The Shade Square was less of a public plaza and more of a grand, open-air coliseum carved into the very foundations of the city. The walls were sheer cliffs, rising hundreds of feet into the air, tiers upon tiers filled with a sea of roaring, hungry demons. The atmosphere was a thick, intoxicating sludge of sensory overload.
Thousands of torches burned with unnatural green and violet flames, casting flickering, distorted shadows against the stone. The noise was a symphony of the grotesque: the guttural chanting of war songs, the rhythmic banging of metal shields, and the shrill, whistling shrieks of lesser demons in their beastly forms. Some sat in human guises, dressed in silks that looked like spilled wine, while others had fully succumbed to the night, their wings spanning wide, their multiple eyes glowing like dying stars in the gloom.
At the absolute center of this madness stood the Podium of Ascendance. It was a massive, circular platform of white bone-stone that glowed under the darkening sky. And high above it, suspended by rusted iron chains that groaned with every movement, were the sacrifices.
One hundred human beings hung there, bound in thick, thorny hemp ropes that bit into their skin. They were a pathetic sight, a living curtain of terror swaying over a gargantuan silver bucket—a vat large enough to hold the collective life-force of a century of rule.
Among them, swaying in the cold wind, were Hannah McKay and Robert.
Hannah's sickly disguise was now covered in the grime of the riverbed and the soot of the city, but her eyes remained sharp, even as she hung thirty feet in the air. Beside her, Robert was a mess of trembling limbs and muffled sobs. His hands were tied so tightly behind his back that his fingers had gone numb, and the rope around his chest made every breath a struggle.
"We shouldn't have done it," Robert hissed, his voice cracking as he looked down at the thousands of demons waiting for the first drop of blood to fall. "Hannah, this is it. This is the end of the line. Coming to Voidmore wasn't a mission; it was a suicide pact. These things... they aren't people. They're hunger. Just pure, mindless hunger."
"Robert, breathe," Hannah whispered, though her own heart was thundering against her ribs. She craned her neck, searching the crowd, her mind frantically calculating the odds.
"Breathe?" Robert let out a jagged, hysterical laugh. "Hannah, look down! They're waiting for that bucket to fill! I'm thirty years old. I've spent my life in a basement lab looking at spreadsheets. I haven't traveled, I haven't fallen in love... I haven't even had babies yet! My lineage ends as a ceremonial drink for a monster! Do you understand? I'm going to die a virgin in a silver bucket!"
Tears began to track through the dirt on Robert's face, his shoulders shaking with the weight of his despair. "The demons are heartless. They don't see us as anything but fuel. Why did we think we could trick a god?"
"Wait," Hannah commanded, her voice low and sharp. "Things might turn out differently. Look at the crowd. They're distracted. If there's a gap, if there's a moment—"
"A gap?" Robert sobbed, closing his eyes. "The only gap is going to be in my throat. I can't do this. I can't—"
Robert's lament was cut short by a sound that silenced the entire stadium. It was the sound of air being displaced by massive, powerful wings—a heavy thrum-thrum-thrum that vibrated in the very marrow of their bones.
The chanting died instantly. The demons in the stands fell to their knees, their heads bowed in a wave of terrifyingly perfect discipline.
Emerging from the center of the solar eclipse, descending like a nightmare falling from the sun, was the Clemadead. It was a bird of prehistoric proportions, its feathers made of jagged, iridescent scales that shifted from bone-white to blood-red. Its eyes were glowing voids, and its talons were long enough to wrap around a carriage.
Perched upon the Clemadead's back, sitting in a saddle of blackened gold, was Hebner Grand.
He was dressed in ceremonial armor that seemed to be made of frozen smoke. His hair blew back in the wind of the descent, revealing a face of such terrifying, cold perfection that even the humans hanging in the air found themselves momentarily breathless. He didn't look like he belonged to the earth; he looked like the architect of the darkness itself.
The bird circled the podium once, its massive shadow passing over Hannah and Robert, before it landed with a bone-shaking thud on the high ledge overlooking the silver vat.
Robert stared, his mouth hanging open, his tears momentarily forgotten in the face of such overwhelming presence. "Who... who is that?" he whispered, his voice trembling. "Is that an angel of death?"
"That's him," Hannah replied, her gaze locked on the man who had dropped her into a river only hours before. "That's the Demon Lord."
Robert blinked, a strange, confused expression crossing his face. "That's the monster? But... he's... Hannah, he's fucking handsome. How can something that beautiful be so rotten? He looks like a god of the old world."
He stared at Hebner's sharp jawline and those piercing, amber-gold eyes for a long second before the reality of their situation slammed back into him. He looked at the silver bucket, then back at the handsome man who had ordered their deaths.
"Great," Robert muttered, his voice dropping into a pit of bored, cynical terror. "He's a supermodel. So I'm being murdered by the world's most attractive executioner. Wonderful. I feel so much better about my throat being slit now. Truly."
Hannah didn't respond. She watched as Hebner Grand dismounted the Clemadead, his boots hitting the stone with a finality that signaled the start of the century's feast. The Eclipse reached its totality, the black disc of the moon rimmed with a crown of fire.
Hebner walked to the edge of the podium, looking up at the hundred humans swaying in the wind. His eyes scanned the row of sacrifices, cold and clinical, until they slowed, stopping on the pale, dirt-streaked face of Hannah.
The Celebration of the Eclipse had begun, and the first drop of blood was only seconds away.