The West Wing of the palace felt like a mausoleum for a forgotten age. The room they had been shoved into was sprawling, filled with furniture draped in heavy, grey dust-cloths that looked like ghosts huddling in the corners. Despite being abandoned,the room was undeniably posh—the floors were polished, and the bedframe was carved from the bones of some leviathan. Huge, arched windows looked out over the jagged skyline of Voidmore, but the glass was reinforced with demonic runes that glowed with a faint, violet light, hummed with a warning: no exit.
Hannah sat on the edge of the moth-eaten velvet mattress, her breath coming in ragged, shallow hitches. Robert was on the floor at her feet, his hands shaking so violently he had to tuck them under his armpits. He was weeping silently, the tears carving clean tracks through the grime on his face.
"It's okay, it's okay," Robert whispered, though his voice was thick with a sob. He reached up, awkwardly patting Hannah's knee. "We're still alive. He didn't kill us. He... he gave us a room. We just have to endure, Hannah. We'll find a way to get the sample and get out. We just have to stay quiet. No more shouting at gods, okay? Please?"
Hannah's eyes were fixed on the heavy iron doors, her mind whirring with the cold, calculated precision of a scientist. She felt the bruises on her ribs where Hebner had kicked her, a dull, throbbing reminder of the monster they were dealing with. "He isn't going to let us just 'endure,' Robert," she said softly.
The heavy doors suddenly growled on their hinges, the sound of grinding metal cutting through the silence.
Hebner Grand stepped into the room. He had discarded his ceremonial armor and heavy furs. Now, he wore a simple, charcoal-colored shirt of fine silk, left carelessly unbuttoned at the top. The open collar revealed the expanse of his collarbones and the hard, sculpted muscle of a chest that looked like it had been forged in a furnace. He looked less like a king and more like a predator at rest—relaxed, yet infinitely more dangerous.
He paused, his amber eyes raking over the two humans. Robert had instinctively surged upward to shield Hannah, his arms wrapped around her in a protective, terrified embrace.
"Look at the two little lovebirds," Hebner said, his voice a low, mocking drawl. "Consoling each other in the shadow of the grave. How... touching."
They immediately drifted apart, Robert stumbling back against a dusty wardrobe.
Hebner turned his head and signaled toward the hallway. "Horde. Enter."
A man stepped into the room. He was dressed in a long, clean coat, and unlike the other demons they had seen, he appeared entirely human in form, though his eyes held the clinical coldness of a man who had spent centuries dissecting things.
"This is Horde," Hebner stated, leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossing over his broad chest. "The finest physician in Voidmore. He is here to ensure that you, human, do not cheat me by dying of a common chill. I want your lungs clear and your heart strong so that you can feel every moment of the wrath I have prepared for you."
Horde moved toward Hannah with the efficiency of a machine. He didn't ask permission; he gripped her jaw, peering into her eyes, then pressed a cold, metal instrument against her chest. Hannah remained still, playing the role of the fragile victim, letting her breath rattle in her throat.
After a few tense minutes, Horde turned to the Demon Lord and bowed. "She is suffering from acute exposure and a viral strain, My Lord. Her constitution is weak, but not yet broken. I will prescribe a course of salts and essence-restorers. She will be standing by dawn."
"Good," Hebner said, his gaze shifting to Robert. "Then we have no further use for the other one. I do not want more human filth cluttering my halls than is strictly necessary for my amusement. This one serves no purpose."
In one fluid motion, Hebner reached into the sheath at his hip and drew a short, wicked-looking sword. The steel was black, etched with silver runes that seemed to drink the light. He stepped toward Robert, the point of the blade hovering inches from the man's throat.
"Wait! No!" Hannah scrambled off the bed, her knees hitting the hard floor with a loud crack. She crawled toward Hebner's boots, her hands clasped in front of her. "Please! My Lord, wait!"
Hebner looked down at her, the tip of his sword never wavering from Robert's Adam's apple. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't spill his mediocre blood on this carpet right now."
"He... he is the only one I trust," Hannah pleaded, her voice trembling with a desperate, practiced pitch. "I'll do anything. I'll be your servant—your slave. Give me the most difficult tasks, the most humiliating chores. I will scrub the palace floors with my bare hands, I will serve your hounds, I will do whatever you command without a single word of defiance! Just... please, let him live."
Hebner looked at the girl kneeling at his feet—the same girl who had called him a scared fool in front of thousands. He saw the way she was shaking, the way her pride had been replaced by a frantic, submissive desperation. A dark, twisted satisfaction began to bloom in his chest. Killing the man was quick, but using the man to break the woman? That was a game he could enjoy.
He slowly withdrew the sword, the black steel singing as it caught the light. "Anything?" he whispered.
"Anything," Hannah echoed.
"Very well," Hebner said, a slow, cruel smirk spreading across his face. "You shall be my personal servant. But understand this, human: your friend's life is now the currency of your failure. Every time you fail a task, every time you are too slow, or too weak, or too defiant... your 'lovebird' will lose a finger."
Robert let out a strangled gasp, his face turning the color of ash.
"And if you continue to fail," Hebner continued, his voice dropping to a terrifying, intimate murmur, "we will move on to his organs. I will make you watch as I remove them, one by one, while keeping him alive just long enough to see your face."
Hebner was already imagining the tasks. He would send her into the freezing heights of the spires, into the pits of the Maqded stables, into places where her fragile body would scream for mercy. He wanted to see her spirit crumble until she realized that her insult in the square was the last bit of light she would ever see.
"Do we have an agreement, little servant?" Hebner asked.
Hannah looked at Robert, then back at the Demon Lord's cold, handsome face. She bowed her head until it touched his boots. "We have an agreement, My Lord."
"Get her the medicine, Horde," Hebner commanded, turning to leave. "I want her ready by the first light of the eclipse's end. We have a lot of work to do."
As the doors slammed shut, Hannah stayed on the floor, her heart pounding. She had done it. She was inside the inner sanctum, she was his personal servant, and she had Robert as her anchor. The mission was terrifying, the stakes were blood and bone, but the door was open. She looked at her trembling hands and gripped them into fists. She would get his genetic material, and she would save the world, even if she had to walk through hell to do it.