Chapter 12 #2
Whispers begin as I descend upon the village.
Not fearful whispers, not exactly. I’m not known to be half the brute my father is.
They bow—quickly, respectfully—but no one lingers, and nobody gets in my way.
I’ve never asked to be loved, though, nor have I made the effort to be loved by my people, only obeyed and respected.
I grunt a greeting to a passing farmer, nod at a trio of guards-in-training, and scowl at a merchant who stares at me for just a little too long.
My wings are folded tight to my back, my jaw tense.
The weight of Daisy still clings to me, her voice ringing through my head when another pulls me from my thoughts.
“Prince Korithax!”
Ah, only one voice in this entire realm that dares to sound happy when she says my name.
Marta, the bakery matron. Ancient and sharp as a knife.
She’s raised half the village and probably terrorised the other half.
I step through the open door to the warm scent of spiced sugar and fireroot honey, the smell instantly making my mouth water.
The stone interior glows with enchanted warmth, ivy trailing from the ceiling beams. Fresh loaves cool on wire racks and tarts gleam behind the glass like treasure.
“You’re late,” she sniffs, not even looking up as she boxes something behind the counter. “I almost gave your tart to one of the coal-runners. Lucky for you, I don’t like him much.”
“I didn’t say I was stopping in,” I grunt.
She glances over her spectacles, one brow arched in that way that makes me feel like a scorned child.
“You always stop in, boy. Like clockwork. You come stomping through my door, all shadows and brooding and ‘woe is my eternal crown’, and then you eat sugar and feel better about the world. And don’t even try to lie about it. ”
I try not to smirk, but I fail miserably. “That predicable?”
“Like the sunrise.” She slaps the box shut and hands it over. “Your usual. Now take it before I change my mind and give it to the flame beasts.”
Inside is a tart—golden in colour, flaked with crystallised sugar, filled with emberfruit so ripe the filling seems to glow faintly.
I take a bite before I even turn to leave.
The pastry melts, the fruit hits my tongue with that perfect smoky-sweetness, still warm from the oven.
For a single second, the taste pushes everything else away.
Just for that breath of time, all that exists is this sweet, warm peace.
“You look tired,” Marta says behind me, her voice gentle. “Tired and angry. Which means you’re either about to kill someone, or you already did.”
“Both,” I mutter.
She snorts. “Well, at least you’re consistent in your ways.”
I take another small bite of the pastry, savouring every crumb.
“You want to sit for a minute?” She asks. “I’ve got fresh hellmead steeping, and a chair that doesn’t judge. Or at least, not out loud anyway.”
I shake my head. “Not today.”
She sighs like a mother, the tone laced with disappointment. “Fine. Go stalk around the village like a cursed storm cloud then. But you come back before week’s end, you hear me? If I don’t see that smug face in three days, I’m sending Garan to drag your royal arse in here by the horns.”
I raise the tart in a salute. “Noted.”
“And don’t think I won’t do it,” she calls after me. “I’ve tanned your hide before!”
“That was a long time ago,” I mutter, amused despite myself.
“I still have the paddle,” she says sweetly.
I bite back a chuckle as I step into the light again. The village buzzes with life as I dust the crumbs from my fingers. My cloak trails behind me like thunderclouds stitched from shadow, but just for a moment, there’s warmth beneath the storm.
Aran is waiting in the war room, bent over a map littered with pins—black for guard stations, red for incursions, and a sickly, glowing green for the unnatural.
“The Moirvath are moving again,” he says.
Of course they are. The bark-skinned, nymph-like horrors never rest for long.
Too many eyes, too many teeth. They cling to the blackened forest at the edge of Hell like rot, slipping from the Whillowing’s shadowed roots to raid the bordering farms. They kill for sport, breed like parasites, and feed on anything warm-blooded and smaller than themselves.
Flamebeast younglings, ember hounds. Even children, if they can find them.
I hate the little bastards. Just when you think you’ve exterminated them all, another hundred appear, crawling out from the trees.
“Move the eastern guard,” I say, stepping closer to the table. “Pull them from the central line and post them at the base of Whillowing. Double the rune traps and notify the flamebeast keepers. It’s hatching season, and the younglings will be perfect targets for the Moirvath.”
Aran nods, quickly scribbling notes without even asking me to repeat myself. He’s loyal as blood, and I trust him more than anyone. He gets the job done, is always by my side, and acts more like a brother than an assistant.
“The northern fields are stable,” he adds. “No breaches since the last cull. Cinderspine’s been quiet.”
“Good.” The main village holding. I can breathe easier knowing the forges are running smoothly and the children can laugh in peace.
“We got a whisper from Sovarith this morning,” Aran continues. “Another revision from the Codex scribes—something about lineage clauses and succession threads. I told them you’d look it over when the world isn’t on fire.”
I grunt. “Smart.”
He finishes writing, then glances at me from beneath his brow. “Vailith sent a message. She requested your presence in the Realm of Children.”
Of course. The quiet guardian of the dead and innocent always has impeccable timing. I sigh, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “One thing after another.”
Aran smirks faintly. “Welcome to ruling Hell.”
The Realm of Children is always quiet and peaceful.
The air is sweeter here, sitting in the western side of Hell, where the skies are softer, and it’s away from any of the other threats that lurk in this godforsaken realm.
The building is bright white marble, surrounded by glows that emanate from the spirit willows.
It’s not a place of punishment, but of healing—where the broken souls of children, victims of war and abuse, come to be mended.
Vailith meets me near the healing grove.
She stands beneath a flowering tree, its pale flowers glowing faintly in the dusk.
Her presence radiates calm and motherly, glowing with a soft soul light.
She doesn’t walk, she glides. Her robes shimmer with thread woven from memory and peace, white and grey like fog kissed by moonlight.
Her long silver-blue hair flows in waves behind her, complementing her gleaming skin and soft, golden eyes.
There are children running through the wildflower beds, their laughter cutting through the quiet like birdsong.
Others tend to the vegetation that they help grow for the realm as part of a peace project, helping them learn healing and nurturing.
Some of them cower in my presence, one even steps behind one of the teacher’s cloaks to hide.
I paint on the kindest smile I can manage before turning my attention back to Vailith.
They don’t need a warlord here; they need soft, calming beings around them.
Something I will never be, but I can pretend for them.
Vailith’s arms open, and she pulls me into a soft embrace before holding me at arm’s length. She smells like jasmine and old libraries.
“Korithax,” she says gently. “It’s worse. Too many children come now, and I cannot care for them all. Earth is becoming more corrupt by the day, and these sweet babies continue to suffer.”
Her voice trembles, and I see it, the grief buried under layers of calm. She’s held too many tiny hands through death. Buried too many souls too young to know what death even meant.
“I’ll find someone to help,” I promise. “I’ll reach out to Solara and Fjellheim Heights. Perhaps we can relocate those ready for warmth and light outside of Hell. Somewhere peaceful, somewhere they can begin again.”
Her eyes brim with grateful tears. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” I step gently out of her reach. I can give my word, my time, my soldiers. Anything except softness. “Is there anything else?”
“I think I need another teacher,” she admits, offering a smile that flickers with exhaustion. “They learn well, but as the group grows too large. It’s harder to manage. Maybe we can split their lessons and make smaller groups.” She smiles softly.
“Consider it done. I’ll have Aran vet someone suitable and send them within the week.”
Her smile grows. “Your help never goes unnoticed, Korithax. You’re a true king. Would you like to stay awhile?”
I shake my head, “I cannot, I still have other matters to tend to.”
She nods in understanding. “Safe travels then.”
I turn towards the arch that leads back to the teleportation point, pausing just briefly.
The children are laughing again, chasing spirit moths that glow pale blue.
Vailith hums something low and soothing under her breath, a hymn old and full of memory.
I don’t belong here. But I’ll protect it.
I teleport, fading from the peace and into duty once more.
I land at the Welcome Circle. A large amphitheatre carved into the south-eastern soul stone cliffs, where new arrivals are judged.
The head judge bows. “Too many are coming, my prince. We need more judges.”
“I know, I’m working on it.” I sigh. “But we vet those who want to be a voice of judgement thoroughly for a reason. You remember what it was like before.”
He nods grimly. Corrupt judges once ruled the Circle, sentencing the undeserving to Gehenna for their own sick pleasure, or letting souls go for bribes.
Souls who only needed growth were sent to suffer for eternity.
It took me three hundred years to go through the souls and ensure the ones who didn’t deserve to be in the pit were removed and offered magical remedies to help them forget what they had endured.
“We will not repeat history,” I tell him. “Even if it means slower judgement in the meantime.”
He nods again, thanking me for the work that I’m doing. The truth was, I just came up with the answers; Aran and the small council I let him be in charge of were the ones doing all the hard work. I was the face, but he was truly the brain.
I make my final visit of the day to the training rings.
New soldiers spar in sandy arenas lined with roaring flames.
One of the newer recruits—a smaller boy with freshly sprouted horns—is being brutalised.
Calrix circles him like a predator, the sight reminding me of his brutality throughout my childhood.
I step into the ring, placing myself between Calrix and the boy.
“That’s enough,” I snap. “You will not treat my soldiers the way you treat me as a boy.”
Calrix sneers. “Then make them stronger. Look at him, he’s pathetic.”
I growl, stepping up to him, towering over him by at least six inches.
“I am. By teaching them that cruelty does not equal strength.”
He storms off, cursing my name as he goes to find some other poor bastard to bully and intimidate.
I kneel beside the boy. “Your size is not your weakness,” I say. “You will grow, but what matters is how you wield your weapon. Do not rely on your height and muscles to get you by. You will die. Be smart, and know how and when to strike.”
He nods, barely holding back tears. Unfortunately, until I am officially king, there are some things I cannot change.
That includes how young the help and soldiers are.
It has been a priority of mine to change the starting age to a minimum of a thousand years old.
My father has them starting as young as five hundred, making them just children. It’s unacceptable.
By nightfall, I’m back in my chambers alone. My cloak lies discarded over the back of a chair, and my hands are stained with ink and blood from training with my soldiers for a while. Documents have been signed, orders sealed, decisions made that will change things for better or worse.
I didn’t visit Nox’thraxis today. I rarely need to.
The Shadowfolk don’t require my supervision.
They whisper beneath twilight skies, threading through their inverted towers in silence.
They feed on secrets and regrets like wine, but they are loyal to the crown in their own peculiar, eerie way.
House Nytherian rules there—ancient blood, cunning, and cold.
If something’s wrong in Nox’thraxis, I’ll hear it in my nightmares.
I also avoided the Shuddering Waste. That place has no ruler, just ghosts and echoes of names long devoured.
The wind there howls like something dying, and the sand is made of bone dust and broken identity.
The Diminished roam those dunes like wolves without memory, devouring whatever remains behind of themselves and others.
I only go there when I absolutely must, when something’s gone so wrong that the Waste itself reacts.
But not today. Today, other fires needed tending.
Fifty thousand years my father has ruled.
A tyrant obsessed with control, with punishment, with power.
Korran built his throne with betrayal and radicalism and called it a legacy.
He never ruled, though; he reigned. He enforced, and he suffocated.
And when he finally stepped away from the throne, crippled by age and bitterness, placed on bedrest like some crumbling monument, the weight he left behind nearly crushed me.
But I carried it anyway, and still do. And I did more than survive it.
I took that weight and moulded it with my bare hands into something better, something worthy.
I rebuilt the trade systems, I forged peace with realms my father even refused to name, and I opened our gates again.
Cinderspine now flourishes, the school and businesses run without fear, our warriors train with pride rather than terror. Even the ashroses bloom again.
I haven’t taken the crown yet, but I already rule like a king. And when the day comes that I finally sit that obsidian throne with a crown upon my head, I will make sure this realm looks less like him and more like the whispers say it did under the rule of the first queen.