"And if things don't go as planned," Katerina added with a dangerous smile, "we'll figure something out. We're good at improvising."

Maude smiled back, though hers was warmer and more genuine.

"Thank you. Both of you. For everything you've done. For believing in this."

"Thank us after you're confirmed to the Court," Elizabeth said.

"Until then, we still have work to do."

As the sisters left, heading to their own quarters within the keep, Katerina looked at her older sibling thoughtfully.

"Do you think she's right?" Katerina asked quietly.

"About the boy being a distraction?"

Elizabeth was silent for several moments.

"I think," she said finally, "that we're living in complicated times. The boy might be dangerous. The demons definitely are. And somehow, we need to address both threats without letting either one destroy us."

"That's not an answer."

"I know." Elizabeth's expression was troubled.

"But it's the best I have right now."

They walked the rest of the way in thoughtful silence, each contemplating the challenges ahead.

In the north, demons gathered.

At court, political maneuvering would soon begin.

And the reason the both sisters were acting this controlled was because they were told to, more like ordered to. Their desire to join the Blaedred sect was making them go to any lengths. And this was all part of their plan, and gaining the trust of the Lady Peanna was the first step.

The act was so pure that if anyone of the Morgana's group were to see them, then they would have thought they had completely changed.

***

There were places beyond mortal comprehension. Realms that existed in spaces between thought and reality, where the laws of physics bent to will rather than necessity. The strongest warriors in the mortal world couldn't even conceive of these places, let alone reach them.

This was one such realm.

The Eternal Court, some called it.

Others knew it as the Realm of Ascendants.

Mandapa of Pantheia.

Names given by the handful of mortals throughout history who'd glimpsed it in visions or dreams, who'd touched something beyond themselves for the briefest moment before being cast back to their mundane existence.

It was a place of impossible beauty and terrible power.

The sky here wasn't sky—it was pure energy, shifting through colors that had no names in mortal languages. The ground wasn't the ground but crystallized consciousness, solid enough to walk on yet translucent enough to see infinity stretching beneath. Architecture rose in defiance of logic; towers and columns that curved in ways three-dimensional space shouldn't allow, held together by will and authority rather than mortar.

And at the center of it all stood the Grand Palace.

It sprawled across what might have been miles or might have been inches—distance worked differently here. Made from materials that existed only in this realm, the palace gleamed with an internal light that never dimmed. Every surface was carved with histories of events that hadn't happened yet, or had happened so long ago that even memory had forgotten them.

Deep within the palace, in chambers reserved for the highest authority, the air itself trembled with power.

The room was vast, easily a hundred feet across, with a ceiling that seemed to stretch into infinity. Pillars of living crystal supported it, each one pulsing with energy. The floor was polished obsidian that reflected not what was, but what might be—showing fractured images of possible futures with every glance.

At the center of this impossible room, sprawled across a dais hewn from soft feathers, was Kailthrys, the Sovereign Queen of this realm.

She was not merely a woman; she was a confluence of storms, a living cataclysm wrapped in skin of sun-kissed olive and hair the color of a tempestuous sky, shot through with threads of lightning.

She was magnificent in a way that transcended mere beauty.

Tall—perhaps seven feet when she stood—with a build that suggested both grace and devastating strength. Her skin seemed to glow from within, a warm bronze that caught the strange light of this realm. Her hair was long and wild, deep black shot through with streaks of silver and gold, falling past her shoulders in waves that moved as if underwater.

Her face was striking—high cheekbones, full lips usually curved in an expression somewhere between amusement and contempt, and eyes that were the most arresting feature. They shifted color constantly. Gold to silver to deep crimson to violet, never settling, always in motion. They held knowledge that would shatter mortal minds.

She wore a robe of deep purple that was open at the front, revealing her large bosom and the powerful physique beneath. Not for modesty—such mortal concerns meant nothing here—but because she liked the aesthetic. The robe was held at her waist by a belt of woven starlight, and gems that weren't quite gems hung from it.

She lay on her side, propped up on one elbow, a long, crystalline pipe smoldering with crushed stardust held loosely between her fingers.

In her other hand, a goblet fashioned from a dwarf star's heart swirled with a liquid that shimmered with the essence of creation itself. She took a slow drag, the smoke curling from her lips.

Around her, the scene was one of divine indolence and potent sensuality.

Around her, scattered across the enormous bed and the surrounding area, were her attendants.

The Chosen, they were called.

Beings who'd achieved transcendence but not sovereignty.

Powerful beyond mortal comprehension, yet still servants to those who'd climbed even higher. They were all women—this realm held only women, by ancient law and design that predated even the Separation.

Some of the Chosen were tall and powerfully built, with muscles that suggested they could shatter mountains with casual gestures. They wore no clothing, and their treasures were laid bare, and the thing between the legs was hard to not notice.

Their bodies were weapons and tools for the pleasure of those in the higher positions.

Others were more slender, but no less dangerous. These ones specialized in different forms of power—manipulation of energy, bending of reality, crafting of possibility itself.

All of them attended Kailthrys with absolute devotion.

One massaged her shoulders with hands that radiated warmth. Another held a tray of delicacies—fruits that grew only in this realm, foods that would kill mortals with a single bite. Others simply lounged nearby, ready to fulfill any request their Sovereign Queen might make.

Kailthrys took a long drag from her cigarette, exhaling smoke that formed into the shape of a phoenix before dissolving.

The languid atmosphere was shattered by the groan of the chamber's immense doors—doors made of compressed time and inlaid with screaming souls of forgotten primordial beings.

They swung inward without a hand touching them, and a new presence filled the room, cool and vast as an ocean trench.

It was Neryssa.

Sister to Kailthrys.

Where Kailthrys was the storm fury, Neryssa was the abyssal deep. Her hair flowed like a midnight sea. She wore a simple long white gown with pearls attached, shifting and clicking softly with her movements. Her eyes were the color of a calm, deep ocean, but currently, they churned with a quiet urgency.

"Sister," Neryssa's voice was like the tide pulling over gravel, both soothing and formidable.

"We have a conclave. The Sisters of the Weave suggest it, and your presence is required."

Kailthrys didn't even turn her head.

She exhaled another cloud of smoke, watching the smoke swirl in the air above her.

"The Weave-Sisters are old spinsters who see patterns in dust motes, Neryssa. Their 'suggestions' are the desperate twitches of the bored."

She took a long, slow sip from her goblet, the liquid within glowing brighter as it passed her lips.

Neryssa's jaw tightened.

She stepped further into the room, her presence causing the ambient temperature to drop several degrees. A faint mist began to form around her boots.

"Kailthrys, please. This is not one of their usual portents. There is a… a dissonance. A fraying at the edges of the realm. The lesser realms are reporting tremors in the fabric of their own realities. Something is scratching at the walls of our home."

"Scratching? Let it scratch. We are the walls, Neryssa. What can possibly threaten us in our own seat of power?"

"That is what we must discern," Neryssa insisted, her gaze sweeping over her reclining sister.

"It is an irregularity. A wrong note in the symphony of existence. I have felt it in my tides—a pull that is not mine."

Kailthrys finally deigned to move, rolling onto her back and staring up at the swirling nebula-ceiling. The movement was lazy and powerful, like a great predator shifting in its sleep.

VaThalyssra, one of the servants, moved with her, her hands now gently kneading the queen's calf.

"You are all just bored," Kailthrys declared, her voice a low rumble of distant thunder.

"We have existed for eons. We have shaped civilizations, watched stars be born and die, and played games with the fates of entire worlds. We have transcended everything. What challenge is left? So your minds invent one. A diabolical menace to tickle your fading sense of purpose."

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