A cave, and a feast? Helios tilted his head, brows furrowed in genuine curiosity. The request was strange. His companion possessed treasures beyond reckoning: palaces carved into mountain peaks, forests rich with sacred beasts, relics from forgotten ages, and countless worshippers. Wealth was never a concern for gods.
Yet a cave, and a feast within it? What meaning could those words conceal?
"Has Eric already triumphed in his final trial?" Helios asked at last.
Elijah inclined his head, voice carrying reverence. "My master is no ordinary being. Wisdom and intellect are his truest dominion." His words were a praise, yet shaped carefully to confirm Helios' suspicion.
"And when does he plan to ascend?" Helios pressed, tone edged with impatience. "I need a measure of time, or my thoughts remain restless."
Elijah raised three fingers.
Helios stared, irritation flickering across his features. He had no taste for riddles. "Three?"
"Three weeks after this engagement," Elijah clarified calmly.
Helios closed his eyes, retreating into memory. Fragments of millennia stirred: distant echoes of caves, shrines, and hidden sanctuaries. When his eyes opened, they shone with golden light. He lifted his hands, and three phantom peaks hovered in the air, shimmering like mirages.
"Μελισσάνης. Ἰδαῖον Ἄντρον. Σπήλαιον Διροῦ."
The radiance faded from his gaze. Elijah stepped closer, studying the spectral caverns, weighing their features against what he knew of Eric's desires.
*
*
*
Far below the sun's golden reach loomed the Palace of the Devil, the House of Abaddon. Its obsidian walls shimmered like the frozen veil of night, and the bronze floor of its great hall reflected the light like a captive flame. Yet for all its grandeur, faint cracks marred the stone, and cobwebs whispered of time's hunger.
The chamber did not echo with the wails of the damned as one might expect. Instead, it trembled with a shrill cry: the cry of an infant. Swaddled in white cloth, the child's voice rose sharp as a blade, piercing the vaulted silence.
Demons shifted uneasily before the throne of human bones. Their lord reclined upon it, silver chalice in hand, crimson wine staining his lips. Their faces darkened with irritation; veins swelled across their foreheads. Yet none dared silence the wailing. This was no mortal child.
At last, one general broke. "Abaddon… have you lost your senses?"
Abaddon lowered the chalice. His grin spread, slow and unsettling, like a crack splitting stone. "Lost them?" His voice was soft, almost tender. "I have found what none of you could even dream. And you ask if I have lost my mind?" His grin widened into something jagged. "Perhaps I have. But tell me—does not madness often resemble brilliance, until the world is forced to kneel?"
The demon faltered, bowing low. "I meant no offense, lord."
Abaddon laughed. The sound was rich, booming, but there was a serrated edge to it, silk wrapped around steel. His voice filled the hall, commanding, magnetic even in its instability.
"I starved once. I begged." His tone dropped, his eyes burning with red fire. "My brother took my throne, my beloved, my very name as a god. And she—Callista—she turned her face to him while I knelt in the dirt. I wept before her, and still she chose him." His hands clenched, crushing the chalice until wine dripped like blood between his fingers.
He rose, stepping down from the throne, his presence heavy, suffocating. "But I will return it all. Not as it was, no. Greater. Blood for blood, throne for throne, love for love. They will crawl before me, not as brothers or lovers or gods, but as worms."
One general trembled, voice weak. "But the child—whose is it?"
Abaddon's expression twisted into delight, sharp, manic, dangerous. "A child? That wretched thing?" He gestured to the crying infant, eyes gleaming with feverish pride. "It is mine. Not of flesh, not of sin, but of design. I bound corruption to my blood, wove its bones with the branch of the World Tree, and breathed into it the mana of a dark elf. I made life from rot. Order from chaos. This creature is my testament, my firstborn."
The generals exchanged horrified glances. Some shrank back. Others could not stop staring. The air itself seemed to pulse with the infant's cries.
Abaddon's voice dropped, smooth as honey and venom. "Do you not see? This is power. Creation unchained. You call it madness, yet your hearts tremble because you know it is more. You fear it, because it is divine. My divinity."
The generals began whispering, uncertain.
"Perhaps a healer—"
"No, bind him with spells before this festers—"
"His eyes… gods preserve us, look at his eyes—"
Kassandra's voice cut through the murmur, sharp and scornful. "Cowards. You speak as though you do not crave the fruits of his power. Tell me, which of you would walk away if he offered you a share of it?"
Her words struck them silent.
Abaddon laughed again, this time softer, almost warm. His gaze swept over them, and for a heartbeat, there was beauty in him: the echo of the god he had once been. His words were silk now, rich with persuasion. "Do you not long for more? You serve me because you fear me. But you could follow me because you believe. I will give you kingdoms carved from bone, thrones drenched in light and shadow alike. If you bow now, you will rise as more than demons. You will rise as my chosen."
The generals' eyes flickered with awe despite their terror. His madness was undeniable, but his words rang with promise. He was terrifying, yet compelling, too dangerous to resist.
Then his voice hardened, his warmth vanishing like mist in fire. "But if you whisper of doubt again, I will take from you what you value most. Right arm, left arm, or your tongues—you choose."
They dropped to their knees, prostrating themselves. The bronze floor shuddered with their weight.
Abaddon let the silence hang, savoring their fear, their submission. At last, he flicked his hand. "Audience dismissed."
The generals fled, their shadows vanishing into the dark like fleeing prey. Only Kassandra remained. She stood unmoved, arms folded across her chest, her gaze sharp and unwavering.
Abaddon sat upon his throne once more, one hand resting upon the arm carved of bone. His other still trembled faintly from the pressure of his grip on the chalice. The infant's cries echoed high above, mingling with the faint whisper of cobwebs shifting in some unseen draft.
"You linger," he said, his voice smooth, but beneath it thrummed an unstable edge, like a lyre strung too tight. His crimson gaze slid to her. "Does fear not compel you to follow the others?"
"I fear," Kassandra answered, her tone clipped, "but not in the same way they do." She let her arms fall to her sides, stepping closer into the radius of his madness. "They see a madman. I see… something else."
Abaddon tilted his head, lips curving into a grin both amused and predatory. "And what is it you see, little viper?"
"I see a god who has convinced himself he is remaking creation," she said plainly. "And I see the cracks in that god. The hunger. The wounds you bury under laughter."
For a moment, silence. Then Abaddon's laugh rang out, sudden and wild, bouncing off the obsidian walls. He leaned forward, eyes burning. "You wound me, Kassandra, yet your words thrill me. You speak like one unafraid to touch fire. Tell me, do you not see brilliance where others whimper? Do you not feel it? The birth of something greater?" He gestured to the wailing infant. "That cry is the sound of a new age beginning."
Kassandra's expression did not soften, though a flicker of something—unease, fascination—passed through her eyes. "Or the cry of abomination. Which do you truly believe it is?"
Abaddon rose from his throne, descending the steps with the grace of one who once ruled among gods. His aura pressed down like a storm. "Why not both? Creation is abomination to those who cannot understand it. Did not the first flame terrify the mortals who saw it? Did not the first storm drive them to caves? And yet fire became their hearth, storms their harvest. My child will be the same. A terror now, but soon… worshipped."
He drew closer, his voice lowering, almost intimate. "And you, Kassandra—why do you stay? You could run, like the others. You could plot against me. Yet here you stand. Do you crave to see what becomes of my design? Or do you crave something more?"
Her breath hitched, but she did not step back. "I stay because someone must stand close enough to see where you truly fall."
For an instant, Abaddon was silent. Then his lips parted into a smile that was not wholly madness; there was beauty in it, dangerous beauty. "You are bold," he whispered. "Bold enough to watch me burn the world, yet remain at my side."
His hand reached out, fingers brushing the air near her face, not touching, but close enough to chill. "Perhaps you will be the first to kneel willingly. Or perhaps the last to stand when all else is ash."
Kassandra held his gaze, refusing to flinch. "Or perhaps I will be the one to strike when your madness blinds you."
The air between them tightened. The infant wailed again, sharp as a knife, breaking the moment. Abaddon threw back his head and laughed, the sound manic yet triumphant.
"Good!" he bellowed. "Stay near, viper. Watch. Doubt. Threaten. It matters not. You will bear witness when the heavens themselves tremble at my return." His eyes gleamed with wild promise. "And when they kneel, you will kneel too, whether by choice or with your bones ground into the earth."
Kassandra did not answer. She only folded her arms once more, her silence louder than any retort. Yet in her stillness lay danger: not submission, not rebellion, but something more cunning.
Abaddon sank back into his throne, still grinning, still trembling with laughter that teetered between godly charisma and unhinged madness.
The infant's cries filled the hall again. This time, they no longer sounded merely like a child's voice but like the herald of something dreadful, echoing through the obsidian walls, carried on the air like prophecy.