Deep Pocket was quiet in the way vaults pretend to be holy, if materialism had such distinctions. White chains hummed a dull note against bone. The stakes shimmered like old coins. The magic vines grown in the devils spine sprouted and twisted like they always did. Vainglory's eyes were closed, but not for sleep. The body lay still while the mind ran. Like usual, the past opened and took him.

He was running at breakneck speeds.

Branches shook and recovered behind him. Wet leaves slapped against his calves. The ground traded roots for stone, then back to roots, and he never broke cadence. His breath stayed even, his weight stayed light. The All-Seeing eyes didn't need to open to map angles and landmarks. A guiding thread tugged him forward. He followed it, cutting through the green.

Behind, a mortal crashed the path and tried not to sound like he was dying. He was tall and lean, armor cut short on the shoulders for range, hair tied to keep it from the eyes, an ancestral sword carried like he had never once doubted it. Sweat caught the dust on his cheekbones. Caesar Godschild. He looked every inch a gilded prodigy, a blonde, golden-eyed young man who met gazes head on, confidence carved into his posture.

But venom dripped from his voice.

"O-oi. Slow down a little! Monster..." he muttered that last part. As much as one could mutter when breath barely held space.

Vainglory didn't look back. "I did not ask you to follow. If you cannot keep up, Godschild, go back with the other mortals."

Teeth clicked behind him. No answer. This wasn't part of their mission, this was the devil's whim. But Caesar's steps gained a hair nonetheless. The man had that trait gods like. A refusal that doesn't need witnesses, stubborn to the bone.

Air changed overhead. Ethereal wings folded sound into clean whistles. A white glow drifted with them. Piety's shadow crossed the trail and moved on. She flew at an easy pace to make a point, but the point was overlooked due to the beads of sweat on her brow. Lapis hair flowed behind her shoulders like a banner. Her matching eyes were bright and steady. Above her head a great ring turned, and inside it six smaller halos rotated like fitting puzzle pieces. Seven in all. The sight stirred villagers to chant and enemies to count their friends.

But that reverence was lost on the two below.

She looked down and giggled, her voice warm even at this speed. "Caesar, don't worry. We are getting close. Just a bit more. If you want to rest, I will beacon you the rest of the way."

Caesar ignored her, running harder. Pride was a better spur than pity.

Piety shook her head. She couldn't understand why the mortal hated higher beings so much. She was kind when she could be. She was never cold and callous the way Vainglory chose to be. She glanced at the devil and smiled anyway.

He was faster than he had been weeks ago. Her gaze measured the change and offered praise without asking permission. But for a blink her face darkened, a private thought passed. She pushed it away and moved through the trees.

The forest thinned, light widened. They broke into a clearing and the world stopped crowding their way. Ahead, a small town sat in a shallow bowl of land, roofs neat, walls high. Large golden swords the size of watch towers lined the outer perimeter. Beyond it rose an estate that had been built to be noticed, all columns and long windows, the color chosen to remind you that gold likes to live both indoors and outdoors. Prides signature. Supurbia territory.

Vainglory's pace slowed without a stumble. He stood at the edge of the clearing and let the weight of the path leave his legs. His eyes rotated.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Gold moved in them in small ticks, cataloging, sorting, writing quiet margins.

"We're here." he said.

The angel above drifted to a slow turn. Caesar planted his hands on his thighs and dragged air into his chest until it obeyed. The estate's facade threw back the sun in measured flashes.

"Home…" Vainglory said, and the word held both promise and a debt.

They approached the town at a more measured pace. Piety dispelled her wings, fell light as a feather, and settled beside Vainglory on the road. She drifted into his space until their shoulders nearly touched. He shifted half a step away. The distance wasn't manners. Angel bodies were braided from Order. Devils didn't like the feel of that near a chaotic core. The other reason was simpler. He felt close to no one. So he wouldn't pretend to be with her.

"So, this is where you were born?" she asked, curious.

"No." He scanned the roofs and the line of the main street, suspicion tightening the frame of his attention. "I was born in Superbia's grand temple in northern Hellnia, east of Avaritia trading city three. I was sent here when I was declared the next Vainglory."

Caesar scoffed behind them. "So they knew to keep you away from even the rest of your ilk."

Piety turned her head, frowning. "Was that comment necessary?"

She faced forward again and tried a smile. "They must have had a reason to bring you here, right?"

Vainglory looked at both of them. His voice set a line in the sand. "Focus. Use your eyes. Does this seem like a time to be asking questions?"

Caesar's gaze sharpened. He adjusted how his weight sat on the road, noticing the strangeness. Piety tilted her head with a grin that didn't survive its own birth.

"What do you mean? This is one of the few times we can talk in peace. Why not take advantage of it? When was the last time we came to a place… so… quiet…"

The last word felt wrong. The silence came louder in her ears now.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

They reached the gate, and as expected. No guards. The doors stood ajar as if a careful hand had left them that way for a bit of air. No birds, no dogs, no children playing where children always invented games. The three of them entered and their footfalls now made too much sound.

They took to the central street. Empty stalls. A pot set on a brazier, soup skinned over, the ring of fat dried into a dull glaze. Cards on a tavern table played mid-hand. A cobbler's half-soled boot, nails laid out in a neat row that had never been hammered. Brooms leaning where they had been put aside for a moment that never ended.

Caesar's hand went to the hilt of his sword. His voice dropped to a whisper that was too loud in this still. "The hell is this? Where is everyone?"

No one answered. Vainglory's eyes glowed. Gold turned and ticked, each rotation pulling a thread of detail toward the center. The tracks on the street were unhurried. People had walked with quiet feet. Shop by shop they had stepped away from their work and turned toward the same direction. The prints gathered and coalesced into a single path that led uphill to the estate at the far end of town.

He followed the path with his gaze until it reached the iron fence and the front lawn. Sight was blurred and obscured there. Something wrapped the manor like a second skin. His spectrum saw it as a low dark pulse, a somber rhythm a person couldn't hear but a body would obey. The beat throbbed at the threshold.

He flicked his wrist. His sword uncoiled from his spatial ring and landed in his palm. He nodded toward the estate, face tranquil.

"Void."

Piety moved without asking for a second confirmation. A slim bow of white-gold formed in her hand, a quiet thing that made the air near it straighten. She drew a breath and spoke the spell like a vow.

"Bless magic: [Pious Peace]."

A gold shimmer passed over their bodies and settled like fine dust. The effect set the edges of their thoughts and locked the doors behind it. It was a ward for minds and spirits both. Wild magic could find no purchase when this blessing held. This was why she had been chosen for the tide war. Void song hunted the soul. Her magic made it poor hunting.

Caesar drew his blade and let out a slow, heat filled breath. Power rumbled under his skin. Heat climbed into his cheeks and haloed him with a subtle steam. Golden glyphs budded across his forehead and linked into a small, thin, crown-like sigil. He rolled the sword in a single lazy circle that warmed the body and told the road he was ready.

Vainglory kept his posture loose. He leaned forward and the air seemed to decide which way he would go before he moved.

"The city is lost," he said at last. "Leave none alive."

Piety flinched. "But-"

"Kill them or it spreads to the rest of the plane," Caesar said, cutting the word before she gave it shape. "Then Aither will lose its safety as well."

She closed her mouth and swallowed the protest. Her eyes hardened into duty. The bow's string didn't tremble.

Then they ran.

The change in pace was not just for show. The road blurred ahead of them, fences whipped by, the estate grew from a picture to a wall as their speed revealed how far it really was. The rhythm at the gate thickened when they crossed the first step of the lawn. But the blessing held. The music scratched at the edge of the ward, found no seam, and thinned away.

They climbed the front steps in three heartbeats and came to a stop in a line. The door waited, patient as a nun at an altar.

They looked at each other. No words came. Then they faced the manor.

"Be swift," Vainglory said. "This place is covered in the song. All are infected."

He turned and rushed in. The doors gave and the three slid through the entry like knives. Courtyard, corridor, inner walk. Their speed kicked up the dust into brief spirals. No footsteps answered, no voices, no doors shut a second too late in avoidance. They crossed one court, then another, then the inner ring of buildings where servants should have moved and found it empty all the same.

"Left," Vainglory said, eyes glowing, seeing what the others couldn't. "The ballroom."

They banked and ran the length of a gallery. The double doors took the hit, swung inward, and the dark room accepted them. Caesar drew breath to complain and stopped when Vainglory suddenly pointed.

At the far end of the hall, where tables and chairs should have been, the floor had been broken and shaped. A spiral pit fell into blackness, steps cut neat into the descent.

"Fuck…" Caesar said.

Piety brought her hands together in a small prayer and whispered, "Trinity guide me."

Vainglory said nothing. They approached the edge. The smell rose first, a wet rot mixed with iron. Purplish-red and black sludge ringed the lip in a dried line. From below came voices, not words at first, only the suggestion of singing, a cadence that could not decide on a beat, changing every second.

"Move quickly," Vainglory said. "The song is denser below. The blessing will not hold forever."

"You think so?" Caesar answered, snorting. "And we are down five members. This is a fool's errand."

"Indeed," Vainglory said, stepping onto the first cut stone. "A fool's errand for weaklings and useless mortals."

"...What?" Caesar said, teeth baring as he followed. His family did not fail. His blood killed colossi. If a monster could do this, he could cut it as well.

Piety traced a small cross over her heart and went after them.

They descended fast. The path tightened as it turned, each bend shorter than the last. The voices below thickened, humming and speaking that didn't bother to separate. No voidspawn climbed to meet them. No twisted animals tried for their ankles. The absence of interruption felt worse than a direct ambush.

A crack of light cut the dark ahead. The spiral ended at a low arch opening into a wide cavern. They slipped through and stopped long enough to understand what they were seeing.

"Great Adam's sin," Caesar whispered. "What in..."

The ballroom had moved underground. Tables and chairs arranged in perfect lines filled the stone floor, lamps lit in iron cages, villagers occupied every seat. They ate from platters stacked with raw flesh, not butchered, fresh-caught. Magical beasts lay flayed and halved, bone shining through, some still twitching. The maids and butlers served with smooth hands and distant faces. A stag blinked once while a knife scraped its ribs and a saucer caught the blood as if it were sauce.

Not one person screamed. They hummed and sang in a low collective, heads swaying to a rhythm that had been given to them rather than chosen. The nobles had dressed in their richest silks. The peasants had put on clean shirts and patched skirts. Lace sat beside burlap and didn't argue the seating. All pulsed in the same small motion, as if the song had borrowed their muscles.

At the center, couples danced. Their arms linked with a puppet's grace and a puppet's obedience. Feet scuffed and turned, scuffed and turned, the same pattern. Over and over, until the shoes had torn and the soles had split. Blood stained the floor in clean crescents where steps repeated. No one adjusted for pain. No one stopped to wrap a foot.

A woman bent at the knee and collapsed. Her partner didn't react at all. He continued the steps as if his hand still held hers. Two maids approached at a neat pace, their humming unchanged. Only then did the three intruders notice that the dance floor was not completely whole. Dark holes broke the pattern, evenly spaced, covered by nothing.

The maids seized the dead woman under the shoulders and dragged her without ceremony. They reached the nearest hole and dropped her in. She vanished into the vertical black, the sound of her falling lost under the crowd's hum. A peasant seated at a table then got up, walked to the dance floor and replaced the woman. Continuing the dance with the partnerless noble.

The singing gathered itself. The rhythm tugged at the edge of thought once again like a tide trying to break a lock. Piety's blessing held, a gold film over their minds. It would not last long in this depth, they could feel it. The air itself seemed to carry the motif.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Vainglory's eyes rotated. He traced lines from mouth to mouth, wrist to wrist, how the pressure moved on each inhalation. The beat lived under the skin and behind the tongue. It had learned the people and made a play out of them.

He gripped his sword tighter than normal, lifting it a degree. Piety set an arrow and kept her breath square. Caesar raised his blade and let the heat return to his forearms.

The voices sharpened into cursed words. The cavern listened as they began to sing the true melody of madness...

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