The tavern's air pressed like stone against the lungs.
The green flames trembling in their iron sconces guttered once—
then died, as though strangled.
A footstep sounded.
Not loud, yet in that hush, it cleaved the silence like a drawn blade.
A figure did not enter so much as arrive, darkness shrinking back, folding itself to make room for him.
He did not need light;
the shadows leaned toward him, as if humbly recognising their sovereign.
Ash-black hair fell in strands that shimmered like burnt memories.
Skin pale as moon-marble at eclipse.
And wings—ruined things of former glory, each feather singed at the edge, shedding soot like black snow.
Lucifer.
The Fallen.
The Morning Star extinguished.
The Light-Bearer unlit.
Demons bowed, foreheads touching warped tables, terrified of even meeting his gaze.
No one breathed.
Even the darkness stood to attention.
Lucifer's ember-red eyes swept the room, pausing at a cloaked group marked with a six-pointed star split clean in two.
His voice—soft, crystalline, cold as old starlight—spilled into the room.
"Where is Beliar? He summons me, then hides like a child fearing fire?"
A figure jerked, eyes rolling white, and a voice not his own crawled out, layered like chains dragged through a tomb:
"I am here."
Lucifer folded his arms, a thin smile slicing across his face.
"So frightened I might kill you that you borrow another's flesh to speak?"
Beliar's stolen mouth twitched.
"I require no body to command. Only your presence… at the final war."
Lucifer laughed—
not mirth, but the sound of coal cracking under frost.
"And the price for such generous invitation?"
"The body of Satan,"
Beliar breathed, a chorus of whispering throats.
"You seek his soul. But without a vessel, it is powerless. And you… would lose."
A flicker—barely a tremor—passed through Lucifer's gaze.
Quickly smothered by a slow, dreadful smile.
"Light never dies, Beliar. It only waits for the weak to fall—so it may rise again."
Silence.
Then the presence withdrew.
The vessel crumpled.
The robed followers knelt, trembling, before Lucifer.
At a shadowed table, Elior's hands shook. Lucen's mug trembled, foam spilling, but he dared not wipe it.
Hrodgar rose.
Not bowing.
Not trembling.
Only steady, voice low for the three children alone.
"We leave. The air is about to harden."
His hand touched each shoulder, magic threading like tightened breath beneath their skin.
They moved.
"Stop."
Lucifer had not raised his voice, yet the tavern lurched, time stalling like a stunned animal.
Hrodgar walked on.
A feather—black and razor-bright—split the air.
His greatsword flashed, catching it with a motion as natural as breathing.
"We hold no quarrel with you," he murmured.
Lucifer tilted his head, smiling that thin, cruel smile again.
"I simply enjoy testing what dares turn its back on me."
His eyes flickered to the children.
Ash fell from his lashes, dissolving before it touched stone.
"You have chosen poorly, Hrodgar.
What was your name? Hodra? Hardof?"
Mockery curled like smoke.
Feathers burst—hundreds of them, a storm of black meteors.
Hrodgar roared an ancient incantation:
"Aegis Vetusta — Herbam Custodi!"
(Old Oath Shield — Mist of Ever-Guarding)
Silver mist flared around them.
Alice, pale but unshaking, lifted her wand:
"Glacius Aeterna!"
A wing of ice blossomed—only to shatter against a single feather.
But she had stood.
Elior had not. His chest burned with shame.
Hrodgar's blade came down like judgement:
"Sovereign Sundering!"
Darkness split—
a few strands of Lucifer's hair cut, burning to ash midair.
Lucifer touched them.
His smile cracked wider, a breath madder.
"Today, I shall send you to the Lord Below."
Ash coiled.
A black star unfurled, devouring light.
Eternal Dusk.
Reality bent.
Time held its breath.
Lucen's voice shook but did not break:
"Linear Leap… Link-bound."
Space snapped.
They vanished—thrown beyond the tavern threshold, then into the street.
Hrodgar seized the children and fled like wind that never was.
Lucifer watched, ash falling from ruined wings.
"Run," he murmured.
"Light always runs before it dies."
On Hrodgar's back, Elior's heart hammered.
Not from fear.
From humiliation.
He had done nothing.
He was nothing.
If he remained so… he would lose everything.
In the darkness behind, ash drifted like an hourglass counting down.
Elior clenched his fists.
Not to survive—
but to protect.
I will not run forever.
Behind them, the collapsed void sealed, and Lucifer's whisper followed like a promise carved into bone:
"Grow, little light.
I wish to see the day you burn."