The Justicar's personal sanctum was not a hall of judgment. It was a tomb for noise. The walls were flawless, starless obsidian, polished to such a perfect, cold clarity that they reflected not just Veridia's form, but the very essence of her weary pride. There was no throne, no gallery, only an oppressive, absolute silence that felt heavier than stone.
Floating in the dense air were faint, shimmering ribbons of light—the holographic text of the First Pacts, the foundational laws of their entire reality. They drifted like spectral algae in a deep, black ocean, their ancient runes pulsing with a quiet, inexorable power that seemed to drain all other energy from the room. The air itself was thick, weighted with the gravity of eons of judgment.
"I was expecting something a bit more… dramatic," Seraphine's voice started, a flicker of her usual high-production venom. "Perhaps a few tastefully arranged skeletons, a dramatic shaft of light? This is terrible for the broadcast, darling. No spectacle at all."
Her words died in her throat, strangled by the sheer pressure of the chamber. The oppressive gravity pressed down, silencing her snark as if it were a child's trivial complaint. Her illusory form, usually so vibrant and self-assured, seemed muted here, its light struggling against the profound darkness like a dying ember.
Veridia felt it too. Her carefully constructed mask of a bored queen, the one she had worn with such triumph in the forum, felt thin and brittle. The stage was gone. The audience was gone. She was no longer a player in a game she controlled. Here, she was merely a subject, a line item on a docket, brought before a power she could not seduce, manipulate, or impress.
Justicar Morian stood in the center of the room, a figure of absolute stillness. He did not greet them. He did not acknowledge their status or their recent, earth-shattering victory. He simply regarded them as a complex legal problem that had finally arrived for resolution.
"Your positions," he stated, his voice a low, passionless rumble that was absorbed by the very stone it touched. He gestured with one slow, deliberate hand toward two bare circles inscribed on the obsidian floor.
Veridia moved without a word, her steps unnervingly loud in the quiet. She stepped onto the circle, the stone shockingly cold beneath her feet. Across from her, Seraphine did the same, her usual fluid grace replaced by a tense, nervous silence. The mask of the witty, untouchable host was gone, revealing the pale, frightened demon beneath. This was a reality she could not narrate.
Morian's ancient gaze settled on them both, a weight that felt physical. "The bond forged between you by your sister was an illegal fetter, a perversion of the laws of life and transference. This ritual will correct that violation." His eyes, old as dying stars, held no malice, no pity. Only the weary finality of his office. "Any resistance, physical or metaphysical, will be interpreted as a confession of complicity in the original crime. The consequences will be immediate and absolute."
Dread, cold and sharp, pierced through Veridia's triumphant armor. She glanced at Seraphine, and for the first time in years, she saw not a rival, but a reflection of her own burgeoning fear.
Morian began the ritual. He did not chant or draw upon some grand external power. He simply spoke a single word, a legal term from the First Pacts that resonated not in their ears, but in the very core of their beings.
"Injunction."
Reality responded. A raw, crimson thread of energy erupted from the center of Veridia's chest, a violent, physical violation that felt like a hot spike being driven through her soul. It shot across the space between them, slamming into an identical point on Seraphine's now-tangible form. Seraphine cried out, a sharp, choked gasp of pain and shock.
The thread thickened, swelling into a pulsing, visceral chain of living spite. It was not metal, but something more horrifying—a cord of solidified hatred and unwilling connection, thrumming with a low, dissonant hum that strained the very air. With its appearance, a flood of shared sensation poured across the link. Veridia felt a phantom echo of Seraphine's smug satisfaction watching her grovel in the mud before Gravemaw. Seraphine, in turn, felt the cold, sharp triumph Veridia had experienced orchestrating the takedown of her rivals. It was an invasive, intimate, and agonizing exchange.
A violent, tearing sensation seized Veridia, an agony beyond any physical blow she had ever endured. She felt her life force, her very soul, being pulled taut against her sister's, a cosmic tug-of-war where both sides were destined to be ripped apart. Across from her, Seraphine was contorted in the same torment, her face a mask of pure agony, tears streaming from her eyes. In that moment, united by a pain that transcended their rivalry, they were truly sisters again, bound by a shared and exquisite suffering.
The chain pulsed, glowing brighter, hotter. The pull intensified, threatening to unmake them both, to tear their very essences into screaming, metaphysical static.
Justicar Morian watched, his expression unchanged by the spectacle of their torment. He raised his hand, the gesture as slow and inevitable as a continent shifting, and spoke the second word, the final verdict.
"Unmake."
The chain flared white-hot. Cracks of pure, blinding light raced along its crimson length. There was a sound that was not a sound—a silent scream that tore through Veridia's mind, the psychic shattering of a million shards of glass, each shard a shared memory of hate, envy, and pain.
The chain exploded.
A blinding shower of fading red motes filled the sanctum, a firework display of their sundered connection. The pressure vanished. The agonizing pull was gone. The dissonant hum collapsed into perfect, ringing silence.
Seraphine gasped, a shuddering breath of pure, unadulterated relief. But as her eyes focused, the relief was chased away by a dawning, naked terror. She was alone. Truly, finally, on her own. The cameras were off. The Patrons were gone. Her power, her platform, her entire identity had been built on the foundation of her sister's suffering, and that foundation had just been obliterated.
For Veridia, the initial shock was one of absolute triumph. It was done. The goal she had fought for, bled for, and humiliated herself for was finally achieved. The silence in her mind, where Seraphine's voice had been a constant, venomous companion, was vast and peaceful. She had won. She was free.
But as the adrenaline receded and the profound silence of the sanctum rushed back in, the expected wave of ecstatic triumph didn't come. Instead, a cold, hollow sensation spread through her chest from the very spot where the chain had been anchored. It wasn't the echo of pain. It was an unnerving, profound, and utterly unexpected emptiness. The rivalry had been a cage, but it had also been a purpose. The hatred had been a poison, but it had also been a fire that kept her warm. For the first time in years, there was no one else there. And as the weight of that absolute solitude settled upon her, it felt less like freedom and more like a loss.