Chapter 24
Alora
Days bled together in the mountain.
At first, Alora counted them. Then she stopped when she found no reason to.
The palace of shadow had a rhythm of its own.
Day and night blurred, marked by the rising and dimming of braziers and the whisper of unseen wings in the corridors.
Alora learned Karag D?r’s moods as one learns a lover’s: the way the air grew colder before a storm of magic, how the walls breathed when the shadows shifted, how the dark itself could feel alive.
Rune no longer called for her after that night on the balcony.
No explanations, no visits, not even a glimpse of his cloak in the halls. At first, she told herself it was a mercy. But the longer the avoidance stretched, the more her prison closed in.
“Please,” Alora begged the silence one morning when she couldn’t take it anymore. “I can’t stand the darkness. Let me out!”
Everything spun on an unseen wind as she gasped for air.
The ground rumbled.
The wall above her bed shifted, reforming into large windows.
Arched and etched with stained glass of a flowing meadow.
Alora stared at it, frozen a moment, all falling still.
She stood and pushed on the glass. It gave beneath her hand, opening to reveal a landscape of wispy clouds and a distant sun.
Warm daylight and a gentle breeze flooded the chamber, soft on her skin.
A peace offering.
She gulped in the fresh air until her panic ebbed. Then she scowled at the ceiling. “I wanted freedom, not a view.” But guilt needled her for chastising the mountain and she murmured, “Thank you…”
If she needed anything else, Harbingers were always nearby. They were intimidating in their own ways.
Hadeon especially.
“He is of the Wrath Court,” Deimos revealed during a day he arrived to bring her more food. She had grown curious about their domain and the seven factions. “Calla belongs to Lust.”
Alora was intrigued by what that might mean. “And you?”
Deimos quickly turned to leave.
“Wait, tell me more.”
He glowered and she silently pleaded not to be left alone with her own silence.
Perhaps because he pitied her, Deimos retorted, “If you want more beyond these walls, give them a reason to drag you outside.”
So, Alora agreed to train.
But perhaps she should have chosen a different instructor besides Hadeon.
The silent Harbinger trailed her like a mountain of stone, his steps heavy but unhurried.
The corridors of the main castle crawled with dark shapes and shadows moving behind pillars.
Demons lurked in archways, silent and curious, yet the glint of Hadeon’s red eyes kept them from drawing near her.
Alora didn’t mind that Hadeon wasn’t the sociable sort.
She was too relieved to at last be allowed out of her room.
But when it came to training, he was relentless.
“Again,” Hadeon barked. “On your feet.”
Alora panted, sweat stung her eyes, her arms ached, and her pride was in tatters. He fought with a violent, ruthless form that demolished everything she had learned about swordplay.
“Do you ever tire of humiliating me?” she demanded. Her training leathers were coated in dirt after he’d knocked her down an endless number of times.
“Not yet,” Hadeon said dryly. “But you’re improving. You lasted nearly a minute this time.”
Calla lounged nearby on a stone railing that surrounded the training yard, her long legs crossed. “A whole minute? Careful, Hadeon, you’re growing sloppy. Perhaps you and I need to spar. I wouldn’t mind knocking you onto your back again.”
He ignored her, but Alora didn’t miss the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth that was almost a smile.
Interesting.
His long braid tumbled down his shoulder as he leaned down to offer his hand.
Alora accepted it, and Hadeon lifted her onto her feet. Her gaze lifted then, catching on the strange glyphs carved high into the stone arch above the training doors, ancient and jagged, their grooves darkened with age.
VER NOCTHRA VI’IGNIS VA’KARR
She stopped short, scowling.
“That,” Alora snapped, pointing at it, “is what they chanted at me in the throne room.”
Hadeon followed her gaze as she read the words aloud. Wind rushed and the glyphs pulsed once, dark stone briefly veined with crimson light, then went still. Alora quietly gasped.
His expression didn’t change, but something in his posture stilled.
“It’s an old saying,” Hadeon said, exchanging a look with Calla. “Older than this court.”
Alora crossed her arms. “Then why carve it here in the training yard?”
“Because it is spoken when a claim is made that cannot be abandoned,” Hadeon replied evenly.
“It translates to ‘By shadow and fire we claim’. It means no retreat. No mercy. No survival without victory.” He glanced at her then, red eyes assessing.
“It binds those who answer it as surely as the one who speaks it.”
Alora looked back at the words. The chant hadn’t been mockery after all.
It had been a challenge.
And she wondered then, who Rune had been challenging. The court? The Dominions?
“Do demons only live for bloodshed and war?” she asked.
Hadeon did not answer at once, instead passing her a waterskin. As she drank, her gaze caught on the red gem embedded in his pauldron.
Each of the Harbingers had one, though none wore it the same way. Red stones gleamed on Calla’s vambraces, while Deimos wore a single shard dangling from his ear. And now that she thought of it, Rune had one as well. A dark and polished red gem in his signet ring.
Was it a status symbol of his inner circle?
“Violence is not our pleasure,” Hadeon at last replied. “It is our language. For some, like the Wrath Court, it is purpose. We are forged for battle. Raised in it. And when we are chosen, we are branded by it.”
“Branded?” she echoed.
He nodded, his clawed hand landing on the dark tattoos that spanned his arms, chest, and face. They were jagged in shape, perhaps the crest of his kind. “Lord Ira marks his warriors when they have proven worthy. We serve him with blood and blade until the end—no matter what we believe.”
Something lingered under his words, a nuance she couldn’t grasp. Lord Ira must be the Dominion of the Wrath Court.
“Do you …?” she asked. “Believe in him, I mean.”
Hadeon’s jaw tightened. His eyes, usually so hard, flickered with something quieter.
“I believe in order. In defending the realm from what seeks to unravel it.” He looked at her then, really looked. “But belief does not always equal loyalty. And loyalty is not always a choice.”
The air shifted.
Calla watched them intently. Her stillness mirrored Hadeon’s, as if they lived an understanding Alora had not yet been invited into.
“And … are you loyal to Rune?”
Hadeon’s gaze held hers. “My fealty is his.”
It was clear then, that like all demons, the Harbingers were bound to their factions. They served both their king and their lords.
A sword for one.
An oath for the other.
But if Rune and the Dominions one day stood on opposite sides, who would they choose?
Hadeon picked up her wooden sword and tossed it to her as he returned to his position “Let us continue,” he called over his shoulder. “This time, try not to hesitate.”
She sighed. “You could at least pretend to let me win every now and then.”
At last, the intimidating Harbinger cracked a smile.
By the end of the week, Alora walked easily among them.
Her fingers bore the first roughness of calluses, her muscles sore and lean. Training had changed the way she carried herself. She breathed differently now. Stood differently. Even the Harbingers had begun to fall into step beside her as if she belonged.
When the day’s drills ended, they headed together toward her chambers.
But Alora veered from the familiar corridor, no wanting to return to confinement yet.
“My lady,” Hadeon warned, already reaching for her arm. “We must—”
“Not yet.” She easily slipped past him, thanks to his instruction.
Alora followed the echo of roars and cheers rolling through the stone, eager to see what excitement the demons were up to.
Calla groaned. “By the Abyss. Sire won’t be pleased.”
“He cannot keep her oblivious forever,” Deimos muttered. “She should know the customs of his domain.”
“Know what?”
The corridor opened onto a high balcony overlooking the main court hall. Heat and noise surged upward, thick with iron and sweat. Below, demons packed the stone floor in a heaving mass, their voices rising in a frenzy as two figures clashed at the center.
Two demons battled each other. Claws, and teeth, viciously tearing into flesh.
One demon was massive, broad-shouldered and armored in the crest of the Wrath Court, his skin the same reddish hue as Hadeon’s. The other was lean and quick, all sinew and speed, darting in and out with flashing blades.
Alora shifted back, the force of their vicious blows beating against her chest. “What is happening?”
“Vahl’Tor,” Deimos intoned, his voice dropping into the rough pitch of Hellspeech.
She looked at him, confused.
Hadeon’s jaw tightened. “It is what we call a challenge bound in blood. For territory. For dominance. For mates. For the right to eat. Even to rut. When demons invoke Vahl’Tor, the other must answer.
Refusal marks one a coward.” He glanced down at the carnage below.
“Amidst the court of demons, that is worse than death.”
The Wrath demon caught his opponent mid-lunge and slammed him to the ground and tore off his legs. Horrid screams echoed in her ears.
Alora covered her mouth, certain it was over.
It was not.
With a roar that shook the hall, the Wrath demon wrenched his opponent’s head free. Blood sprayed the stone. The crowd erupted, howling approval as the body dissolved to ash.
“He had already won,” she said, vomit threatening to come up her throat. “Why not show mercy?”