The Sanctum of Velvet was a realm of whispers.
Its walls pulsed with breath, its skies shimmered with longing. Every step echoed with desire, every shadow held a secret. Lust did not walk—she glided, her presence bending reality like silk caught in wind.
She was beautiful, yes—but not in form. Her beauty was in effect. She made others forget themselves. And in forgetting, they became hers.
But Pride never forgot.
That was the wound.
Lust had danced before Pride a thousand times—veiled in illusions, cloaked in adoration. She had offered him worlds sculpted from worship, galaxies that moaned his name. And Pride had looked through her, not at her.
"You see only yourself," she had once whispered.
Pride had replied, "There is nothing else worth seeing."
Now, in the velvet sanctum, Lust stood before a mirror that did not reflect. It absorbed. She placed her hand upon it, and the glass rippled like water.
From its depths, she summoned faces—every lover Pride had rejected, every temptation he had dismissed. She wove them into a tapestry of illusion, a weapon not of blade or flame, but of longing unfulfilled.
Greed's whisper had reached her days ago.
"Pride does not see you. I can make him kneel."
Lust did not want Pride to kneel.
She wanted him to desire.
She wanted him to ache.
She wanted him to look into her eyes and see not a sin—but a mirror.
She stepped into the illusion, her veil trailing behind her like smoke.
And the Sanctum of Velvet began to hum.