"Tales of Desire: Forbidden Stories – Story 1: The Demon Queen's Throne". Genre: Dark Fantasy / Erotica / Power Play)
Chapter 15: Citadel of the Forsaken
The wind howled across the ashen plains.
What had once been sacred ground now lay defiled—blades of black grass swayed under an unnatural sky, and the air pulsed with a low, droning hum, like a dying heartbeat stretched across eternity.
Velzaria stood at the head of her army, her crimson cape torn and stained, her silver crown darkened at the edges. Behind her, Kael surveyed the jagged silhouette of the ruined citadel—a spiraling monolith of void-forged stone, glowing faintly with sickly violet veins.
The soldiers were silent. Not out of fear, but reverence. They had marched for weeks through cursed lands, following two figures who should have stood on opposite sides of history.
And now, the end was in sight.
"We're not marching further with blind eyes," Kael said, stepping beside Velzaria. "I'm taking a squad through first. Scouts. Mages. Keep your war council on standby."
Velzaria's expression was unreadable. "If you're ambushed, the citadel will devour you. It's not just cursed—it's sentient. It remembers pain, and it feeds on memory."
Kael didn't flinch. "Then it will remember me."
She narrowed her gaze, but said nothing more. Only lifted her clawed gauntlet and gestured for her best to follow him—five elite warriors: two demons, one dryad scout, a wind sorceress, and a paladin defector named Gherin.
Together, they crossed the threshold of the Citadel of the Forsaken.
Inside the Citadel
The halls were alive.
Stone melted and reformed in abstract angles; staircases coiled in loops; gravity bent sideways. The very laws of reality rebelled against them. Every few steps, Kael felt something brush the edge of his mind—a whisper, a memory, a desire long buried.
"Careful," Gherin muttered. "The void doesn't lie. It tempts with truths."
They moved slowly, weapons drawn, senses heightened. Despite the twisted geometry, the citadel had structure: hallways of obsidian bones, murals of forgotten battles, and rooms pulsing with dark magic.
Then came the illusions.
Kael paused in front of a mirror-like wall—only it didn't show the present. It showed his past.
He stood in an office building, suit and tie, aged perhaps thirty. A woman laughed beside him, her hand on his shoulder. A daughter ran down a hallway calling, "Daddy, wait!"
Kael froze.
"Kael?" the dryad whispered. "You alright?"
He stepped back.
The image vanished like mist, replaced by cracked stone.
"I'm fine," he said through gritted teeth. "Keep moving."
Velzaria's Memories
Far behind them, Velzaria sat within her command tent, staring at an orb of scrying glass. It flickered with static—Kael's progress was being watched through a delicate tether of blood magic and wind essence.
But her mind drifted.
She remembered this place, long ago, when it had been called Aruvahl. A temple of wisdom. A place where her mother, Queen Vireza, once brought her as a child.
She remembered kneeling in those hallowed halls, praying to gods she no longer believed in. She remembered the fire that consumed the temple—the very night she rose up and killed her mother to end a thousand-year reign of terror.
The citadel had risen from those ashes, corrupted by the void that Queen Vireza tried to summon.
A shadow loomed behind Velzaria in the tent.
A voice like ash whispered, "Would you like to see your mother again?"
She spun, blade drawn—there was nothing there.
Only her reflection in the mirror.
Her mother's face smiled back.
Into the Heart
Kael and the others reached the inner sanctum—a chamber resembling a ribcage, its ceiling arched like a throat of stars.
There, bound by chains made of pure memory, was the corrupted god.
Lord Tiralak, once a divine protector of demonkind, now reduced to a slumbering corpse-wraith. His form was massive—horns spiraling into the void, wings shredded and stitched with malice.
Kael felt the darkness in the room trying to seduce him, to rewrite his choices.
"Strike me down," the god croaked. "And take my crown. Become what you were always meant to be."
Kael raised his sword. "I never wanted a crown."
Tiralak's laugh shook the room.
"But you want her," he rasped. "And she will not survive the sealing ritual. Not with her soul so fractured."
That was when Velzaria appeared.
Armor scorched, eyes glowing, lips tight.
"You were supposed to stay back," Kael said, stepping toward her.
Velzaria looked past him at the god. "This is my burden."
"No," Kael growled. "You die, and this all starts over again. Another tyrant. Another rebellion. I won't let you—"
She silenced him with a look. Not cruel. Not distant.
But soft. Almost… human.
"There are things older than both of us, Kael. Powers that don't care for our convictions. If I don't anchor the seal—"
"Then we'll anchor it together."
Tiralak roared, chains breaking, body twisting—
—and the battle began.