IMMORTALS

C H A P T E R 2

Celestial iron burns cold.

The heavy shackles clamped around Lili’s wrists did not merely bind her flesh; they drained the divine warmth from her blood, sending icy needles of agony straight into her newly awakened core. Beside her, dragged across the polished alabaster floor by four armored guardians, Ethan fought like an untamed beast. His golden hair was matted with sweat and dust, his linen vest torn, but his piercing blue eyes never stopped tracking Lili through the gloom of the Grand Rotunda.

The entire immortal assembly had gathered in the dead of night.

Hundreds of silent figures clad in pristine white robes lined the tiered marble balconies, looking down upon the chained lovers with horrified fascination. Melin stood in the lower ranks, her face drenched in tears, one hand desperately covering the mouth of Arthuria, whose wide, bewildered eyes reflected the burning braziers.

"Kneel," Jude’s voice rang out, cold as falling hail.

A guardian slammed the butt of a bronze spear into the hollow behind Ethan’s knee. Ethan buckled with a sharp grunt, but before his forehead could touch the stone, he snapped upward again, teeth bared, iron chains rattling violently against the flagstones. "I do not bow to statues."

A collective gasp rippled through the rotunda. Defiance of the High Council was unheard of in ten thousand years of creation.

Above them, seated upon thrones carved from solid celestial sapphire, sat the Three High Archons—the ancient keepers of Eden whose faces were veiled behind masks of spun platinum. The center Archon, whose voice resonated like grinding tectonic plates, raised a gilded scepter.

"Silence the cursed," the Archon commanded. "Let the high sentinel present the charge."

Jude stepped onto the raised dais, her copper robes rustling in the breathless silence. She turned toward the assembly, her sharp chin raised, radiating the cruel ecstasy of righteous absolute power. In her palm, she held a crystal shard stained with a lingering, faint trace of crimson luminescence.

"Honored Archons," Jude began, her pale eyes sweeping over the frozen crowd. "For epochs, our sanctuary has remained untouched by the filth of decay. We were forged pure. We were granted eternal breath on the single decree that we remain untainted by carnal hunger. But tonight, upon the sacred ramparts of the Great Wall, the serpent’s poison has taken root."

She pointed a venomous finger straight at Lili.

"This woman has harbored earthly malice in her breast," Jude hissed. "She seduced the guardian of the high terraces. She enticed him into the ultimate blasphemy—the forbidden touch of flesh. And worse..." Jude paused, letting the terror build in the room. "...they have awakened the mortal curse."

Jude lunged forward, grabbing the front of Lili’s torn silk gown and ripping it aside.

The rotunda erupted into screams of horror.

Over Lili’s sternum, shining through her dark skin like an ember trapped in obsidian, a crimson heart was pulsing. Thump. Thump. Thump. The light cast dancing blood-red shadows against the pure white marble arches. It was raw, carnal, and utterly alive.

"Abomination!" an elder shrieked from the balcony.

"She is infected! Cast her to the dust!" another voice roared.

"She did nothing!" Ethan’s voice tore through the chaos like a battle cry. He threw his entire weight against the chains, dragging two guardians across the floor toward Lili before a third slammed a celestial rod into his ribs. Ethan choked on blood—crimson, mortal blood—splattering the pristine ivory floor. "I forced her to the wall! I climbed the ramparts! I touched her first! If blood must be paid, take mine, Jude, you soulless serpent!"

Lili’s heart seized with unbearable anguish. "Ethan, no!" she cried, pulling against her cold shackles until the iron cut into her wrists, hot red liquid trickling down her dark fingers. "Archons, hear me! Love is not decay! Adam and Eve were not monsters—they held each other while the flood swallowed the earth! Our eternity is a tomb without feeling!"

The center Archon stood, towering ten cubits in radiant majesty, his platinum mask reflecting the flickering braziers. The rotunda instantly plunged into absolute silence.

"The contagion is complete," the Archon proclaimed, his tone devoid of all mercy. "Their blood has turned mortal. Their spirits have rejected divine grace. They cannot remain within the light of Eden."

Jude smiled—a razor-thin, triumphant s***h across her porcelain face. "Shall we cast their shattered bones into the cleansing fire, Archon?"

"Death by fire is too merciful for those who crave the dust," the Archon replied, extending his scepter toward the eastern arches that led to the abyss of the Great Wall. "They shall be stripped of their sacred names. Their memories shall be severed. And their mortal husks shall be cast down into the drowned wasteland beyond the wall, where the beasts and the mud shall claim their rot."

Lili’s breath caught. Expulsion into the untamed, post-deluge wilderness—where storms raged, mortal beasts hunted, and cold death was real.

"Wait!" Jude interrupted, her eyes glittering with sadistic malice. "Archon... the boy possesses strength. If they are cast out together, their filthy passion will sustain them in the wilderness. If they are to suffer the fullness of mortal agony, they must not fall together."

Jude turned her icy gaze to Lili, stepping down from the dais until she was breathing right into Lili’s face.

"We will purge the boy's mind first," Jude whispered with venomous delight. "We will excise every trace of your face from his memory before we throw you off the precipice. You will die alone in the mud, Lili, knowing that the only man who ever loved you cannot even remember your name."

Ethan roared in primal fury, lunging forward with reckless abandon, but two guardians drove spiked collars around his throat, pinning him to the floor. "Lili! Look at me! Don't look at her!"

As Jude raised a jagged crystal needle above Ethan's temple, a sudden, blinding flash of purple light shattered the temple braziers.

A chaotic voice broke through the shadows near the lower archway.

"Oh! I dropped the oil again!" Arthuria sang out innocently from the darkness, having overturned a massive bronze cauldron of sacred cedar oil straight into the central fire pit.

A colossal wave of roaring flame instantly engulfed the dais.