Chapter Twenty-two: Soul Stones

Chapter Twenty-two: Soul Stones

The light of Eden was a constant, silvered luminescence, but it offered none of its usual solace. It only served to sharpen the edges of the shadows in Benzosia’s soul. She stood at the edge of the shimmering pond, the impossible flora a blur in her periphery, lost in a maelstrom of her own making.

It’s gone too far…

Rage, hot and acidic, was a familiar beast coiling in her gut. Rage at Asmodeus, at the memory of his cold, claiming hands, at the violation of her body that he demanded as his right. But beneath the rage, something far more corrosive festered: the sickening weight of her own complicity. The cold, smooth stone she had slipped into his wine, the secret she now carried, was a treason born of her own design. And Levistus… the thought of him was a separate, exquisite agony. She was plotting to use him, to turn his fierce loyalty and the impossible, burgeoning tenderness between them into a weapon, a means to an heir that would secure her own power. The shame of it was a physical thing, a foul taste on her tongue.

She didn’t hear him approach. The gentle splash of water as he emerged from the pond, his form sleek and powerful in the ethereal light, went unnoticed until he was right beside her. Droplets of Eden’s pure water clung to his dark hair and broad shoulders, each one a tiny, shimmering star.

"You’re troubled," he observed, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through her.

A startled gasp tore from her lips. She spun around, her heart hammering against her ribs as if caught in a crime. He was too close, his presence overwhelming, the scent of clean water and cold stone chasing away her dark thoughts. He reached out, his hands settling on her upper arms, steadying her.

“Benzosia?”

His touch was her undoing. The moment his hands made contact, a wave of profound, soul-deep comfort washed over her, so potent it made her knees weak. The rage, the shame, the coiling knot of her own treachery—it all receded in the face of the solid, grounding reality of him. This was the warmth she craved, the safety she had been denied. She sagged against him, a silent, involuntary surrender. But the comfort was instantly tainted. As she inhaled his scent, as she felt the strength in his arms, the shame returned, sharper this time, a venomous sting of guilt. How could she feel such peace with the man she intended to deceive so completely? The conflict was a fresh torment, making her feel better, and infinitely worse, all at once.

Her head snapped up, her eyes holding a universe of that conflict. "We can’t allow this to continue," she said, the words tight, hollowed out, seizing on the one truth she could cling to. "This war… the soul stones are its heart. We must act."

"I agree, and have already gathered the necessary information" he said, his expression hardening with grim purpose. "The soul gems are being forged by a consortium of ancient liches in Gehenna. I have a plan. I will go there, retrieve the schematics for the arcane matrix they use, and find a way to shatter the stones."

“You want to destroy the soul stones?”

“Every last one of them.”

The casual finality in his voice—I will go there—was a blade twisting in her gut. He meant to face a realm of pure death alone, leaving her behind like some fragile doll to be kept safe on a shelf. The thought was a suffocation, a gilded cage slamming shut around her. Panic, hot and sharp, rose in her throat.

“I’m going with you.” The demand tore from her, quiet but absolute.

He turned his full attention to her, the storm-grey of his eyes narrowing. "Benzosia, this is not an option," he began, the familiar cadence of command in his voice. “You’re the queen.”

“Between the revolt of the abyss and the temptation of Baselius, he will not miss me.” Her nights were not free of him, but her days had been spent blissfully ignored.

"Gehenna… it is a realm of poison, and you’ve not been exposed to the Hells long enough yet to endure." It will be agony for you. She saw the unspoken words clear as day in the hard set of his jaw.

"That is precisely why I must go," she countered, stepping into his space. The heat of her body was a defiant counterpoint to the chill radiating from him. "Their fortress will be warded against celestial and demonic signatures—against you. I’m not an angel anymore, nor am I as corrupt as the fallen. I am your key."

His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking rhythmically. Her logic was a flawless, infuriating cage. “What if I object anyway?” he asked, his voice strained.

"Then I’d be forced to remind you that I am your queen, and my going is not up for debate.”

The silence stretched. Finally, with a look of grim defeat, he gave a single, sharp nod. From a heavy iron chest, he withdrew a small, dark amulet.

"This will offer some protection," he conceded. "It won’t stop the pain, but it may keep the worst of the necrotic taint at bay."

He stepped behind her to fasten it. His fingers, usually so steady, so precise, felt clumsy as they brushed against the warm, living skin of her nape. The contact was a spark of lightning, a dizzying jolt that made her breath catch. It was a careful, protective gesture, a moment of profound care in a place of death, and so utterly alien to the brutal ownership she had come to expect that it made her heart ache. He let the touch linger for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, a silent, desperate plea for her to be safe.

The portal to Gehenna was a silent, sickening wound of darkness. He offered his hand. She took it, her grip firm, and felt a surge of fierce, terrible resolve pass between them. Together.

The transition was a violent tearing. The life-giving air of Eden was ripped from her lungs, replaced by a putrid miasma of rot and burnt bone. The necrotic energy of the realm was a physical assault, a thousand tiny, invisible needles pricking at her skin, a pressure building behind her eyes. A gasp tore from her lips as she stumbled onto a narrow, windswept precipice of black rock, the abyss of swirling grey ash churning silently below.

The world spun off its axis, and Levistus’s arm shot out, pulling her flush against his side. His body was a living shield, and she anchored herself to him, pressing her cheek against the cold strength of his chest. The amulet on her chest was a single point of warmth against a tide of absolute cold, and the steady, powerful beat of his heart against her ear was the only rhythm in a realm of silent death. 

"Breathe, Benzosia," he murmured, his voice a low command. "Anchor yourself to me."

She managed a small, jerky nod, her gaze falling upon their destination. Floating in the void was a fortress built from the colossal, fossilized ribs of a dead god, a monument to profound and ancient blasphemy that made the very air ache. Before them, the gate was a swirling vortex of corpse-green light, a lock designed for the undead and undying.

"If I touch it directly," she said, her voice strained, "It will burn me."

"And my signature will trigger every alarm," he confirmed. He stepped forward, placing his hands flat against the swirling energy. She saw his body go rigid, the muscles in his back cording as agony, pure and crystalline, shot through him. He locked his jaw, his silence a more potent testament to his pain than any scream. Beneath his touch, the lock began to freeze, a beautiful, lethal frost spreading across the malicious metal, encasing it in ice. The vortex sputtered but held fast.

"Now, Benzosia,” his voice was a raw, strained command, the words tight with the effort of holding the necrotic energy at bay. “Touch the lock. Now.”

She didn’t hesitate. She reached out, pressing her palms flat against the gate. The frost Levistus had formed was a biting cold, but it was a clean, physical sensation, a shield against the soul-flaying energy that still pulsed beneath. Through the ice, her own unique life-signature bled into the phylacteric ward. It was an imprint the ancient magic could not comprehend—not the searing light of the celestial, nor the corrupting darkness of the infernal. It was neutral, an anomaly, a question the lock had no answer for. The ward, designed to repel gods, angels and demons alike, simply… failed. It found no enemy to repulse. With a final, shuddering groan, the corpse-green vortex collapsed inward, and the great bone gate swung open.

A moment of charged silence. They looked at each other, the adrenaline of their success a palpable thing between them. A slow, arrogant smirk spread across Levistus’s lips.

“See, told you you’d have need of me.”

“Always” he murmured, his eyes glittering with triumph.

A heady rush of power and pride surged through Benzosia. They were a perfect team, an unstoppable force. With a shared look of defiant confidence, they stepped through the gate together into the vast cavern, the air thick with the psychic hum of a thousand souls.

And then the trap sprung.

The air solidified into a crushing weight. Chains of pure necrotic energy, thick as pythons, hissed from the floor and walls. The vile touch, cold and draining, sent a fresh wave of terror through Benzosia as they lashed around their limbs, pinning them. She cried out, struggling instinctively, but the chains only constricted further, the power-dampening magic leaching her strength, making her limbs feel heavy as lead.

“Zosia!” Levistus roared. He fought against his own bonds with furious, primal strength. The air around him crackled with the cold of Stygia, frost spider-webbing across the necrotic chains, but they held fast. With every ounce of his power he threw against them, they seemed to feed on his energy, tightening their grip, pulling him farther from her. He strained, the muscles in his back and arms cording with the impossible effort, his eyes locked on her, a promise of violent retribution burning in their stormy depths. But it was useless. The more they fought their binds, the more the chains constricted, a slow, inexorable crushing.

But before she could even process the full horror of their capture, they were upon them.

They didn’t walk; they scuttled from the shadows, a chittering, hissing tide of withered things. Liches. But not the grand, powerful necromancers of legend. These were vultures in rotting finery. Their glamour spells were cheap, threadbare things, casting an illusion of beauty that shimmered and failed, revealing the decay beneath. A cheekbone that looked elegantly sculpted would flicker, showing desiccated, leathery skin stretched tight over bone. An eye that shimmered like an emerald would waver, revealing a hollow, maggot-eaten socket. The air filled with the smell of cheap perfume failing to mask the stench of the grave.

They swarmed, their movements jerky and bird-like, their heads cocked with a greedy, unsettling curiosity. Bony fingers, their nails long and cracked beneath peeling gold paint, reached out. One snagged a ruby sewn into the hem of Benzosia’s gown, tearing the fabric with a dry rasp. Another, its glamour revealing a hand of skeletal rot, plucked at a silver clasp on Levistus’s cloak.

“Get your filthy hands off her,” Levistus snarled, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. The necrotic chains strained against his fury, glowing with a brighter, more malevolent light.

Benzosia was frozen, caught somewhere between horror and a morbid fascination. What have they done to themselves? These were mortals who had bartered their souls for this grotesque parody of life, this endless, avaricious decay.

Suddenly, a hush fell over the chittering horde. The liches scuttled back, their glamour spells flickering violently with fear as they bowed low, clearing a path.

The being who emerged was the exception. His glamour was flawless, a masterpiece of arcane deceit. Tall and broad-shouldered, with flawless dark skin, he was the picture of mortal perfection. He wore a sheer, white linen kilt, pleated with impossible precision, and a wide, golden usekh collar inlaid with lapis and carnelian that glittered in the sickly light. His eyes were lined with thick, black kohl, accentuating their sharp, intelligent gaze. He moved with the fluid grace of a panther, his presence radiating an ancient power that made the lesser liches tremble.

He stopped before them, taking in the scene with an air of profound boredom. He looked at Levistus, then at Benzosia, then back to Levistus, his warm, honey-colored eyes lingering with an almost predatory appreciation.

“Well,” he said, his voice a smooth, resonant baritone. “To what do I owe this rather aggressive visit?” He paused, a perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised, clearly expecting a reaction. He scanned their faces, a flicker of annoyance crossing his handsome features when he found only confusion. “You do… know who I am, don’t you?”

Benzosia and Levistus exchanged a blank look. Levistus gave a slight, almost imperceptible shrug, an expression of pure, dismissive ignorance that was more insulting than any verbal retort.

The lich’s charming smile tightened at the edges. “No? Really? Bloise? The First Lich? The Alchemist King of Gehenna?” He sighed, a dramatic, put-upon sound. “Honestly, the state of education in the lower realms is simply appalling.” His annoyance curdled into suspicion.

Levistus seized the opening, his own expression shifting to one of dawning, apologetic realization. "My sincerest apologies, Lord Bloise," he said, his voice smooth as polished ice, cutting through the lich's indignation. "You must forgive my ignorance. The legends speak of a withered, ancient thing. I failed to recognize you in this… magnificent form. Your glamour is a work of art."

The flattery, so blatant and yet so perfectly delivered, landed. A flicker of preening pride softened the hard lines of Bloise’s face. He ran a hand over the intricate golden usekh collar that rested on his bare chest. "Well," he conceded, "one does try to keep up appearances. It's so dreadfully dull otherwise." His gaze sharpened again, suspicion warring with vanity. "But that doesn't answer my question. What does the great King Asmodeus want with me?"

“He sent us as envoys,” Levistus stated, his tone shifting to one of grim urgency. “The conflict with the Abyss has escalated. The infernal gates of Avernus are under siege. The King requires his assets. He grows impatient for the delivery of the soul stones.”

“Ah...” Bloise’s interest was visibly piqued now, his earlier annoyance replaced by a sharp, calculating gleam. He circled Levistus again, but this time his appraisal was different—less that of a host and more that of a connoisseur examining a rare and intriguing specimen. "Does he now? A war footing changes the terms of our arrangement considerably." He smiled, a slow, predatory stretching of his lips. "But first, you’ll forgive me if I require a bit more than your word before we start negotiations. A simple tincture of truth. Just a little insurance."

Benzosia’s heart became a frantic drum against her ribs as Bloise accepted a strange object from one of the circling liches. It was a slender tube of crystal, filled with a viscous liquid that glowed with a sickening green light. At its tip was a wicked-looking needle of dark, polished metal. She had never seen such a thing, but its purpose felt chillingly intuitive. An instrument of violation.

She felt the magic in the room shift, a sudden, immense pressure to be honest settling over them, an invisible weight that made even her own unspoken thoughts feel heavy and dangerous. A tincture of truth. He meant to inject Levistus with it, and compel him to reveal their plot. This was it. The end.

“Lord Bloise, this is unnecessary–” The words tore from her, a desperate, foolish attempt to intervene.

She took a half-step forward, but stopped dead. Levistus’s eyes had found hers. It wasn’t a look of fear or pleading. It was a silent, powerful command. The storm in his gaze was one of absolute, chilling control. Be calm. Trust me. The look was a physical force, silencing the protest on her lips, rooting her to the spot. Her terror did not subside, but beneath it, a new, fragile layer of trust formed, an anchor in the swirling chaos. She went quiet, her hands clenching into fists at her sides.

She watched, breathless, as the needle plunged into Levistus’s neck. He didn’t flinch.

“Your true name, ambassador,” Bloise purred, leaning close.

Levistus’s voice was perfectly level. “I am Lord Stolas.”

 Stolas. The name snagged in her memory, a fragment from Azadiel’s fevered, drunken ramblings in Stygia. A name for the shadows, he had slurred, a title for dealings that must never touch the court. Levistus’s infernal name. A secret. And now, that secret was a shield. Benzosia’s mind reeled.

“And the ornament?” Bloise pressed, his voice sharp, his gaze flicking to Benzosia. “Your relationship to her?”

Levistus’s gaze met hers for a fraction of a second, and in that sliver of time, the lie became something more. “She is Benny, my wife,” he stated, his voice a low, possessive rumble that vibrated through the chamber. The words were a falsehood, a necessary deception, yet he spoke them with the unwavering conviction of a sacred vow. In his eyes, in that moment, the lie was a profound truth, and the sound of it made Benzosia’s treacherous heart ache with a terrible, impossible longing.

“And your true purpose here?”

“The King grows impatient,” Levistus said, his voice cold. “The war with the Abyss drains his resources. He requires a higher yield of soul gems, I am here to discover why your production has been so regrettably… slow.” He flicked a bored glance at Benzosia. “My wife has unique arcane sensibilities. The King believed her presence might help stabilize the resonance of the next batch. An experiment.”

Every word was a twisting of the blade of truth. He hadn’t lied; he had reconstructed reality itself, building an unassailable fortress of deceit from the bricks of the truth. Awe, sharp and terrifying, cut through her fear.

With a frustrated sigh, Bloise waved a hand. The necrotic chains dissolved into dust. “How utterly tedious,” he lamented. He strode back to Levistus, reaching out to straighten the collar of his tunic, his touch lingering. As he did, he caught his own reflection in the polished surface of a nearby soul gem and paused to admire the angle of his jaw. “Well, ‘Lord Stolas,’ since you’ve come all this way, you simply must let me give you the grand tour.”

As the handsome lich turned to lead them deeper into his horrific landscape, Levistus placed a hand on the small of Benzosia’s back. The touch was a silent gesture of reassurance, but it was also subtly possessive. She felt the jolt of that touch, a secret spark of heat and victory shared only between them in a realm full of enemies.

She looked at the man beside her, at the being who had stared into the face of absolute truth and made it blink. The terror she had felt moments ago was being replaced by something else, something dangerous and thrilling. The trust she had placed in him for her survival was transforming into a deeper, more reckless surrender. The title settled in her mind, a fact of nature, a source of terror and a flicker of impossible, dangerous hope.

He was the Prince of deceit.

Bloise led them through corridors carved from polished bone, the air humming with the trapped, silent screams of a thousand souls. The psychic pressure was immense, a constant, high-pitched whine at the edge of her hearing that threatened to splinter her sanity. She focused on the solid presence of Levistus at her side, the warmth of his hand still a phantom on her back.

“The process is an art, you see,” Bloise chattered, his voice echoing in the vast, cathedral-like laboratory. He gestured to massive crystal vats where shimmering, ethereal forms—souls—were being compressed by crackling arcane energy. “It requires immense power, precise calculation, and a certain… moral flexibility.” He shot a wink at Levistus, who remained impassive.

Bloise’s pride was a palpable thing, a preening arrogance that seemed to feed on their silent attention. He was a genius showing off his magnum opus, and his desire to impress Levistus overrode all caution.

“Asmodeus isn’t my only client, you know,” he boasted, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper as he guided them down a corridor that seemed to absorb all sound. “My work has attracted… widespread interest. Even the Dark Court has sent envoys.” He paused for effect, clearly expecting a reaction. “The dark fae. They’re losing their war against the dragonkin, you see. Desperate for an edge. They believe if a dragon’s soul can be trapped, my gems can be used to control the mind and body of the beast. Turn their greatest weapons against them. Destroy their kind from the inside out.” He chuckled, a dry, rustling sound. “It’s the sort of elegant, brutal solution they adore. They’d trade half their blighted kingdom for a fraction of what I’m making for your King.”

The rage that had grown quiet beneath the terrible fascination of revelations now sparked to a blaze she could barely contain. It was a cold fury, different from the hot anger Asmodeus inspired. This was a chilling disgust at the calculated, casual cruelty of it all. To not just kill, but to enslave a soul, to turn a noble beast into a puppet for a petty war… it was a violation of a fundamental cosmic law, a perversion of nature so profound it made her own fall from grace seem like a childish tantrum. How very vile their tactics, how utterly cruel their actions. This was not just about Asmodeus anymore; this was a rot that had spread through the realms, and she was standing at its festering heart.

Bloise led them to a final, heavily warded chamber. The door was not a simple slab of stone, but a breathtakingly complex marvel of engineering and dark magic. It was a perfect circle of interlocking brass and iron rings, covered in thousands of tiny, shifting sigils that clicked and whirred like a nest of metallic insects. At its center, a series of concentric dials spun in opposite directions, each movement causing the sigils to realign in a new, indecipherable pattern. It was less a door and more a puzzle box the size of a vault, a testament to a mind that valued intricate security over simple brute force.

“Asmodeus, for all his bluster, understood the fundamentals,” Bloise said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “To create something of this magnitude requires a proportional sacrifice. I’m sure he never told you the price of his masterpiece, did he?”

With a whispered incantation, the door whirred and clicked, then dissolved into smoke, revealing what lay within.

It was not a gem. It was a bleeding wound in reality. A colossal, unholy ruby, large enough to cradle in two hands and shaped like the egg of some great, forgotten beast, pulsed with a slow, sickening, rhythmic beat, like a monstrous heart. It did not reflect the sickly green light of the chamber; it consumed it, drawing the very energy of the room into its corrupt core. Benzosia felt a wave of cosmic nausea wash over her, a spiritual revulsion so profound it felt like her own soul was trying to recoil from her body. This was the antithesis of life, the very essence of damnation given form.

“What in all the Hells is that… thing?” Her voice was a choked whisper, the sound swallowed by the unnatural silence the ruby seemed to impose.

Bloise’s proud expression turned ecstatic at her horror. His honey-colored eyes glittered with the mad light of a creator unveiling his most terrible and beautiful work. 

“That, my dear ‘Benny,’ is not a thing.” He savored the moment, drawing out the reveal with theatrical cruelty. “That is the soul of your King, his light.”

The words didn’t just strike her; they unmade her. The floor seemed to drop away, leaving her suspended in a void of pure, cold shock. Whatever terrible revelation she had braced for, it was but a pale shadow of this monstrous truth.

“He came to me, many centuries ago,” Bloise boasted, his voice a triumphant hymn to his own genius. “He wanted power beyond that of any archangel. He wanted to unmake God’s creation and forge his own. But to wield the power of corruption, one must first become it.” He gestured dramatically to the ruby, a showman presenting his final, greatest trick. “He sacrificed his own celestial light, his divinity, his very grace, and poured it all into this… this Heart of Darkness. He tore out his own soul and gave it to me to be forged into this key. He unmade himself, all for this. Once he becomes a true god, strong enough to wield it without being consumed, he will be unstoppable.”

This was what had become of the seraph she had loved—the scholar, the gentle suitor, the being of light— not just extinguished. It was annihilated, erased from existence as if it had never been. He hadn’t been corrupted by Hell. He had willingly, meticulously, extinguished his own light in exchange for power.