The Current sang to him. Golden threads spiralled through void and stone, twisting in delicate arcs as they hummed beneath his throne. Souls—freshly shed from worlds above—raced and coiled in obedient streams, filing into the order ordained by ws even he found tedious.

  Caelum reclined zily, one boot hooked over the other, a goblet of something redder than blood dangling from bck-gloved fingers. He watched the procession like a bored prince forced to attend a peasant parade. His crimson eyes, slitted and glowing faintly, tracked each soul as it slotted into pce. Perfect. Predictable. Insufferably dull.

  His lips curved. "Ah... efficiency." The word rolled from his tongue deep and smooth, velvet dipped in mockery. His voice always carried like that—dangerously soft, painfully low, making lesser demons shiver when it passed through chambers.

  Another soul. Another file. Another eternity of tedium.

  Then, it faltered. A thread snapped—no, tangled. The soul bucked wildly, and with an almost petunt little pop, it disappeared. Not where it should have gone. Somewhere else.

  Caelum blinked. Slowly. Annoyed.

  A mortal’s corpse, only moments dead, still lingered unassigned. Convenient. He considered the options. Filing incident reports would take hours. Possibly days. He might even need to meet with the auditing seraphim—tedious creatures with brittle smiles and endless parchment.

  He made a face.

  "Absolutely not."

  His voice didn’t rise. Didn’t need to. Even the spiralling Current hesitated, pausing in reverent expectation.

  "Dead? Revived. Soul? Close enough. Done."

  With a flick of his fingers, the dead body shuddered and healed—cells stitching, skin blooming pale and soft again. His power rolled zily from him, decadent as a silken sheet slipping from a bed. The drained portion of himself didn’t bother him. A touch of vitality lost was far preferable to paperwork.

  The moment the body was restored, he seized a loose soul, compressing it cruelly until it writhed and slipped into the vessel.

  A perfect fit.

  A zy smirk twisted his lips as he leaned back into his throne. Sharp jawline tipped arrogantly toward the vaulting obsidian ceiling, red eyes half-lidded with predatory boredom. His dark horns gleamed faintly in the golden light, a wicked crown on a cruel king.

  "Fixed," he murmured, tongue dragging idly over one sharpened fang. "Truly, I am a gift to this realm."

  No arms. No protests. The threads flowed on, oblivious.

  Caelum closed his eyes, indulgent as a cat sprawled across sunlit marble.

  And that, he thought with smug satisfaction, is why I’m irrepceable.

  The summons came while he toyed zily with the remnants of his goblet, swirling crimson so thick it clung like silk.

  It arrived in the form of a minor imp—trembling, pale, its wings too ragged to lift it fully from the marble floor. It bowed so low its horns scraped tile, voice quivering.

  "Lord Caelum. The Tribunal requests your presence. Immediately."

  Caelum didn’t move at first. Just stared down, fingers curled loosely at his jaw, as though considering whether to indulge the messenger or erase it entirely.

  The imp fidgeted under his gaze. Everyone always did. His eyes were wrong in a way that demanded fear—glowing red, slit-pupiled, filled with zy hunger that suggested he saw through to the marrow.

  Finally, Caelum rose.

  Fluid, effortless, a ripple of dark grace. His long coat whispered across the floor, tailored perfectly to his lean frame, buttons wrought from obsidian and infernal excess. The shift of movement pulled his horns into sharper profile, curling back wickedly from tousled bck hair.

  The imp dared a gnce and flinched. Caelum smiled at that.

  "Tribunal," he echoed softly, voice low and syrup-thick, ced with amusement. "A word dressed up to hide the inevitable — bureaucrats too cowardly to sentence me, but too petty to leave me be."

  He let his cws tap idly against the walls and corridors as he walked, each click echoing through the hollow stone halls.

  The chamber they led him to was less grand than he remembered. It had been so once, when the Exalted still ruled and their decrees sang through every yer of the realms.

  Now, the high chairs were half-empty. The demons presiding wore stiff expressions and spoke too formally, as if etiquette could disguise their fear.

  Caelum’s smile grew sharp.

  "Ah. Still wearing your Sunday faces, I see."

  None ughed.

  The lead arbiter, a thin creature draped in grey and silver chains, cleared his throat.

  "Lord Caelum. There has been... an incident."

  "So I gathered." Caelum gestured zily with a gloved hand. "Do move along. I tire of vague sermonising."

  The arbiter’s mouth tightened.

  "You dispced a soul."

  "Mended a mistake," Caelum corrected smoothly. He paced as they spoke, circling the room like a predator humouring the prey's st words. "A minor correction. Efficient, clean. I see no appuse."

  "It was not your jurisdiction. The dispced soul has corrupted a world thread. A deity has filed grievance. Upper Management reviewed."

  Caelum stopped. Tilted his head, eyes gleaming with amusement and something more cutting beneath.

  "Upper Management." He tasted the words like a wine gone sour. "Curious. They’ve been deaf since the Monarch fell."

  A ripple of discomfort shot through the room. No one liked speaking of the Monarch. Not since exile. Not since the infernal throne sat empty and ambitious hands reached everywhere.

  Caelum let the silence stretch, enjoying their unease.

  "What is my sentence, oh esteemed keepers of w?"

  The arbiter fumbled slightly before regaining his rote dignity.

  "You are reassigned to the Summonings Unit. Effective immediately. No contest permitted."

  Silence.

  Then Caelum ughed. Deep, rich, like velvet over razors. The sound filled the chamber, cracked the composure of even the hardiest.

  "Summonings?" He dragged the word out, dripping disbelief. "Darlings, truly? That’s your bde? Reduced to answering desperate mortals fumbling in the dark?"

  No one answered. They didn’t need to.

  Caelum’s ughter tapered off into something sharper. He stalked closer to the head arbiter, boots soundless, presence suffocating.

  "No mortal dares whisper my name," he murmured, voice low, almost intimate. "My name hasn’t been circuted. Besides, they would fear me too much to even utter it if they could. You’ve sentenced me to a vacation."

  He leaned in, fangs peeking from his smile.

  "How kind."

  The arbiter refused to meet his eyes.

  Caelum turned on his heel, bck coat fring like wings. Already dismissing them. Already thinking of which sinful delights he might indulge while no summons came.

  He didn’t make it two steps.

  The pull hit him like a chain around his throat.

  His body jolted, magic cwing deep as the Summon sigil fred beneath his feet—raw, ancient, desperate. His eyes widened faintly, lips parting in startled outrage.

  "Impossible—"

  He vanished in a blink of red-gold light. The st sound left behind was his ughter turning dark and hungry.

  —

  The summoning chamber stank of old blood and despair. He liked it.

  Smoke bled into existence, thick and nguid, coiling through cracked stone like a living thing. Caelum stretched, letting each wicked curl drift and snake through the stale air. He tasted the desperation immediately. Ancient symbols scrawled hastily in chalk, candles burning down to bitter ends, air heavy with iron and pride. Someone had done this properly. Someone had dared.

  He hung in the smoke, unseen, deciding how much to care. Then he saw her. Or rather, felt her first. Steady. Not broken. Not crying out or crawling as so many mortals did when they reached for power they could not hold. She stood, and that alone amused him.

  A woman, tall and rigid in velvet, dark as crushed petals, the elegant weight of a crown braided into her silver-threaded hair. Her eyes were wrong for mortals—startlingly blue, cold, yet burning with something fierce and unwilling to yield. She was thin, starving in a way only a vampire denied true blood could be, but she wore her decay like a queen wore jewels. Dignified. Bitterly regal.

  Caelum curled tighter, swirling just beyond form. "Who dares?" he asked, voice sliding through the room like silk dragged over broken gss. Deep, resonant, designed to press on fragile things and see what cracked first.

  The woman—Selene, her name clinging to the invocation like perfume to skin—did not flinch. She stared into the smoke and fme, as though already expecting something far worse. "I do," she said, her voice cool as winter frost.

  Not screaming. Not kneeling.

  Curious.

  He could have shattered the circle. The symbols binding him were old and tired, ughable in their simplicity. Caelum had broken worlds crafted by gods, had dispyed existences—hell, he’d shattered golems with more arcane strength than this circle held. Yet he stayed, leaning into the performance like an actor pying a role he had long since grown bored of. It amused him to py along, especially with her.

  "You impress me already, little queen," he murmured, voice curling low and soft, as if stroking her throat from afar. "You’re not trembling."

  "Why would I?" she replied sharply, eyes cutting. "I summoned you. You are here to serve."

  "Serve." He let the word roll around his tongue like soured wine. He gathered himself and stepped from smoke into shape, choosing a form carefully—something that would unnerve her more than fangs or fme.

  Caelum made himself beautiful.

  He shaped his features with cruel artistry. Tall, sharp-jawed, aristocratic, his bck hair fell in loose waves around curling horns. His eyes burned, red and slitted, glowing faintly like molten metal cooling under moonlight. He crafted grace and menace in equal measure, elegant in dark finery that clung to his lean frame. Every inch was tailored for indulgence and danger.

  Selene faltered—only a flicker—but he saw it. The breath caught in her throat, the subtle parting of her lips, the faintest flush rising beneath pallid skin. Hunger, not only for power or survival. Mortal or not, desire lingered. Caelum smiled, wicked and slow. She liked him already.

  Of course she did. Mortal queens always dreamed of taming monsters.

  He approached the edge of the circle, close enough that the wards hissed faintly at his presence. "Do you like what you see, little queen?"

  He could read her immediately. She seemed to be a Vampire Queen of a dying world. Perhaps the st of her kind, given her starving status and piercing blue eyes. Summoning him had probably been her ultimatum; her st chance at survival by summoning a monster worse than this world.

  She recovered quickly. Pride still burned bright beneath the exhaustion. "I summoned you to serve," she snapped. "Not to preen."

  Caelum ughed softly, indulgent as a cat stretching before the kill. "Bold. You’re starving, surrounded by carrion nobles waiting to feast on your bones...yet here you stand. That is rare."

  "I am Selene," she said simply, lifting her chin. "Queen of this realm. You will obey."

  He arched a brow. "Obey? Darling, this circle is theatre. A little chalk and willpower won’t chain me. You know that. I know that. But let’s pretend for your sake."

  Selene's jaw tightened. She seemed to hate that he was right. Hated more that he stayed anyway. He chose to remain bound, chose to humour her, and they both knew it. She had crossed a line she couldn’t come back from when something other than a pitiful common devil responded to her call.

  "Name your terms," she pressed.

  "Say them," Caelum urged zily, folding his arms. "Tell me what you want."

  The moment dragged, pride battling hunger until Selene finally spoke, voice low and bitter. "Blood. And death. You will be my bde...and my salvation."

  Now that was worthy of his attention. Caelum smiled, fshing the sharp glint of fangs. "That I can entertain."

  She began the rites, speaking old words, binding him with the ancient tongue of devils and the queens that had come before her. He let it happen, let the thin thread of power wind around him like silk. It was nothing. Binding him was illusion. But he pyed along, because she was amusing and because he had nothing better to do.

  Finally, the blood pact. She had to drink. Caelum extended his hand, slicing effortlessly across his palm. Bck-gloved fingers dripped crimson, shimmering with infernal essence.

  Selene hesitated, and he enjoyed it. Stepping closer, he offered his wrist. "Do hurry. You're trembling."

  She hated him for saying it, and yet, she drank. Her lips pressed to his skin, fangs piercing delicately. Warmth fred where her mouth touched him, where blood and magic intertwined, where hunger met hunger.

  When she pulled back, her mouth stained red, he leaned down slightly, voice a whisper meant only for her. "Thirsty little queen."

  Her cheeks darkened. She did not reply, as she turned and sat upon her throne.

  The circle faded to nothing, but Selene did not move as Caelum closed the distance between them. She sat there, rigid and pale in the oversized throne, thin fingers resting lightly on the worn silver arms, as though she alone could keep the crumbling weight of her crown upright.

  He let the silence stretch, simply looking at her. No longer bound, no longer pying the summoning game, he took his time.

  Up close, she was sharper than he'd expected. Starved, yes. The hollows beneath her eyes dark as pressed violets, her lips faintly cracked. But she held herself too straight, too deliberate to be weak. The kind of pride that only grows in things that have been bent near breaking and still refuse to snap.

  Her scent was lovely. Not simply blood and decay like most vampires. There was divinity in it. Something old and cold, buried beneath centuries of rot and desperation.

  He inhaled indulgently. "So. Now what, little queen?"

  Selene straightened, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her sleeves. "You will learn the ws of this realm and act according to your station. You are to serve as consort and bde, in accordance with the pact."

  "Mm. You mortals do love your titles." Caelum wandered the room, running his cwed fingertips zily across cracked marble columns. He inspected a ruined tapestry, then flicked a speck of dust from his coat. "I suppose I'm expected to know what I'm killing before you point me at them?"

  She hesitated, then rose slowly from her throne. When she stood, her regal bearing returned effortlessly. "You are in the kingdom of Vestra. The st true bastion of the royal bloodline. Vampires here are caste-born. Red eyes rule cities. Silver eyes command armies and titles. Only the blue blood—my blood—rules from the throne."

  Caelum's lips curved faintly as he listened, not interrupting. This was always his favourite part—mortal monarchs expining how terribly important they were in their short, brutal worlds.

  "And yet you starve," he mused aloud, gesturing idly to her gaunt cheeks and too-sharp colrbones. "Royal blood must not be what it used to be."

  Her mouth tightened. "Blue blood must feed on other noble blood to survive. Mortal blood sates, but it does not sustain. Without supernatural power to draw from, my kind withers."

  "And yet here you are. Alive. Annoyed. Summoning devils from forbidden tomes." Caelum prowled a step closer, eyes gleaming faintly with interest now. "How did you st this long, little queen?"

  That earned him her first hesitation.

  Selene looked away, towards the cracked stained gss, moonlight threading her pale hair with silver. The brittle silence tasted different. Shame, almost.

  "There was another," she said finally, low and bitter. "A consort. Silver-eyed. I trusted him." She smiled without warmth. "I was young enough to believe in loyalty."

  Caelum tilted his head, interested despite himself. Trust. Betrayal. There was always something delicious about royalty unravelled. "And?"

  "He left. Or rather, he fled with promises in his ears and my blood still staining his mouth." She said it without heat, but her hands had curled into fists. "He bartered what secrets he could for power elsewhere and left me to starve as my court turned on me."

  Caelum absorbed this thoughtfully. A traitor. A broken court. A starving queen still clinging to her throne. He looked around again at the dust and faded glory, and for the first time, the amusement was real.

  "Charming kingdom. Treacherous bedfellows. Weak chalk circles." He grinned at her, wicked and zy. "I might enjoy this after all."

  Selene's eyes narrowed faintly. "You were summoned to serve, not py."

  "Ah, but service is what I make of it." Caelum moved to the edge of the dais, looming just enough to remind her who now stood untethered in her halls. "Consider it a favour, little queen. I may yet find this a delightful little vacation." His voice dropped to a murmur, silk-thick and indulgent. "And if I decide to enjoy myself, your enemies will not live long enough to protest."

  Selene, to her credit, held his gaze without flinching this time. There was a storm in her, starved and bitter but not yet spent. He decided he liked it.

  "Tomorrow, then," she said, turning back to her throne. "You will learn who you answer to, demon."

  Caelum smirked as he withdrew into a shadowed corner, taking his self-appointed pce not at her side but behind the throne—like a bde sheathed but within reach.

  "Of course," he drawled, voice dark and curling like smoke around her. "Show me your world, Selene. And we’ll see if I decide to keep it intact."

  The queen sat, regal once more, but he could smell the tremor of anticipation beneath her composure. She had summoned a demon. And she had not yet realised that she had just given him every excuse to indulge.