(The Devil)
The room within was cavernous, filled with shadows and firelight from sconces along the walls. A massive bed dominated the space—dark wood, thick furs, silk sheets the colour of spilled wine.
Heat shimmered faintly above the stone floor, the temperature rising and falling in slow breaths as though the chamber itself recognised its master’s return. The walls, carved from obsidian veined with living magma, cast ribbons of molten orange across the far corners. Every flicker of flame seemed to lean toward him—toward her—as if the room were watching. Waiting. High above, in the vaulted ceiling, old symbols had been carved into the stone—crowns, thorns, suns split in half. Tonight, faint lines of gold threaded through them, like veins remembering how to glow.
He crossed the room a
