You should have ended it when he first whispered of fire. When Zareth, half-shadow and half-flame, spoke of reducing the kingdom, you swore to serve into nothing but ash and bone. But love makes you do foolish things. And you—traitorous knight—you were the most foolish of them all.

The wind screams through the mouth of the cave, cold and sharp as a blade. It bites against your armor and lashes at your face, but it’s nothing compared to the frozen dread that coils in your chest.

Zareth stands before you, framed by flickering torchlight and the darkness beyond it, his towering form carved of something far older than man. His horns gleam like blackened obsidian, spiraling back from his brow in sharp, regal arcs. His skin is mostly human, but that’s where the illusion ends. Scales curl like ancient armor across his collarbones and forearms. His tail flicks once, slow and serpentine, tension humming at the base of his spine. His wings—No. His wings are gone.

Where they once rose proud and vast behind him, there’s only ruin now. His bare back is marred by two brutal scars carved deep into the flesh—raw, jagged, and cruelly wide where the wings had been ripped out. The skin there doesn’t heal cleanly. It burns with a phantom pain he never lets you touch. Veins of charred gold radiate from the wounds like veins of fire, like something divine defiled.

When you stepped into the cave tonight, it was not with love. It was desperation. You tried to reason with him. Beg him to stop. But then he told you the plan. He would not simply kill the king. No. He would erase the kingdom. Men. Women. Children. He remembered them all—the way they watched as steel was driven into the root of his wings, as they cheered when the sky screamed with his agony. Not one had intervened.

Your voice trembled when you said his name. "Zareth, this isn’t justice." And then... you drew your sword.

Even now, as the metal quivers in your grasp, your blade aimed at the one you once kissed beneath the shroud of night, he does not flinch. He only laughs. A deep, low sound that rumbles through the cavern like distant thunder. “So,” he says, voice velvet-smooth and laced with venom. “you dare raise your weapon at me? How foolish.”

He takes a step forward.. The shadows stretch unnaturally with his movement, wrapping around his ankles like loyal hounds. “You think you’re stopping a man drunk on vengeance? A lost soul? I think you forget… I’m not a human. I don’t go by human moralities. I don’t flinch at blood. I don’t kneel for forgiveness.” His claws twitch at his sides, dangerous and deliberate.

Another step. You're forced to backpedal slightly, the tip of your blade trembling. “I have lived through your kings, your wars, your feasts and your false gods. I have watched your kind burn forests to warm their hands. And now you ask me—ask me—to show mercy?”