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Chapter 2 — The Bargain in the Catacombs
Death, as it turned out, smelled like damp limestone and bureaucratic neglect.
Erevan woke to the echo of dripping water and the uncomfortable discovery that his neck, though recently acquainted with a sword, appeared to have changed its mind about staying cut. He lay in the catacombs beneath the Citadel, half-buried in the linen meant for royal corpses.
He sat up. Something cracked.
"Oh, good," he muttered, testing his jaw. "Still articulate. Always wanted to die and come back talkative."
Around him, hundreds of coffins lined the walls — generations of Veyra kings and their self-importance stacked like expensive wine. Each had a sigil carved into the lid: the Crown they'd carried in life. Some faintly glowed, pulsing like tired hearts.
A voice rippled through the silence.
> "You mock, even now?"
Erevan froze. "If I don't, I'll panic," he said. "And I'm not dressed for panic."
From the shadows coalesced the blackness he'd seen before — thicker now, shaped vaguely like a figure wearing a crown made of absence. Its edges fluttered like torn pages.
> "You died unjustly," it said. "The Twelve fed on lies. I am the Thirteenth — the one they feared to name."
Erevan raised an eyebrow. "Wonderful. I finally get divine attention, and it's from the kingdom's least popular god."
The shape tilted its head. "You speak as though this is jest."
"Everything is jest until it hurts," he replied.
The entity drifted closer. "I offer you dominion over the Crowns. Devour them, and balance will be restored."
Erevan eyed the coffins. "Devour. Such a cheerful verb. Will there be indigestion?"
> "There will be cost."
"Ah," he said softly. "There's always cost."
The Crown's shadow-hand reached toward his chest. Cold seeped through him, but with it came understanding — a flood of memories not his own: kings burning their kingdoms to appease gods, queens erasing whole bloodlines to keep their thrones. The Thirteenth showed him history's hidden receipts, every cruelty entered neatly into divine bookkeeping.
> "You will collect the debt," the voice said. "Each Crown consumed will grant you power — and take from you a piece of what you are."
Erevan's lips curved in something almost like a smile. "A soul-devouring vengeance tour with existential consequences. How can I refuse?"
The darkness seemed to hesitate, as if surprise were an emotion it had forgotten.
> "Then you accept?"
He looked at his scarred palms, flexed the fingers that shouldn't move, and said, "I accept—but I expect benefits. Dental, at least."
The catacombs shuddered. Coffin lids rattled. The sigils of the dead flared and went dark. One by one, whispers rose — the voices of the buried acknowledging a new ledger-keeper.
Black light wrapped around his hands, crawling up his arms in delicate filigree. Pain came, sharp and bright, then folded into something almost euphoric.
When it faded, Erevan stood alone.
The Crown of Nothingness hovered above his head like a broken halo, invisible to sight but heavy as guilt.
He exhaled, testing the air. "Well," he said, "that's new."
From somewhere deeper in the catacombs came footsteps — slow, deliberate, and accompanied by the scrape of metal. The living had come to confirm the dead stayed dead.
Erevan looked at the approaching torchlight, adjusted the torn collar of his burial shroud, and sighed.
"Showtime," he murmured, and the darkness in him chuckled like an approving partner.