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Aurianna spent her life fighting. It was her calling, her purpose, and her greatest glory. If only it were so easy to fight fate.
In an infernally corrupted hellscape, paladins serve the Goddess Afod...
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If you pursue Matthias on the battlefield, it will end in tragedy. As it turned out, death was not Aurianna's fate, but something far, far worse.
Tragedy loomed ahead, in rising black walls guarding a massive, unnatural castle surrounded by a boiling moat of blood. The Ebon Fortress was a monstrous thing of basalt mortared with bone marrow, reinforced with human souls bound into eternal torment within the stones. It sat like a cancer in the Plains of Oriath, the most fertile lands on the continent. They were still fecund, but the crops raised by the mortal slaves writhed with unholy life.
Iron doors led into the throne room, illuminated by screaming, burning humans in blackened cages. Demons of all descriptions milled about, hooting and mocking and hurling abuse at the captured paladin. She couldn't make out the specifics of their threats over the pounding of her own heart. A warty thing the size of a mule oozed over, then swelled up. "Matthias the Fallen," it boomed, "seeks an audience with the Lord Baath-Me'el!"
"Let him approach the presence." The voice was soft, almost gentle.
Matthias jerked the leash, and the court howled with laughter as Aurianna nearly fell. Each step was heavier than the last. Demons and human servants of the lord loudly commented on her appearance or made crude suggestions about what they could do with her. Their words and their eyes weighed upon her, and each thudding footstep brought her closer to that inevitability.
The throne rose before them now, a simple thing of carved dark wood incongruously perched on a dais of human bodies fused together. Upon it sat Baath-Me'el himself. He was deceptively human in appearance and handsome in a way that reminded Aurianna that devils were angels fallen from grace. Long blonde hair poured over his shoulders, and he wore an open-necked tunic of white silk and gold with his breeches of dark blue velvet. His six wings were skeletal, charred and fleshless.
"Kneel," Matthias ordered. She refused, staring ahead, past Matthias and Baath-Me'el. This small act of defiance was met with unfounded cruelty. Thrown to the floor, she landed with a crash of metal on stone, catching herself on hands and knees.
"And what have you brought me, my pet?" Baath-Me'el asked, curious.
"A gift, my lord. Paladin Aurianna Kallekos."
Amusement glittered in the devil's inhuman, golden eyes. "The one you sought to protect, not long ago?"
"The very same, my lord."
He stepped from his throne and approached her. "Stand," he commanded in a voice that was silky, yet forceful. She stood, shaking long strands of black hair out of her face before meeting him eye to eye. While she wore her insolence in a tight-lipped expression, her stomach twisted in knots. Steady, measured breaths conveyed the illusion of control; they were the sole thing she could control in this moment. He stood taller than her, looking down on her. His touch was gentle, caressing her cheek, but still, she flinched. That was all the resistance she could muster.
