The final night before the Conclave's vote draped over the palace like a shroud. The fortified wards hummed at a frequency only Stolas could hear, a constant, tense song at the edge of his mind. In the observatory, the silence was different—a held breath, punctuated by the soft, rhythmic sound of Octavia's voice.
She had moved beyond stories and music. Now, she simply described the room.
"...And the blue crystal on Dad's desk is glowing because you're here. It's supposed to measure 'ambient existential dread' or something. Right now, it's just... blue. Kind of pretty, actually."
On the divan, Darkness had not moved. But the psychic monitors showed the anchor points—Octavia's voice, Stolas's protective sigils—burning steadily brighter in the dark sea of his mind.
Blitzo had reported in via a crackling, rushed hell-phone call. "The middle-demon folded like a cheap suit! The buyer's sigil matches House Kraz-thul! One of the pricks on your scorched-gate fan mail!"
"Thank you, Blitzo. The payment is transferred."
"Pleasure doing violent business! We're, uh, lying low for a bit. Turns out Kraz-thul doesn't like their brokers getting extracted. Who knew?"
One threat identified. Stolas filed it away. Alastor's "information" had been more theatrical: a ghostly, laughing broadcast that narrated the planned route and time for Andromalius's next artifact shipment—a "Soul-Anchor Engine"—meant to permanently tether a wandering consciousness. An interception point was now marked on Stolas's map.
Everything was in motion. Everything was prepared.
And yet, the most dangerous attack did not come from the gates, or the shadows, or a bureaucratic decree.
It came from the inside.
It began with the wards. The humming pitch changed, dropping to a dissonant growl. Stolas was on his feet in an instant, claws extended. "Via, behind me."
But no enemy breached the walls. Instead, the very air in the observatory thickened, growing heavy and sweet with the scent of decaying lilies. The light from the crystals dimmed, not into darkness, but into a deep, oppressive indigo.
"Psychic intrusion," Stolas hissed. "Andromalius isn't waiting for the vote. He's trying to claim his prize remotely."
A shape coalesced from the stained air. It was not Andromalius in full form, but a psychic phantom, a projected consciousness of the Earl. He appeared as a shimmering, elegant silhouette, his voice a whisper that came from everywhere.
"Prince Stolas. You look... strained. This futile effort demeans you. The child is a void. You pour your energy into a vessel with no bottom. Let me relieve you of this burden."
"Get out of my home," Stolas snarled, power gathering around his claws.
"This is not for you," the phantom said, turning its gaze toward the divan. "This is for the asset. It is time to wake up, little storm. Your new keeper calls."
The phantom extended a wispy hand. A beam of pure, coercive psychic energy, designed to bypass physical defenses and hook directly into the subconscious, lanced across the room—not at Stolas, but at the catatonic Darkness.
Stolas moved to intercept, but he was a fraction too slow. The beam struck the ward barrier around the divan. The protective sigils flared white-hot, straining, but the psychic energy was insidious, designed to seep through. Thin tendrils of indigo light began to worm their way through the shields, reaching for the child's head.
"NO!" Octavia screamed, not in fear, but in raw defiance.
She didn't think. She threw herself forward, not between the beam and Darkness, but directly into the path of the seeping indigo tendrils. They connected with her temple.
The effect was instantaneous and violent.
Octavia's eyes flew open, not with her own consciousness, but flooded with the invasive, foreign presence of Andromalius. She gasped, her body going rigid. In her mind, a battle erupted. She saw Andromalius's memories: cold vaults of collected wonders, the scheming satisfaction of political maneuvers. He saw hers: the loneliness of the palace, the fierce, confused protectiveness for the feral child, the stubborn love for her father.
You foolish girl, Andromalius's thought-voice sneered within her. You have no shields. You are an open door.
Get. Out. Octavia thought back, with every ounce of her will.
But the phantom wasn't trying to possess her. It was using her. She was the conduit. The indigo energy, now filtered through Octavia's own emotional signature—her worry, her protectiveness—flowed past the weakened wards and touched Darkness's mind.
The psychic monitors went wild.
Inside the dark, silent sea of Darkness's consciousness, a new signal erupted. Not an anchor. An alarm.
It was Octavia's voice, but twisted with panic and a stranger's will. It was her feeling of violation, amplified a thousandfold. It was the ultimate trigger.
On the divan, Darkness's eyes snapped open.
All four of them.
They were not blank. They were incandescent with a rage so pure, so cosmic, it made the air crackle. He did not move his body. He moved the room.
The observatory shuddered. Every crystal array shattered simultaneously. The floating parchments ignited into brief, bright ashes. The psychic phantom of Andromalius flickered, its connection destabilized by the sheer psychic backblast.
"STOP."
The word was not spoken. It was imposed. It vibrated from the walls, the floor, from the atoms of the air itself. It was the voice of the storm given a single, devastating command.
The indigo tendrils connecting the phantom to Octavia shattered. She collapsed, gasping, free of the invasion but reeling.
The phantom recoiled, its elegant form rippling. "Fascinating! The defensive rage is even more—"
Darkness's gaze focused on the phantom. He understood now. This was the source of the bad-feeling. The cold-pressure that wanted to cage him. The thing that had hurt the girl-smoke.
He did not attack it with wind, or ice, or earthquake.
He looked at the psychic projection, and he rejected its reality.
With a sound like tearing silk, the phantom began to unravel. Its form didn't dissipate; it was unmade, its cohesive energy scattered into harmless, confused static. The last thing to vanish was Andromalius's look of triumphant curiosity, replaced by a flicker of genuine, stunned shock.
Then, it was gone. The air cleared. The oppressive weight lifted.
Silence returned, deeper than before.
Darkness slowly sat up on the divan. He looked at his own hands, then at Octavia, who was shaking on the floor. He saw the echo of the violation in her wide eyes, felt its bitter aftertaste in the air.
A low, pained whine escaped him. He had caused this. The bad-thing had come for him, and it had hurt her.
He scrambled off the divan, not with fury, but with a desperate, clumsy urgency. He crouched beside Octavia, his feathered wings drooping. He reached out a trembling claw and very, very gently, touched a strand of her hair.
Then he did something he had never done before. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against her shoulder—a gesture of animal comfort, of shared distress. A silent apology.
Octavia, still trembling, lifted a hand and placed it on his feathered back. "It's okay," she whispered, her voice raw. "You scared it off. You did good."
Stolas stood amidst the wreckage of his instruments, his heart pounding. He saw the destruction. But he also saw the child awake, not feral, but clear-eyed. He saw him seeking comfort, offering contact. The catatonia had been a cocoon. What had emerged was not a more docile creature, but a more integrated one.
The front door of the palace chimed softly. Not an attack. A formal notification. The Conclave's vote was complete. The result was being delivered.
Stolas looked from his daughter and his ward, huddled together on the floor, to the unseen messenger at his gate. The vengeful calculus in his mind solidified into a final, cold equation.
Andromalius had overplayed his hand. He had attacked their minds. He had used Octavia as a tool.
He had not just made an enemy of a Prince.
He had made the Beast's family his enemy. And now, the Beast was awake, and he knew who had hurt his own.
Stolas smoothed his robes, a calm, deadly focus settling over him. "Stay here," he told the two of them, his voice quiet. "I will deal with the paperwork."
He walked toward the door, not to receive a verdict, but to deliver one. The war was no longer coming. It had just crossed the threshold. And for the first time, Stolas had his full arsenal at his disposal: his title, his cunning, his allies, and a now-awakened force of nature who had just learned what it meant to protect, and to be protected.
The next move was his.