The Price of Persephone's Descent

Notes:

The two songs that played on repeat during the crafting of the last two chapters:

Ch. 9:

-Only Fans by The Pretty Wild

Ch. 10:

-Conquer by Arankai

This is one of my favorite chapters between 1-10! It lays the foundation for the upcoming arcs and introduces a new character. Let me know how you liked it.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Libby had thought she'd known true fear, but that had been nothing compared to the churning trepidation that now saturated her veins.

Pride angled his head from Libby to glance at the surrounding champions. Without a word of instruction from their lord, they immediately took several steps back, faced outwards, and formed a tight circle around her and their sovereign. The noise of the audience diminished instantly, the sudden hush leaving a dull ringing in her ears.

An elbow was suddenly braced next to her head, and Pride lowered himself until he was stretched out on his side beside her.

"Hello, little one."

His hand came up, and she would've recoiled if she'd had the energy left to do so. He slowly reached forward until he cradled her face with his palm. His hand was so large that it simultaneously cupped her chin and curled over the top of her head. Libby jolted at the contact, the startlingly gentle touch more shocking than an open-palmed slap.

"I know you can't speak to me, but your eyes are telling me everything I need to know," he said in a voice so low she didn't think the assembled champions could hear him. "Your defiance is your armor. Though they mock you, torment you, you shame every creature in this arena with your silence. Truly, you are extraordinary."

Pride's thumb lightly brushed across the delicate skin under her widening eye. "I have no desire to harm the only thing of value in this rotting cesspit," he remarked, the fingers of his enormous hand lightly sinking into her hair. "Pay her no mind for now. My sister won't play her only card too early. She's not ready for this to be over yet."

She could only stare at him in shock and unwilling awe. She averted her eyes, unable to tolerate being the direct subject of his abyssal stare for long.

The noise in the arena had started to swell again, the spell finally broken now that the spectators had started to realize they wouldn't have a direct view of the platform's center.

"How precious," Libby heard Narcissa say. "By all means, brother, have your little moment. But don't take too long. Even my generosity has its limits."

She saw what she thought might be weariness creep into the outline of his eyes. "But," he said, and the word filled her with a cold, empty dread. "If I don't do this, she will **** me to become… something far worse. Something devoid of thought and conscience that can't be reasoned with or stopped. When I am in that form, I'm nothing more than her weapon. I won't let her do that. Not to you."

She fought to swallow. Even if she hadn't been clinging to her vow of silence, she was certain she would've been lost for words, anyway. It was clear that whatever they needed her for in the end did not, in fact, require her to be as whole as she'd originally hoped.

"And as you may have seen… my cock was not designed for pleasure."

She had seen it, could see it. Could see them. Like his champions, two night-black staves were stacked on top of each other. But that is where all similarities ended. He dwarfed them in size, and four cockheads nested inside each other at the top of both lengths like stacked cups. Independent of his gratuitous testes, two engorged bulbs bulged and pulsed at the base of his shafts, each veined sphere larger than both of her fists combined.

One of his cocks alone was already intimidating and grotesquely proportioned. Together, they looked more like instruments of **** than organs of reproduction, the anatomy both alien and terrifying. His two members combined were, to her mounting horror, even larger than the dark red behemoth that jutted from between Wrath's legs.

"But I will take my time and spare you as much pain as I can."

She had no reason to believe him, even though this entity had shown her nothing but this gentle, unnerving kindness. How long had it been since someone had spoken to her like she was a person of value? Someone who believed she had more to offer than a warm orifice for their own selfish release?

Does it really matter? He's one of them, the battered, rational part of her mind cried out.

Even so, her heart ached, and she was just as terrified as she was **** to put her trust in another after so many dark, empty months of loneliness.

"Come here," he said, rolling onto his back and bending a knee. "You'll have more control like this, and you can set the pace." He gestured for her to take her place above him with a slow curl of his clawed hand.

She had gnawed the inside of her cheek raw. What if he was playing her and using his convincingly false kindness to lower her guard? What if he was in on some sick joke with the others that she didn't know about? If she let herself trust him and he broke that trust… she didn't know if she would ever fit the pieces of herself back together again, no matter what a shaman had managed to do the first time.

She searched his otherworldly face, looking for deception but finding only sincerity.

No, she didn't think he was lying. Not after everything she'd witnessed today.

An absurdly inappropriate blush crept up her neck and turned her cheeks pink the longer she stared at him. He was handsome. Devastatingly so. Her brain truly must have been fractured for her to hone in on such an inane detail, but it was beyond ignoring. His face looked almost… crafted rather than born, as if a master sculptor had painstakingly chiseled his sharp cheekbones, aquiline nose, and the severe brows that angled above his statue-smooth eyes. His body was no different. It was as if every muscle had been hewn into his umbral-colored physique, his massive frame as beautiful as it was deadly.

"I promise to be careful." A sad, serene smile curved his dark lips. "I know you have no reason to believe me, but you have my word. I refuse to be another monster in your nightmare. Come here, let me take care of you."

Libby's fists tightened in their bindings as she released a slow, shuddering breath. Before the damaged, wary part of her could protest, she shifted to get an arm underneath her, only for it to shake so hard from fatigue that she immediately fell back to the platform with a heavy thud. She bit back a grunt and tried again, but collapsed just as quickly. Tears of frustration threatened to escape, and she hated how weak and utterly depleted she was.

A single line appeared between Pride's brows, and he briefly canted his head away from her. He scanned the sky and the uppermost stands above, his eyes narrowing at the two levels that could still see them over the heads of the motionless champions. His jaw flexed, and his nostrils flared with contempt. When his attention returned to her, his expression had already softened.

"You're exhausted," he said quietly, his tone without judgment. "Would it be easier if I came to you instead?" There was something almost tender in his demeanor. "I'll cover you with my body, keep their eyes off you while we..." He hesitated. "I can make it so there's nothing you can see but me. If you'll allow it."

Her chest felt too tight, the very idea of another body crushing her under them making her teeth chatter and her heart kick into an irregular beat. She searched his face again, only finding that same, unwavering calm. Gritting her teeth until they ached, she gave a small nod before she lost what little was left of her resolve.

Pride uncurled from the floor and rose up onto his knees. The platform trembled slightly under his weight as he positioned one hand, then the other on either side of her head. His movements were unhurried, giving her time to adjust to each shift of his colossal frame. His shadow fell across her first, then his body followed, his wide shoulders eclipsing the harsh lights above, the floating sovereigns, the gathered champions and even the audience. When he finally settled over her, he kept his chest elevated, supporting himself so she could still move freely beneath him.

Libby was a little over average height, but underneath him she felt diminutive. The sovereign's forearm alone was thicker than her neck and nearly as long as her torso. There was absolutely nothing stopping this demon from brutalizing her however he pleased, and that made her feel small and breakable in a way nothing had before.

"Why don't we start with this," he said, snagging a claw the length of her longest finger through the coil of rope around her wrists. Like her legs, her arms instantly fell limp to her sides the moment they were freed. Blood steadily rushed back into her aching muscles, the pins and needles from his nearness intensifying the sensation in her limbs with an almost electric charge.

An arm slid under her back and completely lifted her off the ground until she was inches from his chest.

"I don't think we'll be needing this, either," he murmured, pressing a finger against the back of the iron collar. It popped open with a faint snick. The pressure instantly released from her throat, and it clattered to the floor two, maybe three feet below her.

"There," he said, adjusting her until she was fully supported in the crook of his arm. "How's that?"

She could only blink up at him in wordless bewilderment, uncertainty written across every line of her face.

He gave her a reassuring squeeze. "Right now, all I need you to do is breathe for me. Only focus on my face, my voice, and no one else."

Without warning or preamble, the black lenses of his eyes slid back to nest behind his eyelids. A ghostly white mist streamed from the cavity of each socket, an unearthly brilliance that made him seem almost divine. Libby's mouth suddenly went dry. She was fairly certain she'd started gawping like a fish.

"There," he said again. "Now there's nothing between us. No barrier, no pretense. It's just you and me and this moment, little one." He leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers. The tendrils of miasma above his crown curled back in sweeping waves from his face on an invisible current, lightly tickling her cheeks with their wispy ends. "Are you ready?"

No. She gave a barely perceptible nod of her chin. Drawing in a slow breath through his interlocking fangs, he slotted the head of one of his cocks against her weeping lower ring. Gradually, he fed his length into her battered canal, working inch by careful inch past the two rings of resistance.

The tapered head parted her swollen flesh with surprising ease. Libby opened her mouth with a soundless gasp, the strange texture of his tiered shaft creating an intense, unfamiliar pressure. He braced both her and the upper half of his body with a forearm, holding her securely in place. Each segmented ridge gently worked her open as he sank himself inside, his pace and his consideration a stark contrast to every violent invasion she'd suffered this far.

"Such a brave little thing you are," he murmured. "You're already taking me so well." He stretched her slowly, continuing to whisper his rumbling encouragements in her ear. His voice was like crushed velvet dragged across rough gravel. It was a living warmth that sank into her bones and flushed the shards of ice from her blood.

"Imagine you're unlocking one muscle at a time. Start here." The ends of his hair skimmed across the line of her jaw with a life of their own, coaxing her to release the tension. "Yes, there you go. Well done."

She stiffened as she felt the burning length of his second cock dip into the curve of her lower back, a rigid column of black flesh thicker around than her bicep. "Shh," he soothed, speaking directly into her hair. "Don't worry, I won't be giving you the second one. I won't let it come to that." His strands trailed down her neck and drew a series of lines across her collarbone. "Now, take that feeling and move it down to your shoulders. Perfect. That's it. Let me in, just like that."

He pressed deeper, and she arched to meet him, her body softening from his guidance and her own surrender. Every movement he made was designed to please, each sensual drag robbing her of her breath and stroking her sore, bruised walls.

Libby didn't know where her nerve came from, but the feeling had finally come back into her arms, and she hesitantly slid both limbs around the back of his neck.

Even his obsidian skin felt like warm marble, except it slightly dimpled when she sank her fingers into the corded muscle. Her exploratory touch earned her a shudder and an answering flex deep inside her. She did it again, and a satisfied, low hum came from the great chamber of his chest and vibrated through her entire body.

Perhaps, Libby thought with fevered, half-coherent wonder, that she was before Hades himself. She had no idea which mythologies existed in this place, but from the names spoken so far, Hell might have its own twisted version of the truth. If such an outlandish thing were possible, if she hadn't completely lost her mind, then she was beginning to understand why Persephone had ultimately forsaken the light for Hades' embrace.

The way Pride manipulated her body was virtuosic, and a pleasure unlike anything she had ever known was building in her center, unfurling with filaments of burning heat that extended to every single extremity.

Hades.

The name solidified in her mind, even though she wasn't sure if it was or had ever been his.

Perhaps she was finding comfort in an illusion, this melding of bodies between **** captor and captive. An act that in and of itself defied categorization.

Or maybe the truth was that she wanted to believe, for just a moment, that she wasn’t entirely lost. If Persephone had managed to find divinity not in the heights of Olympus but in the depths of the Underworld itself, then perhaps Hades could be Libby's path to freedom, her deliverance in this place of damnation.

Fool. She didn't, couldn't, trust him. That much was certain.

How could she ever trust anyone ever again? It wasn't possible, not after everything.

But she needed something to call him, something that felt more familiar than his lofty, forbidding title.

If her Hades found this act repulsive, he gave no indication of it. He focused on giving her exactly what she needed, even though she had no idea what that was herself.

The black tape the champions had placed over her pussy was still in place. He hadn't removed it or touched her clit once, but she found herself unexpectedly glad for it. If he had, it would have distracted her from the exquisite pleasure he was skillfully stoking in her lower belly, a pressurized reservoir he added to bit by excruciating bit.

"By the seven hells," Narcissa snapped. "You're just playing around in the filth and making her writhe under you! Don't think I can't see what you're doing." Her voice had pitched up several octaves. "You've only given her a single cock and haven't even knotted her with it yet!"

Narcissa's next words were spoken so only the sovereigns around them could hear her. "Dear brother. If you keep this up, the public will think you've developed feelings for the livestock. We can't have that, now can we? Truth be told, the way you're acting makes me think you actually want me to say the words. You know which ones." She laughed, the tinkling similar to the chime of shattering glass. "Let's see how long you can keep up this gentle charade when your instincts take over and you can't stop yourself from devouring her whole."

Hades tensed, every wrought line of his body standing out in sharp relief. Since he didn't have human eyes, it was almost impossible to read the emotions in the celestial depths of his gaze, but she couldn't mistake the raw, calcified hatred that etched itself into the planes of his face. His grip tightened around her, and he drew her towards him until her chest was pressed flush against his heated stone skin.

"I need you to listen to me very carefully," he whispered, a thread of malice tinging his voice. For once, Libby was certain it wasn't directed at her. "I am about to hurt you far more than any of the others who have come before me. When I knot you, please do not fight me. Fighting will make you tear, and I don't want to cause you any more misery than you've already endured. You must breathe through it and hold onto your silence, no matter what."

Her eyes unfocused as curdling dread bled into her bit by bit, pulling her back into the hollow space where her grief nested. The hand curled around the back of her head tilted her skull until she had **** but to look at him.

"Stay with me. Don't go where I can't follow you." Her blown pupils focused on his face. She couldn't do this. She couldn't. She couldn't.

"I can see it in your eyes. You can do this. You've conquered every hell thrown at you so far, and this will be no different." His face contorted with an emotion she could not name. "I wish I could spare you this, but I can't. If I don't do this myself, she'll **** my hand and the beast she unleashes won't care about your suffering." His words were raw with self-disgust. "When the pain becomes unbearable, I want you to sink your little fangs into my arm as hard as you can. Give your agony to me, not to them."

Hades adjusted himself inside her, and her next breath wedged itself at the base of her throat. Another careful thrust took him deeper, and a blazing lance of pain shot through her core, the place they joined a battle between his patient restraint and her body's futile resistance to keep him out.

He steadily worked in more of his bloated cock, a straining tendon beginning to rise along the slope of his jaw. The pain was nearly blinding. She wanted to beg him to stop, to pull it out. She was past her limit, and the muscles of her abdomen were screaming and cramping from the relentless breach of her midsection.

Moisture brimmed in her eyes and threatened to fall. From the corner of her distorted vision, she could just make out one of the screens. A close-up image of where they were joined was displayed across it, and she saw with crushing despair that half of his shaft still remained outside her body, the two pulsing knots at the base looming much further down.

Hades' voice kept its low, soothing cadence despite her building anguish. "My anatomy is a terrible thing to bear. Like every part of me, it was created to inflict punishment and to **** sinners to submit."

His forward advance was inexorable, the tips of his claws biting into her sweat-slicked flanks as he held her completely immobile.

His earlier warning not to fight back had been unnecessary. She couldn't move, not even if she tried.

"But I have no desire to punish you, my sweet sinner." A humorless laugh escaped him, as if this news was a surprise, even to him. "Watching you deny them the satisfaction of your voice and refuse to surrender your pride has grudgingly earned my admiration. I didn't think I was still capable of such sentiment. What a strange creature you are, to make me want to protect a mortal rather than to break one."

His other cock dragged back and forth between the dimples at the base of her spine, the throbbing giant a burning reminder that she was struggling to take even the first of his lengths, let alone the inconceivable notion of the second. Her body jolted at the contact, and she clung to her fraying composure, trying to understand how it was possible to feel this full after she'd already been stretched by so many.

"I'm going to need you to keep being brave for me. Braver than you've been so far, even though you've already been so strong."

Her fists tightened around his neck as an agonizing pressure built until she thought her pelvis might crack from the strain. An anguished scream expanded in her lungs and surged up her throat. She caught it just behind her clenched teeth, even as tremors wracked her frame and tears began to leak from her eyes. Hades used the hand under her head to gently coax her lips towards his forearm.

She sharply turned her face away. No. She refused to let them see how weak she was. If she had to bear this, then she would bear it without depending on anyone else.

Libby **** herself to meet his smoking gaze. The corner of his mouth was turned down in grim resignation, but he only clutched her tighter and pushed deeper with unyielding, merciless pressure.

"Good girl. Here it comes. Open for me just a little more."

She felt the exact moment the first knot started to breach her outer ring. Her body refused to ease its entrance, and yet muscle and tissue stretched beyond capacity as an all-consuming agony arced up her spine. A soul-deep cry erupted from her throat, and his mouth crashed over hers, an enormous tongue darting out and lodging into her throat to trap the sound.

Everything went black.

When she slowly came back into herself, it was to a sublime torment that sent ripples of blistering warmth along every exposed nerve in her body. A deep, dark pleasure was uncoiling behind her navel and building to something frightening in its intensity. Her blurry eyes refocused on Hades's face, his hewn features tight with bridled power and absolute concentration.

So this hadn't been a nightmare, after all.

She glanced down between them, watching with growing fascination at the place where their bodies met. His abdominals were flexing in tandem with his expert thrusts, his devastating length slipping back and forth into her pliant heat. His first knot popped free, then the second, glistening with the myriad of fluids leaking from her channel. The swollen bulbs pulled at her rim with every backstroke, briefly catching at the entrance before sliding all the way back in. They sent waves of burning pleasure rippling through her even as the length of his cock obscenely distended the expanse of her stomach.

"There's my brave girl. Focus on that warmth building inside you. Let it fill every part of you."

His massive body blocked out everything. Here, there was only darkness. Here, there was only him. Only Hades. He somehow made it feel like they were the only two people in existence, the only two bright stars in an endless void.

"This is absolutely nauseating." Narcissa's voice cut through the air like a blade.

"Shut the fuck up, usurper," Envy snarled.

"Seconded. This is the most interesting thing to happen at a Rite in centuries," Wrath said, his voice caught somewhere between admiration and disbelief. "There's no gore, not even a drop of blood, but I don't think my cock has been this hard in just as many years. So if you interrupt them again, I'll rip your tongue out and serve it to Gluttony. And I don't think I've ever seen The Bottomless King this ravenous, so I'd tread fucking carefully if I were you."

"Quite. Let Pride play with my food just a little longer," a cavernous voice Libby didn't recognize rumbled. He spoke slowly, as if he were speaking to a child or about to recount a tale. "I want her so bloated with demon seed that when it's my turn to bite into her, she bursts like a perfectly ripened fruit."

A sheet of ice cold awareness poured over Libby's head, nearly wrenching her out of the moment entirely. Her heart rate had started to spike out of control, her chest rising and falling as rapidly as a caged bird's.

"Look at me," Pride commanded, and she wrenched her gaze back to the effervescent whites of his eyes. "Don't think about them. Let everything else fade to the background and disappear. I want those pretty amber eyes only on me." Then he chuckled, the sound sending a wave of goosebumps peppering across her skin.

"I have a delicious idea," he said, and for the first time, she felt like she was truly looking at the face of a ruthless sovereign of Hell. "How would you like to get a little ****? We could ruin her sick, petty game by doing the one thing that would infuriate her most."

If he intended to ruin her game, then that… then that could only mean… Her gaze lifted back up to his and widened.

"Oh, yes. It's exactly what you're thinking, love. I'm going to make you come all over my cock. Do you think you can do that for me?"

Heat rose to her face, and she chewed at the inside of her cheek, her eyes darting away from his piercing stare. In response, the demonic organ inside her started to move faster, his other cock and heavy testes now slapping against her buttocks.

That prickling intensity from before rekindled in her lower belly, and her head snapped back when he discovered a sensitive spot. He bullied it without mercy, his pelvis slamming into the tape still covering her pussy.

"There we go. What a good girl you're being for me. I barely fit inside you, but you're still taking half of me so well. You should take immense pride in knowing that you’re making it very hard for me to hold back."

She didn't feel an ounce of shame as a line of drool ran from her lips and into her hairline, her passage clenching greedily around every bump and ridge as she contracted around his length.

"All I want to do is remove this fucking tape and pound into both your holes until you're begging me to stop and then begging me to fuck you harder. But I won't. I want to teach this perfect ass to crave being filled by me. To make you ache when this hole is empty. To teach your body to do something it didn't know it could do."

"ENOUGH!" Narcissa's shriek echoed through the arena, and the constant hum in the background went pin-drop silent. His twin continued barraging them with her outburst, but Libby didn't hear the rest of her words. She was climbing higher and higher, her tongue lolling from between her lips as Hades brought her to the precipice of a soul-shattering orgasm.

Pleasure collided into her like a collapsing wave, obliterating thought, drowning reason, until there was nothing left but the overwhelming sensation of being filled and the perfect ecstasy of it.

"NO!" She heard a distant cry, but it dissipated before it reached her consciousness.

The orgasm ripped her away from herself entirely. It kept coming, cresting and crashing again, each peak dragging her higher until she thought she might dissolve entirely, her ass clenching helplessly around him with each relentless aftershock.

Hades was moving within the deepest part of her, a part that had been left aching and vacant after Sloth's two champions had defiled and reshaped her depths. A kiss was placed at her temple, the brief graze of unexpectedly soft, burning lips a shock against her clammy skin.

She came again and again, her spirit leaving her body before slamming back into her each time. Everything else receded, only the incredible feeling of fullness from his shaft, his knots. Oh god, whatever he was doing with those felt both unbearable and divine, consuming her until every bone in her body liquified from the resplendent torment.

When her awareness returned, it came back slowly. Hades was glancing just above her head, and he tilted his face back down to look at her, a triumphant smile spreading across his achingly beautiful features. A few seconds later, a chime went off, signaling the end of the round.

"I believe this is what humans mean when they say 'saved by the bell,"' he said, a single black eyelid lowering in what could only be a wink. His unexpected attempt at humor had her gaping up at him, and she turned her face away as blood rushed to her cheeks.

"I am in awe of you," he said on an exhale. A clawed hand came up and stroked a sandy lock of hair back from her face. Somehow, she still had the presence of mind to blush even harder. "Look at you. You took every impossible inch of me. Exquisite. You're absolutely exquisite."

It was only then that she noticed how tense he was, how every line of his body had gone absolutely still. A hairline crack appeared in the cleft of his chin and fractured up part way through his lips before receding. Then the rest of his noble face sobered by degrees.

"The moment I rise, it's all going to come crashing back in all at once. The noise, the chaos, everything. Please prepare yourself, little one."

It took Libby a moment to recognize it, the emotion that flashed across his face so quickly she thought she'd imagined it. But she'd seen it, the intense, all-consuming hunger that betrayed his outward stoicism. "Now that I've found you, little mortal, I intend to claim you fully. This brave spirit, this perfect, greedy little hole, all of it. Wait for me. I'll come back for you."

Then without another word, he pushed back from her, rolled onto his heels, and rose to his full height.

The rush of reality was as overwhelming as he'd said it would be. The brightness of the arena sands and the ochre sky hit her at the same time the cacophony of voices did. All around her, the gazes of the sovereigns bored into them with a spectrum of unsettling emotions.

Pride extended a hand towards her and she took it, unsteadily rising to her feet. Once he seemed sure she wasn't about to pitch forward, he gave her arms a brief squeeze, and levitated back to Pride's platform without a backward glance.

Narcissa's face was contorted into a portrait of unfiltered hatred. She was gripping the armrests of her throne so tightly that multiple cracks had split the dark marble.

Wrath started a slow clap, his garnet signet ring glinting on his right hand. Beside him, Envy was cackling with unfiltered, deranged glee.

"Now that's how you conduct a fucking Rite," Wrath bellowed, his deep voice carrying across the arena with unmistakable approval. "Magnificent. Absolutely magnificent."

"Yes. Magnificent, indeed." Lust was nearly panting, their entire body flushed a wanton shade of rouge. The seat of their throne and the servant at their feet were covered in a film of slick and semen. "That was one of the most erotic things I've ever witnessed in my entire existence, and I've seen everything. I think I need a cold shower. Or another hot servant to sink into. Possibly both."

Pride didn't acknowledge the sovereigns' commentary or his sister as he walked past her ostentatious throne and came to a stop a few steps behind it. He loosely linked his arms across his chest, and his entire body began to petrify into a solid, glossy sheen, rapidly rendering him into a sculpture of volcanic glass. Then, from one moment to the next, he went utterly still but for the smoking strands of his mane floating around his head.

Semen was still dripping from his first shaft, but Libby knew none of it belonged to him.

"Don't think I can't invoke the words even when you've turned yourself to stone," Narcissa hissed, pushing herself to her feet.

"Tell me, Narcissa," Wrath said, his slow clap finally coming to an end. "How does it feel to orchestrate your own humiliation? Because from where I'm sitting, your dear brother just proved he's still got more pride in his little finger than you'll ever have in your entire reign."

"How dare you—" Narcissa sputtered. "You can't possibly—"

"Give it a rest already, you mouthy chit," Gluttony said, low voice pitching to an ear-vibrating register. She had made every effort to avoid glancing his way, but this time the urge was stronger than she was. Her stomach did a somersault. His body was warping between a goliath with cloven hooves and a cryptid horror with far too many hooked teeth. She tore her gaze away, every cell in her body hyper aware that he had started looking at her. "Your whining is insufferable. Save the pittance that remains of your dignity while you still own a modicum of it."

The other sovereigns had gone silent, each one fixing Narcissa with varying degrees of disdain. She stood frozen for a long moment, her serpentine hair snapping in agitation, before she slowly lowered herself back into her throne. Just before she took her seat, she turned her fathomless black gaze on Libby, a lethal promise of retribution etched into every line of her imperious face.

Libby dragged her gaze away from Narcissa's bone-chilling stare. She angled her head upward until she met Fenrow's, then Galen's gaze, their faces still magnified on a central screen. A soothing balm of bitter satisfaction washed through her at what she saw carved across their expressions.

Pure, crystallized rage had frozen their features into masks of devastation. Fenrow stood beside a shattered pillar, his hand dripping a steady stream of blood. Beside him, Galen looked like he was fighting the urge to reach for a weapon. Or vault over the terrace entirely.

"Pride's allotted hour has come to an end," was all Fenrow said, his voice almost devoid of emotion. "We will be taking another intermission and will resume at the top of the next hour."

Superimposed beside his face, the score read:

Score:

Lust: 12

Envy: 11

Sloth: 1

Pride: 13

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