The Spire of Avarice rose like a dagger from the heart of the golden city of Aurumveil. Here, coin was god, and secrets were its prayers. No kingdom worshipped Greed as devoutly or as effectively as this one, and no ruler embodied that worship more dangerously than Lilira, High Merchant-Priestess and champion of the Sin of Greed.
Kael stood at the threshold of her court, heart steeled, jaw tight. Velvet-robed servants adorned with chains of gold and tattooed symbols of commerce flanked the entrance, their eyes impassive, their hands hiding poisoned daggers beneath ceremonial trays. The scent of myrrh and old coins filled the air—a cloying sweetness that promised both temptation and treachery.
Behind him, Velra, Raela, and Syris waited at the edge of the chamber. Nyx had vanished again—shadowing Kael's path from the rooftops, invisible as envy itself.
Lilira lounged upon a throne crafted entirely of melted coinage and gemstone—a grotesque mosaic of past deals and broken empires. Her presence was suffocatingly poised, every breath a negotiation, every smile a ledger's entry.
"So," she purred, eyes glimmering with appraisal. "The Sinbound King graces me with his presence. Are you here to buy, to sell, or to be sold?"
Kael bowed—not deeply. "I've come to forge an alliance."
Lilira rose, her robes slithering like silk serpents across the marble floor. Her fingers were adorned with rings that sparkled like promises and threats alike. "Greed does not ally. Greed absorbs. What can you possibly offer me that I cannot take?"
Kael stepped forward. "A throne. And the power to shape the world that will kneel before it."
A hush fell. The court murmured. Lilira's smile sharpened.
"Oh, I like you," she said.
Negotiations with Lilira were not spoken—they were danced. A ceremony of movement and temptation. Kael found himself drawn into her private sanctum, past veiled alcoves of whispered prayers and braziers burning sacred contracts.
The chamber was both altar and bedroom, its ceiling hung with chains of silver scrolls—each a soul sold, a debt marked, a secret traded. Lilira beckoned him with one finger.
"To claim Greed, you must face your own," she whispered, pressing a golden chalice into his hands. "Drink."
Kael obeyed.
The liquid was fire and honey. The moment it touched his lips, the chamber vanished.
He was falling—no, drowning—in visions. Mountains of gold collapsing into graves. Thrones bleeding rubies. Women and kings groveling for scraps of power. He saw himself—crowned and hollow-eyed—sacrificing love for conquest. His harem torn by suspicion. Syris fading into mist. Raela broken on a battlefield. Velra, betrayed by a lover she had learned to trust.
And Lilira... standing atop it all, untouched, eternal.
"Greed is not desire," her voice echoed through the storm of visions. "It is insatiable. Can you tame what has no end?"
Kael screamed.
And awoke.
He gasped, soaked in sweat, back in the sanctum. Lilira stood over him, watching with something between amusement and concern.
"You survived," she said. "Most do not."
He rose unsteadily. "Was that a vision… or a warning?"
"Yes," she said simply.
Their ritual had bound her, though not as easily as the others. Unlike Pride or Wrath, Greed surrendered only to those who could see her chains and ask for more. Kael had touched the edges of her hunger—and fed it.
The Sinbound Mark burned brighter. Another sigil etched into his flesh, blooming gold and green. Another power added to his arsenal.
But Lilira made no promises of loyalty.
"Greed does not kneel," she said. "But I will walk beside the one who hungers as I do. Feed me purpose, Kael. Feed me gain. And I will feed your empire with power."
With Lilira's addition to the harem, tensions erupted like wildfire.
Velra and Lilira clashed immediately—ice and gold grinding with calculated venom. Syris warned of imbalance, her dreams fraying into threads of chaos. Raela questioned Lilira's loyalty at every turn.
Only Nyx watched silently, smiling whenever sparks flew.
Kael tried to hold the pieces together, but the weight of so many powerful women—each with her own sin-fueled ambition—strained his control.
"Don't forget," Velra said one night, cornering Kael in the strategy chamber, "you are not the only one playing this game. Lust does not rule—it corrupts. And Greed corrupts even that."
He kissed her then, fiercely, desperately, hoping to drown her doubts in desire.
It worked—briefly.
But Greed's arrival did not go unnoticed. Spies from Gluttonia—Kingdom of Excess—breached the outer defenses, leaving behind a trail of bodies and a cryptic warning burned into flesh:
"Sin feeds Sin. Glutton waits."
Kael stood over the bodies, blood staining the floor, Lilira at his side.
"Your throne draws attention," she said. "Best make sure you're the one who finishes the feast."
Kael clenched his fists.
There was no turning back now.
The Sinbound King would rise.
And the gods would tremble.
To prepare for the coming war, Kael assembled his court—a volatile mix of sin-bound champions and loyal, if uneasy, nobles. Lilira immediately took command of logistics and resources, transforming Aurumveil's trade networks into arteries of power.
She implemented rituals where offerings of wealth were turned into raw magical essence, feeding the Sinbound Mark and enhancing Kael's connection with the other sins. Her devotion to profit became a weapon—a doctrine.
In her private sermons, she taught a new creed: "Desire is divine. Debt is destiny."
Meanwhile, Velra pressed the military into rigorous formation. Syris scribed dream-warnings onto parchment soaked in moonlight. Raela led brutal drills, preparing soldiers for chaos.
Yet it was Nyx who whispered first of betrayal. "Someone among us plays a second game," she murmured in Kael's ear one night. "And gold always buys more than loyalty."
Lilira's influence spread quickly. Too quickly.
Kael confronted her in the treasury-turned-temple.
"You're gathering more power than I intended," he said. "You're not just managing my resources. You're building your own empire."
Lilira, bare-shouldered in gold-draped silks, turned from her ledgers with a feline smile. "You misunderstand, my king. I build your empire—as I build mine. Our fortunes are tied. You want devotion. I want dominion. We can both win."
He stepped closer. "Or you could be laying the path to my ruin."
She pressed a hand to his chest, over the Mark. "Only if you let yourself be outbid."
They clashed then—not with weapons, but with need. Their desires colliding, bargaining, baring vulnerability in the currency of touch and voice. And when the ritual was done, Kael knew he had not won. He had merely broken even.
Far away, in the wastelands beyond Lust's borders, a figure clad in bone-white robes stood before a mirror of obsidian. The reflection twisted—not showing his face, but Kael's.
"The sixth is bound," the figure murmured. "Soon, the seventh shall awaken. And with it, the chain will be complete."
He reached out, and the mirror rippled like black water.
"Let the Sin War begin."