Gorath sighed before he turned to face Liam directly.

"So why wait for the twenty-one heroes when they can bring forth divine judgment now? Why spend years completing the summoning when conventional warfare was proving effective?"

"And so it began," Liam said softly. "The Radiant Empire's attack on us."

"Yes. With our forces already suffering and depleted from the failed attack, we were put in a losing defensive position. Every battle was retreat. Every siege was delay. The war Lilith started to save the empire was destroying it almost as fast as the prophecy would have."

Gorath's burning eyes held Liam's.

"Her gambit didn't save the empire. It accelerated our destruction. It revealed our weakness. It gave the Radiant Empire the confidence to attack before they were fully prepared."

The weight of it was crushing. Liam could see it now—the shape of Lilith's desperation. The impossible choice between waiting for certain death or gambling on uncertain salvation.

She'd gambled.

And lost.

"If you knew all this," Liam asked, "if you understood she did it to save the empire, why did you give her such a hard time? Why the political pressure? Why side with the Nine Houses who wanted her dead?"

Gorath's expression became complicated. Sad and angry and exhausted all at once.

"Because I too must play my role. Not as the Demon Watcher—that's a secret kept from everyone including Lilith—but as the Arch-Demon who sees his province's soldiers die with every passing day."

He gestured to the windows, to the distant mountains of Ashard.

"I command this border. These outposts. These soldiers who bleed and die defending territory that's strategically worthless except as a buffer against invasion. Do you know how many demons I've lost in the last three years? The last three months? The last three weeks before you arrived?"

"Tell me."

"Seventeen thousand." The number was delivered flat. Without emotion. "Seventeen thousand demons who could have been farmers, craftsmen, artists, parents. Seventeen thousand lives ground to nothing because a desperate queen made a gamble that failed."

He looked at Liam.

"I know why she did it. I understand the calculations. I even agree with the necessity. But that doesn't make the deaths acceptable. It doesn't make the failure forgivable. So yes, I gave her a hard time. I pressured her politically. I made her fight for every resource, every decision, every breath."

"Because you had to."

"Because I had to maintain my role as Arch-Demon first, ally second." Gorath's voice was tired. "Politics is a performance, Lord Azra. You know this better than anyone. Sometimes you have to publicly oppose someone you privately support because the alternative is losing credibility with the people who matter."

Liam understood.

The actor in him—the two percent that remained human—recognized the necessity of playing to your audience even when it hurt.

"She wanted to fight," Gorath continued. "After the retreat. After the Radiant Empire began their invasion. Lilith wanted to go to the front lines. Lead from the front like you did. Show the empire she wouldn't hide behind her crown while demons died."

"She told me...about the assassination plans"

"Yes...intelligence told us something terrifying." Gorath's expression was grim.

"The Radiant Empire issued a single instruction to all commanders. The moment a demon of high status—House Leader, Arch-Demon, or the Queen herself—enters the battlefield personally..."

"All Grand Commanders and the hero will be teleported to eliminate them," Liam finished.

"Exactly. Instant response. Overwhelming force. Assassination on a scale that makes conventional warfare look gentle." Gorath's voice was flat. "Lilith going to the front lines wouldn't inspire the troops. It would just give the Radiant Empire a chance to kill her and decapitate our leadership in one strike."

"So she stayed in Eldhar. Played politics. Let demons think she was a coward."

"Let demons think she valued her life over theirs. Let the Nine Houses use her absence as ammunition. Let every soldier bleeding in Ashard wonder why their queen wouldn't fight beside them." Gorath's smile was bitter. "Another sacrifice. Another piece of her reputation destroyed to keep the empire functioning."

He walked to the window, watching the sun begin to rise.

"The Radiant Empire's current retreat from Ashard is because you gave them a reason to fear demons again. You made them remember that we're dangerous. That we have power beyond conventional warfare. That something primordial walks among us."

"How long will that fear last?"

"Not long enough." Gorath's voice was certain. "Our intelligence suggests they're close to successfully summoning the second and third heroes. Within months, maybe weeks. And when those heroes are ready, when they've been trained and blessed and armed..."

"The attack resumes."

"The attack resumes with force we can't counter. Three heroes supported by Grand Commanders and conventional forces. Then four heroes. Then five." Gorath turned from the window. "And eventually, all twenty-one. The prophecy fulfilled. The demon empire destroyed."

He walked to Liam, his massive frame somehow seeming small under the weight of what he was describing.

"If the Demon Empire must survive, we do not just need to defend against the Radiant Empire. We need them destroyed. Completely. Utterly. Their capacity to summon heroes eliminated. Their military broken. Their theocracy shattered."

Liam's grey eyes studied the ancient demon. "You're asking me to do what Lilith did. Lead an army against the Radiant Empire."

"No." Gorath's correction was immediate. "I'm asking for salvation. Something no one else but a god can grant these doomed demons."

His burning eyes held absolute certainty.

"I'm asking you to pursue and destroy. To take the war to them before they're ready. To slaughter heroes as they come, before they're too many to handle. To break the prophecy before it can be fulfilled."

The request hung like a death sentence.

Liam was silent for a long moment. Processing. Calculating. Running through probabilities with the cold analytical precision that had replaced most of his humanity.

"What's the chance of success doing that?" he asked finally.

Gorath's expression was answer enough before he spoke.

"Little to none. It is almost certain you die and our destruction becomes inevitable."

His voice was soft. Honest.

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