Lady Ariana rose.
She was not tall, but the moment she stood, the air thickened—as if the great hall itself held its breath. The wind outside howled through the arches, rattling lanterns and sending shadows skittering across polished marble.
"Blasphemer!" the priest spat, voice shrill with fury. "You mock the herald of Arivan? Without His grace, your son would be dust in the earth—an empty womb's sorrow. And now you deny Him? Arivan is the seedgiver. The architect of futures. The child is His vessel."
And Lady Ariana laughed.
It was not the laugh of a mother or a noblewoman. It was the cold, sharp laugh of someone who had heard too much—seen too much—to be swayed by threats dressed in holy garb.
"You presume too much," she said, voice cutting through the hall like a drawn blade. "To speak so boldly in these halls. It seems to me you've forgotten your place, priest."
The color drained from the man's face.
He had forgotten—forgotten that he stood not in a temple, but in the stronghold of Ortenia. That before him stood the Lady of the West, wife to Sued Ozar Aren, daughter of fire and frost, sovereign of the bloodline the gods once feared.
Then he choked.
One moment, he stood tall, robes fluttering. The next—he was lifted by invisible hands, clawing at his throat, feet dangling above the floor like a broken marionette. His eyes bulged. A faint violet light flared from his chest. With a sudden crack, the light burst, freeing him from whatever unseen grip had seized him.
He dropped like a stone, coughing, gasping, his limbs spasming like a creature half-born. His skin shimmered—green, then silver, then gray—and his fingers bent at impossible angles.
Arion flinched in Ariana's arms. The world had shifted. Reality had tilted.
Lady Ariana stepped forward, her voice rising like a storm: "You insult my House with demon's breath? You call yourself holy and reek of sulfur? You wear the mask of godhood, but you are void-born filth. Begone."
With a flick of her hand, a thunderous force slammed into the priest, lifting him like a leaf in a gale. He crashed through flowered arrangements, shattered the edge of the pond, and struck the far castle wall with a boom that made the stone groan. Servants screamed. Knights rushed in with steel drawn.
"You sought to prey upon our desperation," she hissed. "But you shall not have him."
From the air itself, knights emerged, shimmering into being, forming a protective circle around Arion. The priest, rising from the rubble, had become… other.
He grew. Bones lengthened, joints cracked, flesh peeled away. From the tatters of his robe emerged something horned, scaled, and grinning—a thousand teeth and two eyes glowing like lanterns in a crypt. His breath smelled of ancient decay and broken oaths.
"The pact is sealed!" the creature roared, its voice layered and inhuman. "When the time comes, he will meet his fate! You made a promise, and no vow sworn before a god may be undone. He is ours!"
Steel shifted. The knights closed ranks. But even they, seasoned and grim, could not conceal the dread crawling into their bones.
Lady Ariana did not flinch. "No. His light will shine forever."
"Wench!" the creature howled. "What have you done?"
She walked forward, unshaken. "He is shielded by the light of Arion, star-born and ever-burning. Herald of the Endless Sky. You and your master shall never have him."
"You called on Him?" the beast recoiled. "You cursed your line for generations!"
And then—the skies answered.
Clouds churned like boiling ink. Light vanished. The sun itself dimmed. Above, something vast and unknowable stirred. It had no face, no shape, no mercy. Those among the guests who looked up screamed—then went silent forever.
Arion stared, wide-eyed, as death swept through the hall like a silent wind. Nobles, maids, knights—faces he had seen laughing moments ago—now lay crumpled and lifeless on the cold stone floor. Their joy, their ambitions, their futures—all snuffed out in an instant. Some still clutched goblets or leaned mid-conversation, frozen forever in the moment they died.
They had not been weak in body, but in spirit. Whatever ancient horror had slipped through the veil, it had reached into their souls with unseen claws—and it did not let go.
His small heart pounded like a war drum, each beat louder than the last. The air itself felt wrong, thick and bruised. Mist coiled through the high arches of the ceiling, curling down like rotted silk from some monstrous loom. It shimmered with a sickly light, whispering as it moved.
And just when the fear threatened to break him—when the weight of it all threatened to splinter his mind—something stopped it.
His father stepped forward.
No horns sounded. No light accompanied him.
Lord Sued entered the courtyard as though through a veil. No sword in hand, only the weight of his presence. He glanced not at the demon, nor the writhing sky—but to his wife and child.
Then he turned.
"You," he said, voice flat and old as the mountains. "You who fed on worship, who built yourself on the bones of faith... you, who draped yourself in stolen godhood."
He raised his hand.
Dark mist slid from the earth, coalescing into a presence too large for the space around it. The void stared back, unblinking, hate-filled, eternal.
Golden light flickered in Lord Sued's eyes—like the last breath of a dying star.
"In my father's name," he said, voice resounding like a funeral bell, "and his father before, I—Sued Ozar Aren—sever your name from the heavens and cast you, and all who follow you, into the abyss beyond reincarnation!"
The clouds froze.
The beast screamed—and unraveled.
It did not fall. It did not flee. It was simply gone—unmade.
Silence followed. Not peace, but something deeper.
The shattered wall still stood. The broken roses still lay scattered. And a child blinked up at the heavens, unaware he had just escaped a fate written in blood and stars.