Veridia awoke with a gasp, the world a painful blur of grey morning light filtering through a canopy of skeletal trees. Her head pounded in a brutal, rhythmic tattoo against her skull, a physical echo of the psychic shriek that had torn her from consciousness. The air, cold and damp, smelled of wet earth and shattered stone. But it was the *other* scent, or rather the lack of it, that made her stomach clench. The air was sterile, clean, stripped of the ambient ozone of spent magic and the coppery tang of old blood. It was a terrifyingly pure silence, a void where the hum of power should have been.
Cold seeped into her bones from the hard ground, a profound chill that was more than just the morning damp. It was the cold of a vessel that had been scoured clean, an unwelcome reminder of her new, fragile mortality. She pushed herself up onto trembling arms, her vision slowly sharpening to reveal a scene of frozen devastation.
Sprawled a few feet away was Seraphine, her usually perfect form a crumpled heap of ruined leather. Her glamour, the shimmering illusion of untouchability, was gone. She was just… flesh. Tangible, vulnerable, and breathing in shallow, ragged bursts. Beside her, Castian the Vowed lay still as a stone effigy, his broad chest rising and falling in a slow, deep rhythm. They were both deeply unconscious.
The realization was a jolt of cold, pure power that cut through the fog in her mind. She was awake. They were not. For the first time since her exile began, the board was hers.
A wave of pure, venomous hatred rose in her throat, hot as bile. This was it. The perfect chance, a gift from a god she didn't believe in. Castian's silvered blade lay on the ground between them, its hilt of polished iron seeming to beckon her. She could end it. She could crawl over, take the blade, and silence her sister's mockery, her smug, insufferable existence, right now.
*Just one clean stroke.*
The thought was a seductive whisper. She could almost feel the satisfying weight of the steel in her hand, could almost see the look of final, shocked betrayal on Seraphine's face as the life drained from her. The ultimate cancellation.
But the cold reality of their bond crashed down on her fantasy like a tidal wave of ice. The life-link. To kill Seraphine was to kill herself. The thought was a physical shock, a splash of freezing water that cleared her head. Was it worth it? The ultimate murder-suicide, broadcast live to the entire Infernal Court? To die, but to take her sister with her? To finally end the show on her own terms, a final, nihilistic act of defiance against the Patrons and their entire pathetic game.
The appeal of it was strong, a dark and tempting peace. An end to the hunger, the humiliation, the struggle.
But the actress in her head, the cold, calculating survivor forged in the Scablands, whispered a counter-argument. A mutual death was an ending. A cancellation. It was giving the audience a spectacular finale, but it was still letting them win. Escape, however… escape was a new season. A season where she held all the cards, where she had the advantage, where Seraphine was no longer the smug host but a fellow piece of meat trapped in the mortal realm. Survival was the better, more satisfying revenge.
The rage did not vanish. It simply cooled, condensing from a hot, roaring fire into a shard of ice in her gut. She would escape. She would survive. And she would make her sister's new, tangible life a living hell.
Having chosen life, Veridia's mind shifted to pure, predatory opportunism. She couldn't just leave. The holy blast had stripped her of everything, even the pathetic boons she'd collected. She needed supplies, information, anything to give her an edge.
Her gaze fell on Seraphine's pack. It was a small, stylish satchel of demonic make, woven from shadow-silk that seemed to drink the grey light, and it had somehow survived the battle unscathed. Seraphine was a planner, a meticulous schemer. She would never travel in this mortal hellscape without a contingency.
Veridia moved with a ghost's silence, her bare feet making no sound on the damp leaves. She knelt beside her sister, the proximity making her skin crawl with a familiar revulsion. With careful, precise movements that belied her trembling hands, she unfastened the silver clasp on the satchel.
Inside were a few high-quality demonic trinkets—a polished obsidian scrying stone, a spare glamour-infused cloth for quick disguises, a vial of concentrated fear-toxin. Practical, yet elegant. Vain, even in a warzone. Beneath them was a single, dense ration bar of concentrated Essence. The sight of it made her stomach clench with a sharp, desperate ache of hunger. She snatched the bar and shoved it into her rags without a second thought, a small victory against the gnawing curse.
Beneath it all, she found what she was truly looking for. A tightly rolled piece of vellum, its texture smooth and cool, unlike any mortal parchment. It was sealed with a small, faintly glowing rune—a minor ward of secrecy.
Veridia recognized the ward instantly. It was a simple, elegant piece of work from the Court, designed to keep out prying mortal eyes, not a demon of her caliber. She pressed her thumb to the rune, channeling a tiny, precious spark of her own fading, intrinsic power into it. The ward fizzled and died with a faint, almost inaudible sigh, leaving the scroll inert and the air smelling faintly of burnt sugar. She carefully unrolled it.
The map was not of Aethelgard. The lines and symbols were demonic, the script elegant and ancient, depicting not land, but a cross-section of mountain rock and shimmering, interwoven ley lines. Her eyes, trained in the arcane cartography of the Infernal Court, quickly deciphered its meaning.
It showed a precise location deep within the Slag Crown mountains, a place where three major ley lines converged in a brilliant, chaotic knot. And at the heart of that convergence, written in a stark, utilitarian script that sent a tremor of shock through her, was a single, chillingly familiar runic phrase.
*Veil-Puncture. Sanctioned Transit Point. Status: Dormant.*
Veridia's breath caught in her throat. Her mind reeled, the implications hitting her in a series of concussive waves. This wasn't just a map. It was a blueprint. A schematic for a hidden, forgotten back door to the demonic realm of Dis. This was a way out. A way *home*. Not a pardon earned through performance, not a prize granted by fickle Patrons, but a secret escape hatch she could use on her own terms. It was a staggering, blinding sunrise in the long night of her exile.
A low groan sounded from behind her. Castian was stirring, his unconsciousness beginning to recede.
Time was up.
Veridia didn't hesitate. She shoved the vellum map deep into her rags, the priceless secret a hidden, burning weight against her skin. She gave one last, contemptuous glance at her helpless sister, sprawled in the dirt like the pathetic, tangible creature she now was. Then, without a sound, she melted into the deep shadows of the forest.
This map wasn't just her escape route. It was a weapon. It was leverage. It was the script for her own, private season finale, and she was the only one who knew it existed.