The air in the room grew freezingly cold, the previous warmth was replaced by a heavy, suffocating pressure that felt like being submerged in a pool of freezing water.
Zaliyah felt the shift before he heard it. The faint, comforting scent of sandalwood and home that clung to Karas was suddenly replaced by the blood from a slaughterhouse.
He withdrew from the kiss, his heart leaping into his throat, his violet eyes widening until the whites showed as they landed on the two figures framed in the doorway.
Malachi and Kizari looked less like royalty and more like primal nightmares, their silhouettes dripping with the fresh, steaming blood of the court they had just decimated,Malachi's horns were fully extended, ragged and black, while a terrible beauty ignited in Kizari's eyes, glowing with a manic, emerald light.
"Oh... shit," Zaliyah whispered, the words barely a breath. His knees felt like they were made of water and for a moment the world tilted.
Karas, still lost in the desperate relief of the embrace, didn't notice the monsters in the shadow at first.
He gripped Zaliyah's shoulders, his thumbs tracing the line of Zaliyah's collarbone. "Come with me," he urged, his eyes brimming with a decade's worth of unshed tears. "Zaliyah, please, right now before they find us"
Zaliyah knew the physics of the room had changed. He saw Malachi's eyes no longer the eyes of the man who had played with Nyxian days ago, but the eyes of an ancient, wounded predator.
If Karas stayed another second, he wouldn't just die; he would be unmade.
"I love you, Karas" Zaliyah muttered, a single tear trailled down his cheek.
With a final,surge of his fading strength, he traced a silver line in the air. A portal hissed open, a swirling vortex of human-realm mist that smelled of rain and grass.
Before Karas could even grasp what was happening, Zaliyah shoved him with everything he had left.
"Noooooooooo!" Karas's scream was cut short as the portal swallowed him whole, snapping shut into a vacuum that left the room in a state of unnatural silence.
Malachi stood frozen. He had just spent the last hour in a state of hyper-violence, shedding the blood of his own high-ranking generals and kinsmen to protect the one thing he thought was his.
He had sacrificed his reputation, the stability of his throne, and the approval of his lineage, all for a boy who was, in reality, a celestial who had just confessed love to a human "stray."
A cold, chilling laugh bubbled up from Malachi's throat. It was a the sound of a mind finally snapping under the weight of its own obsession .
He looked at the empty space where the portal had been, then slowly fixed his gaze on Zaliyah.
Iruna moved first. Her wings unfurled with a sharp snap, her intentions clear: to shield Zaliyah from the coming storm.
But Kizari was a blur. With a flick of her wrist, a black dagger whistled through the air, glowing with dark energy. It pierced Iruna's shoulder, pinning her to the basalt wall like a butterfly to a board. She let out a choked cry, her wings twitching uselessly.
Kizari followed suit, her lips curled in a delighted sneer. She snapped her fingers, and a wave of frost raced across the floor.
Harun's body suddenly frosted over, his limbs locking in a magical rime of ice, that pinned him beside his sister. Their mouths were sealed by invisible threads of shadow, Kizari's specialty.
She wanted them silent. She wanted them to be the perfect, mute audience for the spectacle of a King breaking his toy.
Zaliyah took a trembling step toward Malachi, his hands raised in a useless gesture of peace. "Malachi...It... It's not what you think," he stammered, his voice small against the roaring silence of the King's aura.
Malachi stopped laughing. The room went dead silent. The only sound was thw blood dripping from Malachi's claws onto the floor.
POW.
The backhand slap was so fast the eyes couldn't track it . The force of Malachi's demonic strength sent Zaliyah flying ten feet across the room. He hit the far wall with a sickening thud, a sound of bone meeting stone and slumped to the floor. His vision fractured while He struggled to push himself up, his lungs burning as he coughed a thick spray of blood onto the red silk of his sleeves.
Malachi began to walk. The thud of his boots on the floor was the only sound that echoed in the room.
"I just painted the halls in the blood of my kin to keep you alive," Malachi growled. "And I find you letting a stray animal soil your silks."
Zaliyah wiped the blood from his mouth, his gaze flickering with a spark of defiance. "He's... he's not a stray."
THWACK.
The second slap was twice as hard. Zaliyah's head snapped to the side, and the golden hairpins holding his hair in a ponytail burst under the pressure. His hair cascaded around his face.It hit him then , the realization that the Malachi he had known was just a mask, This was the King of the Underworld.
The beating that followed was a slow motion descent into agony, a masterpiece of cruelty.
Malachi didn't use magic, he wanted the visceral sensation of Zaliyah's fragility breaking under his hands.
Malachi struck Zaliyah with heavy, calculated blows, the sound of skin meeting fist echoing like a drum in the hollow room.
He kicked him in the ribs, sending him rolling like a discarded doll across the room, only to drag him back up by the collar to strike him again.
Each hit was punctuated by the wet sound of Zaliyah's breathing growing shallower. His face began to swell, his eyes turning into bruised, purple slits. Blood leaked from his nose and mouth, and eventually, a slow, hot trickle began to run from his ears, a sign of internal damage that made Iruna's eyes fill with uncontrollable tears.
In the eyes of the twins, it felt like it lasted for hours.
Kizari watched the entire scene with a flush of genuine amazement. Her cheeks were bright red her breath hitching with every impact. She watched the way Zaliyah's limbs flopped uselessly, the way his expensive silks were becoming shredded and soaked with blood, To her, this wasn't tragedy; it was art, This was the Malachi she had married, a creature of absolute cruelty.
Malachi reached down and hoisted Zaliyah up by his throat, his claws indenting the pale skin. With a guttural snarl, he drove a fist into Zaliyah's stomach. The air left Zaliyah's lungs in a wet wheeze, and he felt something inside ,a rib, perhaps give way with a sharp crack.
Malachi didn't let him fall. He slammed him back against the wall, the impact rattling Zaliyah's teeth.
"Is this what you wanted?" Malachi hissed, his face inches from Zaliyah's. He began to systematically strike Zaliyah's face, short, brutal hooks that split the skin of his eyebrows and shattered his cheekbone. Each punch sounded like a mallet hitting raw meat.
Zaliyah's world became a kaleidoscope of agony. He felt his lip split to the bone, warm blood flooded his mouth until he was choking on it.
Malachi dropped him, and as Zaliyah curled into a defensive ball on the floor, the King began to use his boots.
One kick caught Zaliyah in the kidneys, An electric jolt spreading through his spine. Another landed square in his chest, forcing a spray of blood from his lips that painted Malachi's boots.
"Look at me!" Malachi roared, grabbing Zaliyah by the hair forcing their face, inches spart.
Zaliyah's breathing was a horrific gurgling sound. His left eye had swollen shut, a bruised, angry lump of purple flesh. The other eye, glazed and unfocused, stared back at his tormentor. Malachi struck him again, a downward palm strike that broke Zaliyah's nose, sending a fresh torrent of gore down his chin.
Zaliyah finally lay on the ground, a broken heap of crimson silk and bone. He looked unrecognizable, A pile of discarded meat in the center of a royal bedchamber.
Kizari stepped closer, her heels clicking near Zaliyah's head. "You really do not care about our feelings,my darling," she teased, her voice light and melodic. "I let the blood of those filthy nobles stain my favorite silks just so you could elope with a human dog? I'm so hurt."
"I... I was not... going to elope," Zaliyah choked out, his voice a wet rasp. He coughed, a large clot of blood splattering on the floor. "I....I had no... plans..."he muffled
"All you had to do was be a trophy wife," Kizari hissed, her face contorting into a mask of spite. "You didn't only cheat, you got pregnant? For a human? You really are nothing but a Celestial Whore."
Zaliyah let out a rough, sarcastic laugh that turned into a wheeze. He looked up through his one eye that wasn't swollen shut focusing on Malachi. "If Malachi's own mother... was incapable of loving him... why is it my job to give him the love... he is unworthy of?"
The air in the room vanished. The insult was a nuclear strike. Kizari's hand flew back to strike him, but Malachi was faster.
He lunged forward and grabbed a fistful of Zaliyah's hair, yanking his head back with a violence that made Zaliyah's neck crack.
"Let me show you what it feels like to be at the mercy of a King," Malachi roared.
THUD.
"I sacrificed my reputation for you!" Malachi bashed Zaliyah's head into the floor.
THUD.
"I put my throne on the line for you!" Again, the sound of bone meeting stone.
THUD.
"I jeopardized my lineage for you!"
With every sentence, he hammered Zaliyah's skull against the floor,"And what do I get in return? An unremorseful whore? You must think me an idiot" He dragged Zaliyah to the wall and began to countlessly slam his head against the bricks , the stone cracking under the force. Each impact made Zaliyah's body go more limp .
Malachi was a man possessed, a King who had realized his treasure was a traitor and intended to destroy it before anyone else could claim.
Iruna and Harun watched in a state of absolute, silent torture. Iruna's muffled screams were lost behind the shadow-seal, blood leaking From her yes and ears, an effect of forcefully trying to break from Kizari's Sealing spell, Harun's wings shredded from his struggle against the dagger pinning him. Harun's eyes were bloodshot, helplessly filled with rage .
When Malachi finally released his grip, a massive chunk of Zaliyah's hair remained in his palms, he had literally torn it from the scalp in his fury.
Zaliyah lay like a discarded rag doll. His face was a mask of gore, his clothes tattered and soaked through his breathing so subtle it was almost non-existent .
Malachi looked down at him in pure disgust, wiping a stray drop of Zaliyah's blood from his own cheek.
Kizari , however, looked down at the broken body with a dark eroticized glee. A shattered Zaliyah was far more beautiful than a living one
"You have no choice but to stay here," Malachi spoke , his voice sounding oddly hollow , a jarring shift from the thunderous violence moments before.
"See how kind your husband is?" Kizari added, mocking him. "Even your little bastard will be dressed in the finest silks, they'll be royalty, they would command a thousand demons, Just give in."
Zaliyah's fingers twitched in the pool of his blood. He summed up every ounce of his remaining energy. "I... I'd rather die... than be with you."
With a final act of defiance, he gathered the blood in his mouth and spat it directly into Malachi's face.
The silence that followed was the end of the world.
Malachi slowly wiped the blood from his eye. A crazy, smirk spread across his face. "Unfortunately for you , death isn't on the menu. But I will give you a glimpse of it."
Malachi's claws shot out, sinking deep into the tender skin of Zaliyah's neck, Zaliyah's mouth opened, but it felt like a knot of terror tightened in his throat, turning every attempt at a cry into a strangled , dry rasp .
Malachi simply began to walk, dragging Zaliyah by the throat across the basalt floors.
The "Walk of Shame" was grotesque. Malachi dragged him through the grand corridors, Zaliyah's body limp and leaving a long, dark trail of blood behind him that would take days to scrub away.
Maids and lesser nobles dove into the shadows, shivering in terror at the sight of their King transformed into a butcher.
Kizari followed, her eyes wide with excitement , her silk skirts swishing through the blood trail, behind her the powerless twins were floated along by her aura, forced to witness every inch of the path as Zaliyah's head lolled and bumped against the stone steps as they reached the Execution Tower.
Malachi reached the summit, He grabbed Zaliyah by what remained of his hair, lifting him up like like a lifeless doll . He unfurled his massive black wings and took to the sky, flying higher and higher until the palace was a speck and the clouds began to swallow them .
Kizari stood at the edge of the tower,her eyes fixed on the silhouette of the King in the sky, making sure the twins had a front-row seat.
High above the world, Malachi looked into Zaliyah's swollen, half closed eyes.
"You wanted death, right? I am the messenger of death."
Without another word, He opened his hand.
Malachi released his hold, and Zaliyah bloody, broken, and carrying the child of the man he loved began his long, silent fall toward the waiting rocks below.