"The northern campaign has failed."
Cardinal-General Matthias Corven's voice echoed off stone. His hands trembled. He forced them still.
The chamber was deep beneath the Obsidian Spire, carved from black stone that seemed to swallow the torchlight. Nine chairs arranged in a semicircle. Nine of the most powerful men and women in the Karthian Empire, each wrapped in crimson robes trimmed with gold. Their faces were hidden in shadow, but Corven felt their eyes on him like brands against his skin. The air was cold, heavy with incense that made his throat tight.
He'd rehearsed this speech a hundred times. But standing here now, facing the Council of Nine, the words felt hollow.
"For three generations, we've thrown men against Valorheim's borders. For three generations, they've bled us dry and sent us home with nothing but corpses and empty coffers."
No response. The Council sat in silence.
Corven forced himself to continue. "Their blood mages grow stronger each year. Their wards are impenetrable. Conventional warfare is a fool's errand, and we've been the fools."
"Watch your tone, Cardinal-General." A woman's voice came from the shadows. Magistrate Seline. She'd opposed him from the start. "You speak of our armies as if they were led by incompetents."
"I speak of reality." Corven kept his voice level. Respectful. "Valorheim's magic is older than ours. Darker. They sacrifice their own people to fuel their rituals, and every man we send north feeds their power. We cannot win this war with steel and prayers."
"Then what would you have us do?" That was High Priest Aldric. His voice shook with age. "Abandon our sacred duty? Allow the blood-drinkers to spread their corruption unchecked?"
"No." Corven stepped forward. The torchlight caught his face. "I propose we fight darkness with darkness."
A rustle of robes. Murmurs in the shadows.
"Explain yourself," Magistrate Seline said.
Corven reached into his coat and pulled out a leather-bound tome. The cover was black, unmarked, and when he held it up the torchlight seemed to bend around it. "The Pact of Ash and Bone. Recovered from a tomb in the western wastes."
"Put that away." Someone hissed. General Brask, probably. The old war dog had always been superstitious.
"This book contains rituals," Corven continued. "Summonings. Ways to contact entities that exist beyond our realm."
"Demons." High Priest Aldric spat the word. It fell like a stone into the chamber. "You bring demon-work before this Council?"
"I bring solutions." Corven opened the tome. The pages were yellowed parchment, covered in symbols that hurt to look at directly. "Demons hate Valorheim's blood magic. It stems from an older power, a rival force. These entities would gladly see the northern kingdom burned to ash. All they require is cooperation."
Magistrate Seline leaned forward. He could see her face now—sharp, calculating. "You propose an alliance. With demons."
"A temporary arrangement." Corven's voice was steady. "We summon them. We bind them to our purpose. They help us crush Valorheim's mages, and then we send them back to whatever hell they crawled from."
"And you believe we can control such forces?" General Brask's voice held skepticism. But interest too. That was progress.
"I know we can," Corven lied. "The rituals are explicit. We maintain the upper hand. They serve at our pleasure."
High Priest Aldric rose to his feet. "This is madness. Heresy. The Eternal Flame would never—"
"The Eternal Flame is a metaphor." Corven's tone was ice. "We all know this. The Church is a tool to control the masses, nothing more. And right now, those masses are dying by the thousands against an enemy we cannot defeat through conventional means."
He let that hang in the air. Three Council members shifted in their seats. Two leaned back. Four remained motionless.
"We vote," Magistrate Seline said finally.
"No." High Priest Aldric's voice cracked. "We do not vote on abomination. This Council has stood for—"
"We vote." Seline's voice was harder now. "All in favor of Cardinal-General Corven's proposal?"
A pause. Then five hands rose from the shadows.
Corven's heart leaped. Five. He needed five.
"Opposed?"
Four hands.
High Priest Aldric stared at the other Council members. "You fools." His voice was barely a whisper. "You have doomed us all."
Magistrate Seline stood. "The motion carries. Cardinal-General Corven, you have the Council's authorization. Prepare your rituals. And pray that you're right about maintaining control."
"I am." Corven bowed low, hiding the smile tugging at his lips. "You won't regret this."
The four dissenters left the chamber through the main entrance. Cardinal-General Corven watched them go, then turned to Magistrate Seline.
"The dissenters pose a problem," he said quietly.
"They do," Seline agreed. She gestured to the shadows. Four guards emerged, faces covered by blank masks. "See that they don't reach the surface."
The guards disappeared up the stairs.
Corven felt a momentary pang. High Priest Aldric had served the Empire for forty years. But sentiment was a luxury he couldn't afford. Not now. Not when victory was so close.
"When will you begin?" Seline asked.
"Tonight," Corven replied. He clutched the tome against his chest. "The first ritual is simple. A summoning. A conversation. We'll establish terms."
"And if they refuse our terms?"
"They won't." Corven turned toward a passage at the back of the chamber. "Demons are predictable. They want access to this world, and we're offering them exactly that. They'll agree to anything."
He descended deeper into the earth. The passage was narrow, carved roughly from stone. No torches here. He pulled out a small lantern, and its light pushed weakly against the darkness. The air grew colder. Dampness pressed against his skin. Water dripped somewhere far below.
The ritual chamber waited at the end of the passage. He'd prepared it weeks ago, hoping the Council would see reason.
The chamber was circular, maybe ten meters across. The floor was smooth obsidian, polished to a mirror shine. Carved into the stone were symbols—circles within circles, angular script that predated the Empire, lines that twisted in ways that made his eyes water.
In the center, a brazier. Cold now. Waiting.
Corven set the tome on a stone pedestal and opened it to the marked page. The ritual was written in three languages. Old Karthian. Something older that he thought might be Progenitor script. And a third language that had no name, made up of symbols that seemed to shift when he looked away.
He'd spent months learning to pronounce the words. Months practicing the gestures. He couldn't afford mistakes.
Not tonight.
He pulled a knife from his belt and rolled up his sleeve. The blade was silver, consecrated in the old way. The edge caught the lantern light.
"For the Empire." He whispered the words.
He drew the blade across his palm. Blood welled, dark and hot. He clenched his fist and let it drip into the brazier. One drop. Two. Three. Twelve total.
The blood sizzled when it hit the cold metal. Smoke rose, gray and thick. It reeked of copper and something worse—something that made his stomach turn.
Corven began to chant.
The words were harsh, guttural. They scraped his throat like broken glass. He forced them out, one syllable at a time, following the rhythm in the tome. His mouth tasted of copper and bile.
The smoke thickened. It didn't rise but spread across the floor like fog, clinging to the obsidian. The temperature plummeted. His breath came out in white puffs.
The symbols carved into the floor began to glow. Faint at first. Then brighter. Sickly green light that painted the chamber in harsh shadows.
Corven's voice grew louder. The chant built toward a crescendo. His wounded hand throbbed. The pain was sharp, focusing.
The air in the center of the chamber began to shimmer. Like heat rising from stone, but cold. Wrong. Reality bent and twisted, and Corven felt something vast press against the world from the other side.
He spoke the final word.
The shimmer exploded. The brazier erupted with green flame that roared up toward the ceiling. Corven stumbled back, throwing an arm over his face. The heat was intense, unnatural. It scorched his skin like needles.
Then, silence.
The flames guttered down to embers. The green light faded to a dim glow. Corven lowered his arm and stared at the chamber.
Something moved in the shadows.
"Who summons us?"
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It echoed off the walls, layered over itself, male and female and something that was neither. Corven's skin prickled with revulsion.
"I am Cardinal-General Matthias Corven." He forced strength into his voice. Control. "I speak for the Council of Nine. For the Karthian Empire."
"We know who you are, mortal." The shadows coalesced. A shape formed in the center of the chamber, vaguely humanoid but wrong. Too tall. Too many joints. Eyes that reflected the green light like a cat's. "You reek of desperation."
"I seek an alliance." Corven kept his voice level. "The northern kingdom of Valorheim practices blood magic. They grow stronger with each passing year. They threaten the balance of this world."
The shape laughed. It was a sound like breaking bones.
"Blood magic." Its voice was velvet over gravel. "Yes. We know of their rituals. The old ways. Stolen from powers they do not understand." The shape moved closer. Corven resisted the urge to step back. "And you wish us to destroy them for you."
"In exchange for access to this world." Corven's palms were slick with sweat. "Limited access. Under terms we will negotiate."
"Terms." The entity tilted its head—the motion too smooth, too fluid. "You believe you can bind us with words and symbols?"
"I believe we can help each other." Corven's voice was steady, though his pulse hammered in his throat. "You want entry to this realm. We want Valorheim destroyed. Our goals align."
Silence. The entity circled him slowly. He felt its gaze like burning ice on the back of his neck. Every instinct screamed at him to run.
He stood his ground.
"Very well," the entity said finally. "We accept your offer, mortal. We will lend our strength to your war. We will burn the blood-drinkers from their towers and scatter their ashes across the northern wastes."
Relief flooded through Corven. "Then we have an accord."
"But know this." The entity leaned close. Its breath reeked of rot and sulfur—a smell that coated his throat like oil. "Your terms mean nothing. Your symbols and rituals are toys. We accept because it amuses us. Because your war serves a greater purpose than your tiny mortal mind could comprehend."
Corven's relief curdled into ice. "What purpose?"
"The seals weaken," the entity whispered. "The old prisons crack. The blood magic of Valorheim, the demon-binding of Karthia—both feed the same hunger. Both thin the walls between worlds."
"I don't understand."
"You will." The entity began to fade back into shadow. "When the Wurm Lords wake. When the world burns. When everything you sought to protect crumbles to ash. You will understand perfectly."
The green flames died. The glow faded from the symbols. The chamber fell into darkness, lit only by Corven's lantern.
He stood alone.
His hand still bled. He wrapped it with cloth from his pocket, but his fingers were numb. The entity's words echoed in his mind. The seals weaken. The Wurm Lords wake.
"What have I done?" he whispered to the empty chamber.
No answer came. Only the distant sound of dripping water and the weight of the mountain pressing down from above.
