Night fell over Nanda Parbat like a shroud.
The torches burned lower.
The halls emptied.
The mountain grew quiet.
Nyssa sat inside her private chamber—one the Demon assigned, not one she had chosen—silently binding a fresh set of arm wraps around her forearms. The motions kept her hands steady, kept her thoughts occupied, kept her from feeling the walls closing in around her.
She had barely finished tying the last knot when she sensed it.
A shift in the air.
A chill.
A heaviness.
A wrongness.
Her breath stilled.
The first scream echoed faintly from somewhere deep in the fortress.
Nyssa rose instantly.
Two masked escorts outside her door stiffened as they heard it as well.
"What was—" one began.
Another scream cut him off.
Then another.
They looked at each other, unsure, untrained for this.
Nyssa walked straight past them and stepped into the hall. "Where is he?"
The assassins looked at each other but did not answer. The torches flickered violently—winds where no wind should exist. The stone beneath their feet trembled slightly.
Then—
Footsteps.
Slow.
Echoing.
Deliberate.
The kind of footsteps only a man confident in his absolute dominion took.
Kharon appeared at the far end of the corridor, emerging from the shadows with the calmness of someone finishing routine work. His mantle was unruffled. His steps were measured. His expression remained unreadable.
But the assassins behind him…
They were dragging bodies.
Not injured.
Not captured.
Limp.
Silent.
Dead.
Nyssa's heart lurched.
"What have you done?" she breathed.
Kharon stopped only a few paces from her, his gaze cutting through the dim hall with chilling clarity.
"I have removed rot," he said simply.
More bodies appeared around the turn—assassins with silver sashes, the mark of Ra's' old inner circle. Nyssa recognized faces she had trained with. Commanded with. Trusted.
All gone.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "These were loyal to my father."
"No," Kharon corrected calmly. "They were loyal to a past that has no place here."
Her escorts lowered their heads in terror. Even they could not hide their shaking.
Nyssa stepped forward. "They were no threat to you."
"They would have become one." He tilted his head. "You, more than any, understand the danger of fractured loyalty."
More assassins emerged, kneeling silently to acknowledge the bodies piled in the corridor.
Kharon's voice remained steady, emotionless, as if explaining logistics rather than murder.
"Tonight, every loyalist to Ra's is dead. Every whisperer. Every shadowwalker."
His gaze locked with hers.
"Every man who might follow you instead of me."
Cold horror sank into Nyssa's chest.
"You did this… because of me?"
His eyes did not soften.
But they did sharpen.
"You are my wife," he said.
"You will not have a faction. You will not have a rebellion. You will not have followers who could raise you above your station."
Nyssa's jaw clenched. "My station?"
"Beside me," Kharon said, "and nowhere else."
A sharp command behind him.
The assassins lowered the bodies to the stone floor, arranging them with eerie precision.
Kharon did not look back.
"The League functions under a single will," he said. "Not two. Not fractured loyalties. Not nostalgia for a dead man's ghost."
Nyssa stepped closer, fury cutting through her numbness. "You killed them all."
"Not all," he said quietly.
Her breath caught.
Kharon turned slightly, just enough for her to see a shadow moving at the far end of the hall—another assassin limping, dragged by two of Kharon's enforcers.
Althar.
Blood streaked his mask. His legs dragged behind him.
Nyssa's heart punched her ribs. "Stop."
Kharon lifted a hand.
The enforcers halted.
Nyssa's breath trembled. "He was not a threat."
"He spoke to you."
The Demon's eyes glinted.
"He did not have my leave."
Her voice nearly broke. "He is no traitor."
"No," Kharon agreed. "He is loyal."
That single word chilled her more than any threat.
"But his loyalty was not directed properly."
Nyssa stepped between them instinctively. "If you kill him—"
Kharon's gaze did not waver.
"He will not die," the Demon said. "He will kneel."
Silence suffocated the corridor.
Kharon walked toward the injured assassin until he stood over him like an executioner considering a blade.
"Althar," he said calmly. "Look up."
The assassin lifted his head weakly.
"You will swear no allegiance except to me," Kharon said. "Not to Nyssa. Not to the past. Not to whispers in dark halls."
Althar trembled.
Nyssa whispered, "Don't do this."
Kharon's voice edged like steel.
"Swear it."
Althar's breath shuddered.
Then, shaking, bleeding, broken—
He bowed.
Low.
Deep.
Submissive.
"I swear… Demon."
The last ember of rebellion extinguished itself in the cold stone hallway.
Kharon nodded once. "Good."
He turned to Nyssa, his voice unchanging.
"You see? I am not cruel. I am efficient."
Her nails dug into her palms.
"You did this," she whispered, "to leave me alone."
Kharon stepped close enough that his shadow swallowed hers.
"You were never meant to have anyone but me."
He turned, gesturing for the bodies to be taken.
"You are mine," he said simply, "so your world will reflect it."
Nyssa froze as the last loyalists were dragged away, their blood trailing behind them like torn threads of her old life.
Kharon walked into the darkness without looking back.
Nyssa remained standing in the hall, shoulders trembling as the truth settled like a blade against her throat:
She was alone now.
Completely alone.
Surrounded by his shadows.
Bound by his command.
Bereft of every ally she had.
And Kharon had done it in a single night.