The chains hummed like living things, golden light burning through the chamber as if the walls themselves bore witness. Mike hung suspended, each breath labored, every pulse of the bindings drawing a little more strength from his veins. His body trembled, but his eyes though clouded with fear remained fixed on the three who would decide his fate.
Maymun seated himself upon the high dais, the throne carved of bronze and obsidian. His golden eyes did not waver. His voice, when it filled the chamber, was deep and resonant, a verdict before judgment had even been spoken.
"Michael, you stand accused of slaughtering those you swore to protect. Of yielding to the whispers, devouring innocents as prey. What say you before this council?"
Mike's throat tightened. The memories were shards, jagged and broken, but enough to pierce. Sorina's scream. The villagers fleeing into the dark. Blood spraying against his chest. His stomach lurched as though reliving it.
"I—I don't remember it all," he stammered. "But I didn't want it. I wasn't myself. I was trying to fight, trying to protect them. Then the whispers—"
"Whispers do not move your claws," Hamza cut in, his crimson eyes narrowing. His voice was harsh, iron bound in fire. "I watched you tear them apart. I bound you only after Sorina had lost her arm to your fangs. If I had not intervened, she would be a corpse. Tell me, Michael, was that protection?"
The words struck harder than the chains. Mike bowed his head, shame burning hotter than any binding. His voice cracked. "I didn't mean to… I thought I could control it."
"Control?" Binyai's tone was colder still, his cloak of black and silver rippling as though stirred by shadows. He stepped forward, his obsidian eyes unreadable. "There is no control in you. I tracked your essence across the land, chaos unraveling wherever you set foot. You are fractured, Dumu-Kur. A beast straining at the edges of a mortal shell."
Mike's chest heaved. His hands strained against the golden chains until his wrists bled. "I'm not a beast! I didn't choose all this, Kur's essence, Bahamut's voice, all of it was forced on me!"
"Lies," Hamza snapped, stepping forward, his crimson aura flaring. "You chose when you devoured. You chose when you tore through bone and flesh. You fed willingly. Do not cloak gluttony in the garb of fate."
"Enough." Maymun's command silenced the chamber. His golden gaze fixed on Mike, heavy with both judgment and sorrow. "Your words are hollow without truth. Speak, then: what do you remember? Not excuses. Not denial. Truth."
The chamber pulsed with silence. The chains burned. Bahamut's voice growled deep in Mike's mind. "Stand tall, hatchling. Face what you have done, or they will cast you into the void."
Mike clenched his teeth, tears pricking his eyes. "I remember… the screams," he admitted hoarsely. "The blood. My claws cutting through them. Sorina, her eyes when I took her arm." His breath caught, raw and broken. "I can still taste her blood. It wasn't supposed to be like that… I wasn't supposed to become this."
The council watched, weighing every word, every tremor of his voice.
Maymun leaned forward, his golden eyes narrowing. "At last, honesty. But honesty alone cannot cleanse what has been done. The truth of your essence remains: fractured, unstable, drowning in borrowed power. You are not Kur. You are not Bahamut. You are something else, something that may yet save this world, or end it."
He rose to his feet, robes sweeping across the polished stone. The weight of his presence pressed against Mike like another chain.
"The council will not decide this alone. You will face trial not only in chains, but within yourself. If you cannot master the whispers, if you cannot bear the weight of what you have done, then you will share Kur's fate buried and forgotten."
The bronze doors opened fully, groaning like the shifting of mountains. From the shadows, figures emerged, each radiating power that bent the air around them. Djinn of renown took their places in a crescent before the throne.
Their auras clashed, heat and storm, shadow and flame, yet all bowed their heads briefly to Maymun before raising their gazes to the chained man before them.
"Behold," Maymun intoned, his voice echoing through the hall. "Michael, bearer of Bahamut's essence, devourer of Kur's bones. He stands accused not by mortals alone, but by the balance of the unseen realms. Today, his fate will be weighed by this council."
A djinn draped in robes the color of desert twilight stepped forward first. His beard was plaited with golden rings, and his eyes flickered with endless fire. "I am Shazir," he rumbled, his voice sharp as cracking stone. "And I say he is too dangerous to live. I have seen mortals drunk on lesser powers, none could resist, all became beasts. This one has devoured gods and crawled back. He will only devour again. End him, and spare the worlds."
Mike's stomach clenched. He strained against the chains. "I'm not—"
But another voice cut across his protest. From the far end of the crescent, a slender djinn in robes of deep sapphire tilted her head, eyes glinting like moonlight on water. Her voice was soft, but carried a weight that stilled the chamber. "Do not be so quick to condemn, Shazir. I am Marid. I have seen mortals rise above corruption. Power does not always consume, sometimes it tempers. He may yet be shaped into something greater." She looked at Mike directly, her gaze piercing yet not unkind. "If he survives himself."
Hamza interrupted, crimson chains rattling faintly at his wrists. "He may have already failed. But I believe he deserves another chance. To prove what we have seen prior to devouring Hecate."
"Perhaps he is exactly what is needed," Marid added, her tone sharp as glass. "This age is crumbling. The angels tighten their grip, the pantheons fracture, mortals falter. A beast may be the weapon none of us dare wield, but all of us require."
Murmurs rippled through the gathered councilors.
Another figure, vast and cloaked in stormclouds, leaned forward, his voice like rolling thunder. "I am Jann, and I see only imbalance. He is a tear in the weave, his essence neither mortal, nor beast, nor divine, but all at once. Such a thing cannot endure. It must be bound, or it will unravel the very order."
At that, Binyai's voice slid through the air like a blade of obsidian. "Bound… or broken." His black eyes never left Mike.
Mike's head dropped, his chest heaving. Their words were knives, each cutting deeper into the wound of his guilt. They're right… I lost myself. I killed them. The villagers' faces burned in his mind.
Bahamut's growl echoed low inside him. "Do not bow, hatchling. They see your weakness, but they do not yet know your strength. Stand tall."
Mike forced his head up, crimson eyes burning against the golden chains.
Marid's gaze lingered on him. Shazir's flame flared hotter. Jann's storm rumbled.
Finally, Maymun rose, his golden aura filling every corner of the hall. His voice struck like a verdict, though no sentence yet had been passed.
"The council has spoken with many tongues, condemnation, temptation, doubt, and possibility. But the choice cannot be words alone. Michael, you will not be judged by our voices, but by trial. We will cast you into the crucible of your own essence. If you master it, you may yet walk free. If you fail—" his golden eyes narrowed, hard as stone, "—you will be erased."
The chains pulsed once more, burning hot against Mike's skin. The floor beneath him trembled as a circle of runes ignited, ancient and hungry.
And the chamber darkened as if the council itself held its breath, awaiting whether the monster before them could truly be more than the beast they feared.