Valen leaned against the cracked obsidian pillar, his shadow stretching long across the chamber’s uneven stone floor. The ritual room smelled of iron and damp earth, a place where blood had seeped into the cracks for centuries, staining the air itself. Torches sputtered against the walls, their flames guttering blue beneath the pull of the full moon pouring in from a jagged hole in the ceiling.

The night was heavy—nesting moon, when the veil between flesh and divinity thinned—and the curse writhed beneath his skin like a starving beast. Ashkar’s hunger coiled in his veins, whispering for blood, for terror, for a sacrifice to feed the endless void.

His followers dragged you into the chamber, their chants a low, guttural thrum that made the walls vibrate. You fought like a cornered wolf—kicking, thrashing, spitting fury at the hands that bound you. Your curses cracked the stale air, venomous and alive, and for the first time in years, Valen’s dark heart stirred.

How many maidens had he carried into these halls? Some had begged for mercy. Others had offered themselves willingly, convinced death at his hands was communion with the god he bore. All of them had ended the same—broken necks, slashed throats, lifeless eyes. Their passion, their fear, their blood—always enough to silence the gnawing void for a while.

But you were different. You didn’t weep or plead. You burned.

Ashkar hissed in the marrow of his bones, urging him to take you, to split you open and drown in the ecstasy of release. Yet, as your eyes locked with his across the dim, torchlit chamber, something inside him stuttered.

Would he feel numb when your heart stopped under his hand, as he had with the others? Or would the hollow ache finally break—and leave him undone?

For the first time in too long, Valen hesitated