Mara's first breath as a demon hurt more than the fall.
Air burned her lungs—thick, metallic, laced with ash—and every inhale dragged fire through her chest. She collapsed to her knees, claws digging instinctively into the scorched stone as her body finished reshaping itself. Horns curved back from her temples like blackened branches. Her spine ached, vertebrae tightening, strengthening. Heat pulsed beneath her skin in slow, terrifying waves.
She was alive.
She was not human.
Around her, others stirred—those Thomas had pulled from the edge. Some wept. Some raged. Some stared at their new forms in mute horror. The Ashen Horde kept distance, watchful but not cruel, weapons lowered but ready.
Thomas stood apart, his presence steady, anchoring the chaos simply by existing.
"You survived," Liora told Mara, crouching beside her. Her voice was sharp but not unkind. "That means Hell hasn't finished with you."
Mara swallowed, throat raw. "Is he…?" She nodded toward Thomas.
"Yes," Liora said. "And no."
Before Mara could ask more, the air tightened.
The Circle of Runes flared overhead, symbols burning brighter than Mara could look at directly. The ground vibrated as if reality itself were holding its breath.
Eddric hissed. "It's addressing him."
The runes rearranged, forming a vertical spiral—ancient, rare.
A Mandate.
Thomas stepped forward, alone.
A voice spoke—not aloud, but everywhere at once, pressing meaning directly into the mind.
Mercy disrupts equilibrium.
Thomas did not flinch.
You have interfered with lawful damnation.
"I chose," Thomas replied.
Choice creates variance. Variance creates instability.
"Then Hell is already unstable," he said.
The Circle paused.
Your actions will be permitted—conditionally.
A ripple of shock moved through every demon present.
You will serve as a vector.
Thomas narrowed his eyes. "For what?"
Integration.
Images flooded his mind—humans falling in greater numbers, Hell's systems straining, demons turning feral faster, dominions collapsing into endless war.
Too many souls break upon arrival.
Thomas understood.
They wanted him to process the fallen. Shape them before Hell destroyed them—or before they destroyed Hell.
"You're making me a solution," he said.
You are already an anomaly.
The Circle burned brighter.
Accept, or be corrected.
Thomas thought of Mara. Of Kael. Of the Horde. Of the humans still screaming in the sky.
"I accept," he said.
The runes dimmed.
The Circle withdrew.
Liora exhaled slowly. "That," she said, "was not a victory."
Meanwhile, far across Hell, Vareth stood within a cathedral of scorched iron, listening to the echoes of Sevrayne's defeat carried by trembling messengers.
"The Ash-Bound King interferes again," one demon rasped.
Vareth's eyes glowed faintly.
"Good," he said. "The Circle has finally chosen a side."
He turned toward the war-maps etched into the floor—new lines forming, converging on Thomas's growing domain.
"Prepare the Purge Legions," Vareth ordered calmly. "If he is to shape Hell…"
Vareth smiled.
"…then I will shape him."