Olivia marched down the grand staircase with the purposeful stride of a woman who had completely run out of patience. Her golden eyes swept the lower parlor until they landed squarely on Zayne, who was calmly sipping a cup of black tea by the hearth, looking as though he hadn't a care in the world.
"Zayne," Olivia announced, her voice pitched at a level of lethal, controlled calm that usually preceded a domestic catastrophe.
Zayne didn't even blink, raising an eyebrow over the rim of his cup. "Did Kyle manage to turn his bedroom into a smoke hazard again, or did he simply forget how doors work?"
"Kyle is upstairs, shirtless, covered in third-degree burns, bandaged like a medieval mummy, and tending to his wounds with the help of a mysterious ebony-haired woman who looks like she could assassinate us all with a butter knife," Olivia recited breathlessly, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "And just down the hall, Luke has crawled out of some ungodly dimension looking like an extra from a tragedy, sporting a fresh, decorative neck scar that suggests he tried to decapitate himself for fun. I am going to the conservatory to water the plants and pretend I live in a normal household. Deal with your son and nephew."
Zayne's teacup stopped halfway to his mouth. The serene, unbothered facade cracked instantly. He set the cup down with a sharp clink, his silver-threaded robes swirling as he stood up.
"A mysterious woman? Bandages? A neck scar?" Zayne muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "It has been two days. Two days. Did they go shopping for groceries or wander into a localized warzone?"
Without waiting for Olivia to elaborate, Zayne strode purposefully toward the stairs, his mana surging withigan the heavy, oppressive pressure of a patriarch who was seconds away from grounding his son and nephew.
Ten minutes later, the heavy oak doors of Zayne's private study clicked shut, sealing out the rest of the sprawling estate.
The room smelled of old paper, polished mahogany, and the faint, ozone tang of lingering magic. Zayne sat behind his massive mahogany desk, steepling his fingers as his golden eyes bored holes into the two absolute disasters sitting across from him.
Luke was slumped in an armchair, absentmindedly tracing the jagged, permanent reminder of his second death around his neck, looking like a ghost haunting its own living room. Kyle—his cousin, who had shared the same brutal descent into the unknown—sat opposite him, wincing every time he accidentally twitched his carbonized, bandage-wrapped hands against the armrest. Azula—having quietly materialized from the shadows of the study corner—stood motionless behind Kyle like an intimidating, shadow-woven statue.
"Alright," Zayne said, his voice dropping an octave into a low, terrifying rumble. "Start talking. And if either of you says 'we just took a wrong turn at the market,' I am personally throwing you both into the outer perimeter wall."
Luke let out a dry, rattling sigh, leaning forward. Where do I even begin? With the part where I fought a leviathan, or the part where I was forced to navigate a labyrinth designed by a sadistic ancient architect just to acquire a weapon made from a dead god's leftover dental work?
"It wasn't a wrong turn, Father," Luke began, his voice flat and devoid of humor. "The spatial anchor dropped us straight into a subterranean tomb. To get out, we had to clear a trial of sacrifice. I fought a leviathan, navigated a labyrinth of shifting stone, and ultimately had to die—twice—just to satisfy the conditions of the trial and claim a divine artifact."
Zayne's eyes narrowed sharply. "You died. Twice."
"It builds character," Luke muttered deadpan, before holding up a hand to cut off any further questions. "The entity running the trial was a hollow phoenix crafted from the willpower of August. It revealed that the trials are meant to forge survivors for an upcoming calamity. It handed me a massive, over-glorified sword made from Kaizer's remains—which I immediately gave to Ingis because it's entirely impractical—and then spat us back out."
Zayne stared at Luke for a long, agonizing moment, processing the sheer absurdity of the statement. He then slowly turned his gaze toward Kyle, whose silver hair fell over his eyes as he avoided direct eye contact.
"And you, Kyle?" Zayne asked, his voice dangerously soft. "What was your excuse? Did you also wander into an ancient tomb to get your hands burnt to a crisp?"
Kyle shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the leather squeaking under his weight. I could tell him about the Dark Lord's lingering soul-mark, the spatial tear in the capital's oldest slum, and the fact that I'm currently harboring a primordial entity in human form right behind my chair. Or, I could completely omit the terrifying cosmic deity details and stick to the surface-level urban chaos.
Kyle deliberately chose the latter, suppressing a wince as his burnt fingers throbbed.
He narrated his ordeal to Zayne.
"Well, Uncle, we were dumped us right into a garbage-choked back alley in the capital's oldest slum," Kyle explained, keeping his voice carefully measured while strategically omitting any mention of the Dark Lord's shadow contract binding Azula to his soul.
"A corrupted demonic beast—fused with iron scraps and reeking of abyssal rot—crawled out of a spatial tear right into the city streets. I had to incinerate it before it tore up the residential district."
Zayne's expression darkened instantly, the casual irritation vanishing from his face, replaced by the cold, razor-sharp focus of a head of house. A demonic beast wandering freely through the capital's slums on the eve of an engagement party wasn't just a security failure; it was an act of blatant sabotage or a terrifying breach in the city's wards.
Before Zayne could demand further details about the breach, the study window rattled sharply.
With a silent, fluid leap, Vaygar vaulted through the glass pane and landed squarely on the center of the mahogany desk. The sleek, powerful feline bond shook its dark fur, its amber eyes dilated with a mixture of exhaustion and profound dread.
"Patriarch," Vaygar paused "Kyle" spoke, his telephonic voice echoing directly into the minds of everyone in the room as his tail lashed with anxiety. "I scouted the perimeter just like you ordered. The situation in the capital is worse than we feared."
Zayne eyes narrowed, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. "Report."
"The forest of Alduir..." Vaygar growled mentally, his feline form tensing as he delivered the bad news. "It's crawling with them. Packs of mutated demonic beasts are pouring out of hidden spatial rifts all along the outer tree line, just a few miles outside the capital walls. The outer ward patrols have gone dark. Whatever is driving them is massing for an attack, and it's happening soon."