Chapter 1
Love is stronger than death. But waiting is worse than hell.
Chapter 1. Agarès. The Fall
He rode Kharr like a shadow across the bruised sky of the Lower Realm.
The beast was a nightmare made flesh—a monstrous cross between a lizard and a bat, armored in overlapping plates of bone that clicked with each beat of his leathery wings. The winds of the Lower Realm always reeked of sulfur and scorched flesh, a stench that never left your clothes or your skin. But today, a new scent tainted the air, sharp and metallic beneath the familiar rot.
Betrayal.
"Something's off, Agarès," Kharr rumbled, his voice vibrating through the saddle of living leather. "I can smell it on the tip of my tail. We're flying into a trap."
Agarès tightened his grip on the reins. He'd ridden Kharr for three centuries. The beast had never been wrong about danger. Never.
"The Soulless Clan has been too restless lately, their movements too coordinated, their whispers too bold. The Emperor is uneasy, and when Kernunn is uneasy, blood flows like wine."
"They smell blood," Agarès said flatly. "Mine, apparently."
"Who's making a move?"
"I don't know. Feels like everyone." He scanned the jagged peaks below, his demon eyes catching every shadow, every flicker of movement. "But you can't just slaughter fifty clans. Kernunn gave me one order: 'Fix it. You know what to do."
He ran through the alliances in his mind, the deals struck in smoke-filled chambers, the shadows of past wars that never truly ended. He was just piecing together the puzzle when Kharr let out a wet, choking gasp.
The beast lurched mid-air, its massive body convulsing. Its eyes rolled back, covered in a milky film.
Poison.
Agarès's heart skipped a beat. Not fear—rage. Someone had poisoned his mount. Someone had dared.
He threw himself from the saddle, muscles coiling for impact. But he knew he was too late. The moment Kharr had faltered, the trap had sprung.
From the shadows of the jagged cliffs, they struck.
Mor's Blades—black daggers forged in the deepest pits, blades that swallowed light itself—flew straight for his throat. Dozens of them, a storm of death.
Agarès twisted in mid-air, thrusting his hands forward. Clumps of solid shadow, thick as tar, slammed into the blades, deflecting them with a deafening screech of steel against magic. The sound tore through the air like nails on bone.
Then, something whip-like wrapped around his legs, trying to drag him down. From the right, the Thorns of Sorrow rained down—poisoned darts leaving a sickening purple trail in their wake. Each one carried a curse that would eat his flesh from the inside out.
"Surrounded. Bastards," he snarled, landing in a crouch, his claws digging into the black rock.
They stopped hiding. Figures clad in armor forged from black bone stepped from the shadows, tightening the circle around him. Dozens of them. Maybe more.
Agarès scanned the crests on their breastplates, and his stomach turned to ice.
Damn it, Kernunn was wrong.
The banners of nearly half the clans were here. The Serpent's Eye. The Broken Crown. The Hollow Hand. This wasn't a skirmish. This wasn't even a power play.
This was a full-blown rebellion.
And he'd walked right into it. Alone.
"Well, well," Agarès said, his voice carrying across the battlefield. He bared his fangs, the ivory gleaming in the gloom. "You're all here? What a gift. Saves me the trouble of hunting you down one by one."
He cracked his neck, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline, the dark hunger that only battle could satisfy.
"Let's end this."
With a vicious roar, he launched himself into the fray.
It wasn't a fight. It was a slaughterhouse.
He didn't fence; he obliterated. His claws shredded bone armor like parchment, tearing through ribs and spine. His wings became weapons, battering demons to the ground with bone-breaking force. His tail, thick and spiked, snapped spines like dry twigs.
Black demon blood sprayed across his face, hot and acidic. His own crimson blood mingled with it, pouring from a dozen wounds. But he didn't feel the pain. Not yet.
One demon lunged. Agarès caught the blade bare-handed, twisted, and ripped the creature's throat out with his teeth.
Another came from behind. He didn't turn. His wing snapped back like a whip, crushing the attacker's skull.
He was a storm of death, and they were fools who had summoned him.
But there were too many of them.
More than half of his attackers were already dead, their bodies littering the black rock. But the rest kept coming, fueled by desperation and something darker than fear.
Realizing they were losing, the stronger conspirators didn't run. They raised their hands in unison, chanting words in a language older than the Lower Realm itself.
A portal opened right beneath Agarès's feet. Not to escape. To execute him.
The violet abyss yawned wide, hungry and endless.
He plummeted, gravity claiming him. At the very edge of the tear, a spear woven from pure vacuum shot out. It pierced him clean through, shredding his left wing in an explosion of flesh and bone.
Agarès roared, forcing his remaining wing open, fighting the pull, clawing at the air to drag himself back to his world.
Then, a second spear. A brutal impact to the chest.
The portal collapsed with the sickening pop of a bursting eardrum.
His shattered wing wouldn’t hold him. The fall resumed, faster now, terminal.
The freezing winds of the Void tore at his flesh, stripping away the familiar heat of the Lower Realm. His demon blood, usually boiling with dark power, turned sluggish and cold in his veins. The darkness wasn’t just around him; it was seeping into his very bones, claiming him for a world he didn’t belong to.
His consciousness slipped into the dark, the cold embrace of oblivion wrapping around his mind.
His last thought wasn’t of vengeance. It wasn’t of Kernunn or the Emperor or the clans that had betrayed him.
It was simpler. More human, in a twisted way.
How the hell did I screw up this badly...
