The Price

The twisted lands surrounding Yzaroth's sanctum seemed to warp with every step they took. Shadows stretched longer than they should have. The wind carried no sound. Vael and Varasha moved swiftly—his fury still simmering just beneath the surface, her steps silent but steady beside him.

When they arrived, Yzaroth was already waiting.

He sat atop a crooked throne of bone and stone, fingers steepled, his long silver-white hair falling over one shoulder like silk spun from starlight. His milky eyes—blind, yet all-seeing—followed their every move, though his gaze never shifted. Runes shimmered across his skin like slithering thoughts, never still.

"I felt you coming, Vael," Yzaroth said, voice like smoke curling through glass. "The air around you is louder than a scream."

Vael didn't waste time.

"Where is he?"

Yzaroth smiled faintly. "You always demand before you offer."

Vael stepped forward, his runes pulsing hot. "You know what I'm capable of."

"And I know what you're willing to sacrifice," Yzaroth replied smoothly. "But don't threaten me, Demon. Not here. Not when I already have the answer you seek."

Varasha stayed quiet, watching them both like a shadow watching fire.

Vael clenched his jaw. "What do you want?"

The old demon leaned forward, tilting his head. "A memory."

Vael narrowed his eyes. "You're joking."

"I never joke," Yzaroth said simply. "A single memory. One you treasure. I'll take it, and it will be mine. Gone from your mind—lost to you forever."

Vael stared at him.

"A precious moment," Yzaroth added. "The more it hurts to lose, the more it will satisfy."

There was a long silence.

Then—Vael exhaled. His runes dimmed slightly. "Fine."

Yzaroth's hand lifted, palm glowing with a dull violet light. "Then I choose.

The magic swept into him before Vael could brace for it.

He gasped—not in pain, but in disorientation—as something was torn loose from the recesses of his soul. Something warm. Something untainted.

The secluded alcove. The hush of Asphodel's eternal sky.

The warmth of skin beneath his hand.

Azarel's silver eyes, wide, still.

The soft gasp.

The silence.

The acceptance.

Gone.

Vael stumbled back a step, his breathing ragged.

He couldn't remember what he'd lost.

Only that he had.

"Payment received," Yzaroth said, his voice suddenly colder. "Now listen well."

Vael forced his body to steady, his mind burning with the hollow space now carved inside him.

"Asmodan," Yzaroth said. "Dragged by shadow. Bound by rune. Screams have been echoing through the abyss since the moment he vanished."

Vael's eyes snapped to his, the world narrowing to a single line of rage.

"Where?"

"The Den. Deep within the old fortress. The place none but Asmodan dares walk."

Vael turned, but Yzaroth raised a hand.

"There's more," he said softly. "I tell you this not to help—but to warn."

He stood now, his pale form rising like a spirit from the throne.

"The screams call for you. Over and over. And they are fading."

Vael's runes blazed. His wings of shadow—now only flickers of raw energy—flared in jagged bursts.

Yzaroth tilted his head. "Demon," he whispered, "it is already too late."

The words struck like a blade.

And Vael moved.

The sky cracked behind him as he launched toward Asmodan's domain, uncaring of Varasha's call, of the crumbling stones beneath his feet. He flew like a storm—tearing through the wastelands, fury and fear now indivisible.

Asmodan's domain loomed ahead—a jagged castle of spiraling obsidian towers, carved into the volcanic cliffs at the edge of Kur'thaal. Fire bled from its crevices. Smoke rose in slow, slithering tendrils from vents in the earth. The castle was quiet, too quiet. Even from a distance, Vael felt the air was… wrong.

The aura of Asmodan's twisted magic usually coated the region like a suffocating perfume.

Now it felt faded.

Absent.

Vael didn't slow.

He soared down toward the outer courtyard and landed hard enough to crack the stone beneath his feet. No guards. No servants. No monstrous constructs patrolling the edges.

Something was off.

Completely off.

His eyes narrowed. He stepped forward, following the ripple of demonic energy still lingering in the air.

Not Asmodan's. It was older.

Sharper. More elegant.

Vael's lips curled into a snarl.

The massive front gates of the castle had been left ajar. That alone was a red flag—Asmodan never left anything unsealed.

Vael pressed his hand against the scorched metal and pushed them open with a growl, entering the first chamber. The scent hit him immediately.

Ash. Blood. And something else—faint, metallic, unnatural.

Magic.

The corridor was dark, the obsidian walls pulsing with dying embers. Every step he took echoed into the silence like a war drum. He reached the grand hallway, where trophies once hung—twisted relics, stolen artifacts, broken weapons from angels who had dared challenge Asmodan.

Now, the walls were bare.

Ravaged.

Slashed open by something violent.

The trail was clear—burned footprints, scorch marks, runic flares embedded in the floor.

Whatever had happened here… had been fast.

And brutal.

Vael followed the trail deeper, descending down winding stone stairs and narrow tunnels that slithered under the fortress like veins. His runes pulsed in agitation. The walls whispered in demonic tongues, reacting to his presence. Tension built in his chest, clawing through his ribs.

And then—

He felt it.

A pull. Like a thread tugging at the core of his magic.

The same signature he'd traced from Lioren's disappearance. Familiar now. Imprinted in his mind.

Asmodan's magic.

The corridor widened into a final chamber, sealed with a heavy obsidian door carved with writhing serpents. Runes marked the frame—Asmodan's personal sigils, layered with protection and pain curses.

They had been scorched away.

Destroyed from the outside.

Vael didn't hesitate.

He pushed through.

The moment the door opened, heat flooded over him—thick, oppressive, tainted with the iron tang of fresh blood.

He stepped into the chamber.

The torches on the walls were unlit, but the magic lingering in the air made the runes etched in the stone glow faintly red. The space was massive—circular, lined with chains, relics, arcane instruments of unknown purpose.

At the center stood a twisted altar. Blood-stained. Cracked.

And there, nailed to the high stone wall above it—

A body.

Vael stopped breathing.

His heart thundered in his chest, and for a long moment, he did not move.

The figure hung limp, head bowed, arms spread wide and pierced through with jagged, enchanted spikes. Magic sizzled around the nails—old demonic curses unraveling even in death. Blood had dried across the floor beneath, and something pulsed on the figure's chest—faintly glowing.

Vael stepped closer.

His boots crushed bone fragments underfoot.

He could not yet see the face.

But he felt it in his bones.

This wasn't a prisoner.

It was a message.

Every step echoed like thunder now. His breath was shallow. His magic crackled at the edges of his vision.

As he neared the altar, the pulsing glow on the figure's chest came into view.

It was not a wound.

It was a rune.

Carved into the flesh.

The moment Vael touched the body, his breath hitched.

It wasn't just the shape, or the smell of scorched flesh, or the unnatural stillness.

It was the markings—etched with heat and pride across his chest, twisted now in death.

The twisted horns. The half-melted gauntlets. The infernal runes scarred across the arms.

"Asmodan…" Vael whispered.

His voice echoed hollowly through the chamber.

The figure impaled across the iron gates of his own fortress was not a message. He was the message.

Dead.

Vael staggered back a step. His aura flared—black fire writhing around him like serpents in agony, rising in a violent storm.

His fury had led him here.

But it wasn't the body that broke him.

It was the writing.

Carved with searing magic across Asmodan's bare chest, branded into him with divine and infernal energy braided together, was a single phrase:

He's safe.

Beneath it—pierced into the skin like an offering—was a single, blood-tipped black bloom.

A Lilithian Bloom.

No demon could mistake it.

The flower that only Lilith could grow. One that bloomed only in death or rebirth.

Vael's fists trembled. His vision narrowed.

"She did this," he muttered.

And in that moment—he knew exactly where to go.