The roses were gone.
Where once her garden had burned with crimson blossoms and thorns of fire, only ash remained. The soil was cracked, the walls charred, the air heavy with smoke. Liora stood in the ruins, her whip coiled uselessly at her side, her crown's faint glow dimmed beneath the weight of loss.
This place had been hers—the one sanctuary in Hell that belonged to her alone. Now Azazel's fire had devoured it.
"You grieve," Lucien said quietly behind her.
She did not turn. "You think I shouldn't?"
"No," he replied. "I think you should. But do not mistake grief for weakness. Ash is not the end. Fire is born from ash, again and again."
Liora bent, scooping a handful of the blackened soil into her palm. It crumbled through her fingers like dust. "And what if I don't want to begin again?"
Lucien's silver gaze softened. "Then Azazel has already won."
---
The court was restless. Whispers of Azazel's return spread like wildfire. Some demons cheered it as prophecy, others cowered in terror. The seven Demon Lords walked the halls with arrogance, their pact hidden but their triumph thinly veiled.
"They think you are broken," Lucien told her as they walked together through the palace.
"I am not."
"Good," he said. "Because soon you must prove it."
---
That night, Liora returned to the ashen garden alone. She sat where her roses once bloomed, her hands pressed to the soil, her crown burning faintly.
"Burn," she whispered. "Grow again. Please."
The ground quivered beneath her palms. For a moment, she thought nothing would come. But then—faintly—a spark. A single thorn broke through the ash, glowing with crimson fire. Then another. And another.
Her heart leapt. The roses lived.
The crown pulsed on her brow, and she felt it: the garden was bound to her, as much a part of her as her whip or her flame. It would not die while she still breathed.
She laughed softly, tears slipping down her cheeks. "You're stubborn, just like me."
The roses swayed, answering in firelight.
---
Days turned into weeks. The garden began to bloom again, slower but fiercer. The roses that grew from ash were darker, their thorns sharper, their flames hotter. They were not what they had been before—they were something new.
And so was she.
Lucien came to her often, though he never intruded. Sometimes he watched in silence. Sometimes he trained with her, whip against flame, testing her strength until sparks lit the night. And sometimes—only sometimes—he sat with her among the thorns, speaking in fragments of the world before crowns, before rebellion.
She began to see him differently then. Not as Devil. Not as fire. But as a man who had carried eternity alone.
---
But the rebellion did not sleep.
The Demon Lords stirred the court with poison. They whispered of Lucien's faltering power, of Azazel's destined return. They whispered of Liora's mortality, her fragility, her unworthiness to wear a crown.
Whispers turned to rumors. Rumors to unrest.
And one night, as Liora stood in her blooming garden, she heard the first words of open defiance.
"She is no queen."
The voice came from the shadows—Lord Sareth, his fangs gleaming in the dim light. He stepped into the garden without fear, his claws dragging across the stone.
"You survived Azazel's fire," he sneered, "but survival is not sovereignty. The court bows because Lucien commands it. Not because you deserve it."
Liora's whip cracked into her hand. "And yet here you stand, daring to challenge me. That sounds like recognition to me."
Sareth laughed, a low, guttural sound. "I will show them all what happens when a mortal pretender plays with fire."
He lunged.
---
The battle was swift, brutal. Sareth's claws slashed, his fangs snapping, his shadow spreading wide. Liora's whip struck again and again, but he was strong—stronger than the assassins, faster than the spirits.
Her crown burned, feeding her power. The roses surged, their flames wrapping around her. She moved with them, no longer fighting alone but as one with her garden.
When Sareth lunged for her throat, she drove the whip of thorns into his chest. The thorns grew, wrapping around him, binding him. He screamed as the roses ignited, consuming him in crimson fire.
When the flames died, only ash remained.
---
The court heard of it by dawn. The whispers changed.
"She killed him."
"She burned a lord."
"She is not weak."
But the rebellion did not falter. It only grew sharper, angrier.
And far away, in the pit of fire, Azazel stirred again, his laughter echoing faintly through the abyss.
---
Liora stood among her roses, her whip dripping fire, her crown blazing like a star. She had lost. She had burned. She had grown again.
And she knew: the rebellion would not stop. Azazel would not rest.
But neither would she.