A tremor, low and slow at first. Then violent, like something enormous had grabbed the city's roots and pulled.

  I was thrown from my cot. Dust rained down from the beams above. Tarnik roared from across the barracks, already throwing on armor. Reyna barked orders as if she'd been expecting it. Kessia was gone, already scouting. Mari slid beside me, swords drawn, face pale but calm. Outside, the Companion... changed.

  It flared with crimson light. Not warm, like the sun. Not golden or righteous. Infernal. Like a brand freshly pulled from the coals. A scream pierced the air. Then another. And then came the rift.

  It tore through the center of the city like the earth itself was bleeding. From the plaza beneath the Companion, a tear opened wide, glowing with the same red light. Flame and smoke poured upward. Demonic wings beat the air. Horned silhouettes rose from the rift, their mouths already open in hunger. I had seen demons before. Devils too, both in small numbers. But this... this was a full-scale invasion.

  Elturel was falling. We mounted in seconds. My warhorse, Lancer, was trembling beneath me. But he obeyed. Reyna called formation. We didn't hesitate. Didn't even look back. We rode straight toward the fire, through the chaos, through the screams, and through the end of everything we thought we understood.

  The city was splitting apart. Buildings crumbled into molten stone. Bridges snapped like bones. People ran, died, and disappeared in flashes of infernal light. Devils swarmed like locusts. We cut through them like wheat. Reyna on the front, Mari beside me, Tarnik roaring every curse he knew, and Loram behind, already chanting healing spells with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.

  We weren't alone. Other Hellrider squads rode with us but most were scattered and disorganized. Many were overwhelmed within minutes. We passed a unit pinned beneath a collapsed watchtower. Kessia, appearing from nowhere, dropped into our ranks like a wraith and said only one thing:

  "The Companion is the anchor. We have to break it."

  We didn't know what that meant. Not yet. But Reyna didn't question. She turned us toward the Plaza of Light, the very heart of the city. The rift widened beneath us. Then we crossed the threshold, and everything changed. The ground split. The city, once standing beside the river Chionthar, was now descending into Hell as if the river Styx was always its intended home. We didn't ride into hell. Hell rose up to meet us and took our city.

  We passed through fire and into Avernus. The landscape twisted around us. The buildings of Elturel crumbled into charred bones. The streets warped, cracked, lifted into floating islands bound by chains thicker than towers. The Companion no longer shone, it burned. A black star wreathed in flame, chained to the city like a noose around its neck. We had no time to grieve. Only to fight.

  Devils poured in, wave after wave. Legionnaires in blackened plate, howlers of bone and sinew, infernal engines screeching across fields of ash. We fought without rest. For hours. Days. Time lost all meaning. And then, one by one... we began to fall.

  Avernus doesn't fight fair. It grinds you down until the only thing left is the will to kill or die.

  We rode with the former. For as long as we could.

  The first to fall was Loram. We'd been cutting through a field of broken siege engines, their black iron hulls scattered like the carcasses of war beasts. A swarm of devils ambushed us, snarling, chains snapping from their arms like whips. I remember Reyna shouting the order, her blade flashing red in the eerie light. Mari vaulted off her horse, striking like lightning, twin blades carving open gaps in their ranks.

  Loram stayed back, chanting his prayers. His voice was thin but steady, "By the light of dawn, by the strength of the righteous..." He never saw the one that came from behind. I turned just as a devil's barbed chain coiled around his neck. The boy's eyes went wide, and he made this choked sound I'll never forget. I spurred my horse into a charge, cutting the chain in two, but not before the devil's clawed hand closed around his arm, dragging him toward the river of blood. The River Styx. If you fall into that river, you don't come back. Most don't even react. They just sit there and melt away with burning, drowning lungs.

  I leapt from the saddle and grabbed him, fingers locking around his wrist. His journal tumbled from his satchel, pages fluttering with every prayer he'd ever written. "Akmenos," he croaked, his face pale, lips quivering. "Don't let go." The devil grinned. Its eyes glowed like embers. It yanked hard.

  I didn't let go. I swear I didn't. But another chain lashed my side as the devil yanked again. I thought he was freed but when I opened my eyes, all I saw was his arm. Severed, limp, dumping blood onto the ash below my feet. Loram, now screaming in agony and lifted up by his neck was thrown toward the river. Reyna was there in a heartbeat, severing the devil's head, but it was too late. Loram fell back-first into the river, his voice lost to the red current.

  Mari screamed his name. I couldn't. We burned for revenge after that. Too much. Tarnik nearly got us all killed on the next push, charging headlong into a squad of hell knights. We followed him anyway. That's what Hellriders do. We don't abandon our own.

  He made it almost to the front before a devil came down on him. A thing the size of a siege tower, its wings tattered like burnt sails, spear gleaming black. It stabbed him clean through, pinning him to the ground like a nailed banner.

  "Tarnik!" I roared, but he only looked back at me, eyes defiant. Blood stained in his beard.

  "Go!" he rasped, voice like gravel. "Go, you stubborn bastard!"

  I didn't. Not until Reyna dragged me back, her face smeared with soot, eyes hard with command. Kessia stayed, laying down a rain of arrows as Tarnik bellowed curses and laughter, hacking at the devil's knees until a spear tore him apart like a pin cushion. By the time Kessia rejoined us, her quiver was almost empty. She didn't say a word. None of us did. We just rode on, smaller than before.

  Three days. That's how long we fought without a proper camp, moving between battlefields, trying to rally what remained of the Hellriders. By then, maybe a third of the order was left. Some squads were wiped out entirely. Others went mad, eyes wild, voices gone. I don't know if it was the heat or the devils whispering promises. Maybe both. We lost Kessia on the fourth day.

  It was dusk, or something like dusk, though Avernus doesn't have nights, just darker shades of rust-colored sky. We were moving through a canyon of black basalt, sheer walls on either side. I should've seen the trap. I didn't.

  They came from above, winged devils with blades like razors. The first strike killed Kessia's horse. The second pinned her cape to the ground. She fired three arrows in quick succession, all true, all deadly. But she couldn't get the one behind her. I was too far. I saw her mouth something, maybe a prayer, maybe a curse, before a spear punched through her back.

  Mari lost control. She cut one of the Devils in half, her face streaked with tears and blood. Reyna shouted orders. I remember swinging my blade so hard that sparks flew with every hit. By the time the last devil fell, Kessia was gone. We buried her the only way we could, set her alight, let the wind carry the ashes. Mari cried into her hands. Reyna didn't cry, but her jaw clenched so tight I thought her teeth might break.

  Me? I just felt hollow.

  It was just us now, Reyna, Mari, and me. Three Hellriders in a wasteland of ash. We knew we couldn't win a war. We could barely survive. But Elturel wasn't lost yet, not entirely. Chains bound the city to Avernus, linking it to the Companion like a condemned prisoner awaiting execution. Reyna believed we could sever them. That if we found the Citadel of the Eternal Sun, the very heart of the Companion's power, we could break the infernal link.

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  It was madness. But what else did we have? We rode. Through plains of bone and rivers of fire, past screaming faces etched into the rocks, through ambush after ambush. We didn't eat. We barely drank. We just fought, because the alternative was thinking about the ones we'd left behind.

  By the time we reached the citadel, Mari's armor was shredded. Reyna's shield arm was broken. My sword arm was so numb I could barely lift my blade. But we were still alive. For now.

  The Citadel of the Eternal Sun wasn't a temple anymore. Once, it had been the sacred heart of Elturel, an ivory keep with golden spires, home to the Companion and the High Overseer's most trusted clergy. Now it stood twisted, pulled through hell like the rest of the city. The stone was scorched black, the windows wept molten glass, and the front gates bore a crest not of Elturel, but of Zariel, Archduchess of Avernus. Devil banners hung like flayed skin over marble columns. The sun was gone. Inside, it smelled of ash and sulfur and betrayal.

  We dismounted at the foot of the steps. Mari clutched her side, blood soaking her leathers. Reyna's left arm hung limp at her side, fingers purple with bruising. I had wrapped my blade arm in rags days ago just to keep the bone from grinding. None of that mattered. We climbed the steps together, weapons drawn, teeth clenched.

  The throne room was vast, too vast. Larger than it ever could've been in the real world, shaped by infernal will. Pillars soared into an endless black sky. In the center stood an altar and figure in white robes, his back to us, hands clasped behind him as if in the middle of some kind of ritual. Thavius Kreeg. The High Overseer of Elturel. The man we'd bled for. The man who should have died before letting the city fall. He turned slowly, a thin smile on his lips.

  "My brave riders," he said. "You've done well to come so far." I remember the weight of the silence. I remember how still Reyna became.

  "You," she whispered. "You did this." He didn't deny it. He told us everything.

  How he had made a pact with Zariel to "protect" Elturel. How the Companion was never a blessing, it was a binding. How the city's descent into Avernus was part of the contract. A show of loyalty. A payment. Elturel had been sold. Its people, its soldiers, its soul, sold to Hell in exchange for protection from the undead decades ago. And the bill had come due.

  "But don't you see?" Kreeg said, spreading his arms. "We are not lost. We are blessed. Zariel rewards the faithful. With her power, Elturel will rise again." I drew my sword without thinking. He didn't flinch.

  Reyna stepped forward, her voice cold enough to freeze fire. "You betrayed your people. You damned your city. And you dare speak of blessings?"

  Kreeg gestured, and the floor split open. A host of devils rose, snarling, armored, armed. An honor guard. But we'd come this far. We fought. Mari went down early, cut across the chest by a glaive of burning steel. I thought she was dead, but she rolled aside and drove her dagger into the devil's throat. Reyna held the line with one arm, deflecting blows with sheer will. I fought like a man possessed, blinded by bloody rage, pain forgotten, screaming with every strike. It wasn't enough.

  The devils pressed in. Then the Companion flickered, just once. A pulse of white light, buried deep in the red. And in that moment... I understood. The chains binding Elturel weren't just metal. They were faith. So, as long as we kept faith, the chains would hold.

  The realization hit like a sack of bricks. The very thing we were taught and conditioned to put our faith in is the very thing we need to break. Kreeg had anchored the city through the Companion, and, in turn, ensured our core values led to our downfall.

  I looked to Reyna and noticed she had caught something. She snapped her head to me and pointed at the ground. Just beneath the layer of ash on the floor was a crack. Through that crack, light. Not the illuminating kind, the radiant kind. Like the earlier pulse from the Companion was trying to make its way back to the source.

  I drove my blade into the stone beneath the citadel, where pulsing light glowed faintly. The ground cracked. The air screamed. And the chains began to tremble. Reyna joined me, her sword flashing. Mari, bleeding but alive, crawled to the altar where a an idol of Zariel stood. With her last ounce of strength, Mari grabbed it and threw it at the floor to shatter it. The light surged. The Companion flared white. And the chains, one by one, snapped.

  Elturel lurched. The city shook beneath our feet as the first chain broke loose from its infernal anchor. The howling of the devils reached a fever pitch outside the Citadel walls, and for a moment, just a moment, it felt like we might win.

  That's when she arrived.

  The temperature dropped and rose all at once, as if Hell itself inhaled. A shape of fire and wings descended from the ceiling like judgment incarnate. Her armor blazed gold and blood-red, forged in war, etched with celestial script that twisted into infernal curses. Her wings spread wider than the chamber, one angelic, the other a tattered ruin.

  Zariel. The Archduchess of Avernus. The fallen angel. The butcher of the Hellriders.

  She landed softly, impossibly so, her hooves clicking once on the scorched marble. Her presence bent the room. My breath caught in my chest. Every instinct screamed run. But I didn't.

  None of us did. Zariel's eyes, twin furnaces, scanned the chamber. She ignored the scattered corpses. Ignored the broken altar. She looked only at us.

  "You are persistent," she said. Her voice echoed in a dozen tones, sweet, wrathful, divine, monstrous.

  Kreeg staggered backward, bowing so low his nose must have hit the floor. "My Lady! I—"

  She silenced him with a glance. His mouth filled with blood and he collapsed in a twitching heap, his soul ripped from his body like parchment in fire. Just like that. She turned her gaze back to us.

  "You would unmake a pact sealed in holy fire," she said, not angry, amused. Curious. "You would break the chains, defy the law of bargains, spit in the face of Hell... for what?"

  Her hand lifted, and Mari cried out, her body lifted off the ground, her limbs locking as if bound by invisible hooks. Reyna lunged forward, Zariel barely moved, and Reyna froze mid-charge, dropped to her knees with a gasp. Her good hand clawed at her throat, choking on nothing.

  I moved without thinking. "Stop! Stop!"

  Zariel looked at me. "You're the interesting one," she said. "The broken blade. The cursed blood. The fury barely held in check."

  I raised my sword anyway. It shook in my grip. "Let them go."

  She smiled. "I offer you a gift, Hellrider. A chance to save them... and your precious city. All I ask is one thing."

  Her hand flared with light, not gold, not divine. A contract. Burning infernal script curled around her palm.

  "One fragment of your soul. A sliver of what makes you, you. In return: Elturel ascends, your companions live, and I leave this place in peace."

  I stared at her, the words dancing in the flames. The room dimmed. The pain in my arm, the stink of brimstone, the heat of blood, none of it existed. Just choice.

  Reyna met my eyes, tears streaking her face. She shook her head, barely.

  Mari looked at me too. She mouthed one word.

  “Please.” I stepped forward.

  "If I give it," I said, "you leave them all alone. Elturel returns. They live. No chains. No trickery."

  She nodded once. "I swear it on my name. You will burn brighter than any Hellrider before you, Akmenos. And you will never be whole again."

  I signed. The moment the pact sealed, I screamed. Not from pain. From the feeling of something being torn out of me.

  Something private. Something sacred. Something pure. Gone.

  My veins caught fire. My vision burned red. I collapsed, clutching my chest. Reyna shouted.

  Mari grabbed my hand. And the Companion flared white before our visions went black.

  We woke on the cobblestones of the upper plaza, ash clinging to our skin. The sky above was pale blue again. The sun shone. The air smelled like rain.

  We'd saved the city. The priests came first. Then the guards. Then the crowds. People flooded the streets, weeping, cheering, embracing one another.

  And then they saw me. And the cheering... softened.

  "Is he... one of them?"

  A mother pulled her child behind her. A guard lowered his halberd, just a bit. A noblewoman whispered, too loudly, "He bears infernal blood.”

  Reyna was commended. Offered a new command. Mari was given a commendation, though her wounds left her limping for a while.

  They didn't say it outright but I saw the way the other riders looked at me. The ones who didn't make it to Avernus. The ones who had been stationed elsewhere. They weren't proud of me. They were afraid.

  The Commander offered me a promotion. Said I'd "earned it." I turned it down. And the next morning, I left. No fanfare. No goodbyes. Just a note in the barracks, and a trail of footprints headed west.

  They tried to give me a medal. A silver emblem shaped like the Companion, mounted on a velvet ribbon, boxed with honors and some holy verse engraved on the inside lid. I didn't open it. I never wore it. Couldn't stand the sight of that false sun, that brand, not after what I saw. After what I did.

  I spent three days in the infirmary. I'd wake up gasping in the middle of the night, gripping the edge of the cot with burned fingers. They tried prayers. They tried poultices. None of it helped.

  It was a pact. And pacts don't heal.

  Reyna sat beside me sometimes, watching silently, her arm still in a sling. Mari visited too, though the healers begged her to rest. She never stayed long. She couldn't look at me without crying. I don't blame her. I didn't tell them what I'd done. I didn't tell anyone.

  Something changed in me after that deal. Not just the rage, that came later. Not just the fire in my blood or the way my sword sometimes sparked when I wasn't touching it. It was subtler than that. A shift.

  The world became colder. Sharper. Quieter. Food lost its taste. Laughter felt distant. Even light, real light, seemed thinner, like I could see the shadows behind it. Something essential had been carved out of me and replaced with something that didn't belong.

  The city recovered. Eventually. Elturel's streets were swept. The dead were buried. The walls repaired. The Companion still burned overhead, but its shape was softer now, its presence less cruel. The people whispered of miracles. The clergy preached of deliverance. They told stories about the Hellriders who saved the city, about the brave woman who led the charge, the half-elf who defied the Devils, and the Devil-Touched who burned so bright even Hell recoiled.

  But none of them looked me in the eye. Not really. The Devils were gone. All debts had been paid. There were no strings left tugging beneath their feet. They never asked how we broke the chains. They didn't want to know.

  Reyna stayed with the order. She had too much honor, too much burden, to walk away. Mari tried for a time, training new recruits, working with the refugees, but she couldn't hide the nightmares. The songs she sang didn't hit the same anymore. She wrote to me once, after I left. Just one letter. I still carry it. Still haven't opened it. Maybe one day.

  I didn't say goodbye. I waited until the barracks were asleep, gathered what little I had, and rode out before dawn. The gates opened slow, the guards too tired or too afraid to ask questions. The road was empty. The sky was clear. The city behind me shimmered in the morning light, reborn, proud, righteous. And I hated it.

  I hated what it did to us. I hated that we bled for it, that we burned for it, and all it gave back was suspicion and silence. I hated that Kreeg's bones still lay somewhere beneath the city he damned, and no one spat on them. For surviving when they didn't. For saving a city that would never love me back.

  There's a hill outside Elturel. No one ever goes there, not anymore. The grass is blackened still, from when the Companion first changed. That's where I left it, my cloak, my badge, my medal. I set them down on a flat stone, poured oil over them, and struck a match. The fire caught fast. It flared high. I watched it burn. And when the flames died, I turned away.

  And never looked back.