The air at the entrance to the stone library was thin and cold, but for the first time, Veridia did not feel it as a thief. It was a clarifying shock, a clean slate. She stood in the pale light filtering between the peaks of the Slag Crown, not for warmth, but simply to admire the line of her own shadow. Her skin, once a cracked and muddy canvas of humiliation, was now a flawless expanse of pale crimson. Her horns had a healthy, obsidian sheen, and the demonic grace she had thought lost forever had returned to her limbs. She was no longer a scavenging animal. She was Princess Veridia Vex, and the feeling was dangerously intoxicating.
The vast, placid lake of Essence she had taken from the Manticore sat warm and heavy in her core. The constant, screaming leak of the curse, a metaphysical hole that had defined her existence, was gone. The sheer pressure of her surplus had sealed it shut. The game was over. She had won.
This miserable, mud-caked realm had been a distasteful business trip, but the returns were undeniable. As if on cue, a holographic display shimmered into existence before her, a private broadcast from the Network. The numbers were astronomical. Audience approval pulsed at its absolute peak. Glowing comments from the show's most influential Patrons scrolled past her vision.
*
*
Veridia dismissed the screen with a lazy wave. The validation was pleasant, but unnecessary. She had taken her sister's cruelest torments and her Patrons' fickle amusements and woven them into a masterpiece of humiliation—with Seraphine as the tragic star.
Asterion stood near the carved entrance of his library, a silent, monolithic observer. Veridia turned to him, a benevolent, almost pitying smile on her lips. She had been a fleeting, spectacular drama in his long, quiet existence. A goddess gracing a forgotten temple.
"I must thank you for your… rustic hospitality, Asterion," she said, her voice a silken purr she had not been able to produce in what felt like centuries. "Your quiet little archive served its purpose." She gave him a look that was meant to be a gift, the kind of acknowledgment a queen gives to a favored pet. He was scenery, and the scene was now over.
A sharp, grating crackle of static shattered the mountain's perfect silence.
Seraphine's illusion flickered into existence, but it was fundamentally wrong. This was not the polished, perfect Host of 'Exile's Ordeal.' The image was a mess of corrupted data, its edges fizzing violently. Her form distorted, her beautiful face momentarily stretching into a grotesque mask of pixels before snapping back. The honeyed poison of her voice was gone, replaced by a raw, enraged shriek laced with digital noise.
"You!" the ghost screamed, her voice tearing through the air. "You arrogant, short-sighted fool!"
Veridia's smug smile tightened, but a flicker of unease stirred in her gut. This was not a performance. This was genuine, undiluted fury. "Sour grapes, sister? I'm told humiliation is a bitter vintage."
"You didn't win!" Seraphine shrieked, her form glitching so badly she briefly became a storm of pure static. "You just changed the game! The ratings for my… for the finale… they didn't just break records. They annihilated them. The Patrons were ecstatic. Kasian is calling it a masterpiece of chaos. Vesperia is composing an ode to my exquisite suffering!"
Veridia's amusement began to curdle. She had been so focused on her personal victory, on the full belly and the quieted curse, that she hadn't considered the larger economy of their world. She had produced the greatest show in Network history. And the studio always, *always* greenlights a sequel.
"What have you done?" Veridia asked, her voice losing its triumphant lilt, replaced by a cold dread.
Through gritted teeth, Seraphine laid out the Consortium's new directive, her words a venomous torrent of disbelief and rage. "They're calling it 'Vex vs. Vex: The Celebrity War.' They loved the rivalry so much, they've decided to make it official."
She pointed a wavering, translucent finger at Veridia. "You think you're free? Think again. As a reward for my record-breaking performance, I am being granted the ultimate promotion." Her voice dripped with acid. "I, too, am being fully exiled. I will be made permanently tangible, stripped of my Host privileges, and afflicted with the very same Curse of the Sieve you've enjoyed so much."
Veridia stared, the pieces clicking into place with horrifying clarity.
"It's not your show anymore, Veridia," Seraphine spat. "It's ours. A direct, season-long competition. Both of us are players. Both of us can be sponsored. Both of us fighting to survive, to dominate, to humiliate the other for the Patrons' amusement."
She leaned forward, her glitching face a mask of incandescent hatred. "And the prize… oh, the prize is perfect. The winner—the one who utterly dominates the other into cancellation—doesn't just get a higher rating. They get a full, binding Pardon from the Court."
Veridia's smugness evaporated completely, replaced by a shock so profound it left her breathless. The world tilted, the rules re-writing themselves around her. This was not the ending she had envisioned. The clean escape, the return to power—it was all a mirage. The shock lasted only a moment, however, before it began to transmute. The dilemma was clear: was this a new cage, or a new kind of weapon? As the full implication settled in, the shock deliberately morphed into something else. A cold, predatory smile began to spread across her face. This wasn't a punishment. This was a gift. A defined path to total, absolute victory. Her goal was no longer just survival. It was annihilation.
Seraphine's enraged rant was cut short. A shimmering, violent tear in reality ripped open behind her flickering image. The air crackled with the smell of ozone and raw, unstable magic. Her eyes, which had been burning with hate, widened with a flash of genuine, primal terror.
"They're not waiting for the season premiere," she choked out, the static in her voice now sounding like a plea.
The portal flared with an obscene light, and the illusion of Seraphine was violently sucked backward into the vortex with a sound like tearing silk. A moment of absolute silence hung in the thin mountain air.
Then, a hundred yards from the library entrance, the portal vomited out a physical, screaming, and very tangible Seraphine Vex. She landed in a heap of torn silk and spitting fury on the sharp rocks. The portal snapped shut, the sound echoing like a cell door slamming closed.
Veridia stared at her sister. She was no longer an untouchable ghost, a disembodied voice of mockery. She was flesh and blood. A piece on the board. Vulnerable. Cursed.
The war had just become real.