billowing like a shroud. The council members were left shivering in the sudden cold.
Mephisa's eyes widened as she sank back into her chair. "A boy?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "He said... the boy? Could it be?"
The elderly member beside her leaned in, his face pale. "Explain yourself, Mephisa."
"The rumors said it was a witch-girl or a human woman," she hissed, her disgust twisting her features. "But the King... he has taken a male consort? A boy?" The council broke into a chaotic frenzy of hushed, venomous arguments.
The disgust was palpable; they could handle a king's lust, but a king playing "both parties" and elevating a boy to the status of a bride was a subversion of every law they held sacred.
High on the training balcony, Zaliyah was drenched in sweat. His white robes clung to his skin, and his breath came in ragged gasps.
"Again," the tutor commanded. "Find the thread. Pull."
Zaliyah closed his eyes, his mind screaming for home. He thought of the kitchen in the Ruo Han manor, the smell of fresh bread, and the sound of Riru's laughter.
He poured every ounce of his desperation into his silver-scarred palm. The violet light flared, turning a blinding, electric white.
RIIIIIP.
The sound was like silk tearing on a grand scale.
A portal opened , not a small flicker, but a wide, violet hole in reality. For a second, Zaliyah saw the market of his home city. He saw a young girl, a flower seller he recognized standing with her back to him.
"Stop! It's too unstable!" the tutor yelled.
But it was too late. The vacuum of the portal lunged forward. The young girl screamed as she was yanked off her feet, pulled through the hole by an invisible force.
She tumbled onto the cold stone of the Demon Realm, her basket of marigolds spilling everywhere.
The portal snapped shut with a violent explosion of energy.
Zaliyah fell back, his chest heaving. He looked at the girl , she was shaking, staring at the purple sky and the rough peaks with eyes full of pure terror.
"What have I done?" Zaliyah whispered, reaching out a hand. "I... I'm sorry."
The girl looked at him, then at his white hair and purple eyes, and let out a piercing scream of "DEMON!" before Harun stepped forward to restrain her.
Zaliyah turned away, his stomach churning.
He wasn't saving people anymore; he was a monster bringing them into hell.
The stasis chamber was the only place Zaliyah felt he could breathe. He sat on the edge of the ice dais, the cold seeping into his bones, but he didn't care.
"Two days left, Karas," he murmured, his fingers tracing the outline of Karas's jaw through the thin layer of frost. "The King is leaving tomorrow to fight a 'Serpent.' He thinks he's a god, but I see the way he looks at me. He thinks he owns me."
He leaned his head against the ice, his voice dropping to a heartbreaking whisper. "I saw a girl today. From home. I pulled her into this nightmare. The world is breaking, Karas, and I'm the one holding the hammer. If you don't wake up soon... I don't know if there will be anything left of the boy you loved. I'm turning into something cold. Something sharp. Wake up and remind me who I was."
He sat there for an hour, a lone white figure in the mist, before Iruna came to fetch him for his evening bath.
In the shadow-drenched wings of Lady Ailla's quarters, Shakdam sat at her mistress's feet.
The chamberlain's female features were sharp in the flickering candlelight, her eyes fixed on a small, ornate bowl of translucent paste.
"The King leaves at dawn," Ailla said, her voice a low purr. She was brushing her hair, her eyes fixed on her reflection. "He will be too busy slaughtering the serpent to notice a slow decline."
"It is a masterpiece of alchemy, My Lady," Shakdam replied, her voice smooth and dangerous. "A poison derived from the Night-Stalker's marrow. It is undetectable to the tongue or the breath. It enters through the pores."
"And the delivery?"
"The Consort's new 'gifts' from the Empress," Shakdam smiled. "I have infiltrated the maids. Tomorrow morning, when Iruna applies the ceremonial oils to his hands for the King's departure, the poison will be inserted beneath his fingernails. It will seep into his blood slowly. By the time the human wakes in three days, the Consort will be too weak to even stand. He will simply... fade away. A tragic 'reaction' to the demon realm's atmosphere."
Ailla laughed, a sharp, cold sound. "He wanted to be a bride. Let him see how cold the marriage bed can be when the heart stops beating."