Chapter 56 – The Black Pact
The Iron Empire was not quiet.
It breathed like a beast—constant noise, steam, and stone. Black forges roared in every city Jean passed. Airships patrolled the skies. Men with iron masks marched in rhythm to a song of conquest. And above it all loomed the Obsidian Spire—the Iron Empress's seat of power.
Jean moved in the shadows.
A gray cloak concealed her armor. Luxclade, veiled in enchanted wrappings, pulsed faintly at her back. Whitney, unseen to all but her, stalked in spirit form beside her.
Inside the fortress-city of Kaer Voss, she found it—a gathering of cloaked figures in a sunken chapel far beneath the streets. It wasn't just a place of war.
It was a temple.
To a forgotten god.
They spoke in hushed tones, not of Celeste or any known deity, but of Vorokhal—the god of extinction. The god banished during the age of dragons.
And kneeling among them, tall and cruel in silver-etched armor, was a figure Jean had only heard described in whispers.
A dark emissary.
She felt his presence before she saw his face. His aura was not holy—it was void. Cold. Still.
"Brothers," the emissary said, "Antares sleeps, but his flame is scattered. The girl who wields Luxclade bears one half. We will reclaim it."
Someone asked, "And the other?"
The emissary's eyes gleamed. "The Iron Empress herself guards it—bound in her own soul. Her pact with Vorokhal ensures she shall not die until the flame is whole again."
Jean's breath caught.
The Iron Empress holds part of Severra's soul…
That's why she's hunted relics. Why she never dies. She's fused with Severra's broken flame.
A low growl echoed in Jean's mind—Severra, stirring.
"That traitor... she wears my fire like a crown."
Jean turned to slip away—but her aura flared, just once.
Enough.
The dark emissary snapped his gaze toward the ceiling. Toward her.
"She's here."
The chamber exploded in light and flame as Jean dropped through the rafters, Luxclade blazing. The cultists shrieked. Whitney pounced.
But the emissary stood calm.
He raised a hand—and darkness coiled like smoke.
"Welcome, Emissary of Light," he said. "Come to finish what Martin Luther began?"
Jean held Luxclade aloft. "No. I'm here to end what the gods failed to destroy."
They clashed beneath the chapel's broken altar, flame versus void.
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