The descent down the titan-vertebrae staircase felt like stepping into the gullet of a dying star.
Every step took them deeper into a crimson-hued abyss where the heat was no longer merely physical; it was an aetheric pressure that weighed upon the skin like molten lead. The spiral stair had no handrails, suspended over an ocean of churning magma two miles below. Giant rib-bones arched across the subterranean sky, dripping with petrified glass that had melted and cooled over ten thousand years.
At the center of the subterranean chamber, half-submerged in the glowing mantle of the earth, lay the Leviathan of Ouroboros.
Seeing it from afar was terrifying; standing three hundred feet above it on the landing of the vertebrae was enough to unseat mortal sanity.
The serpent was the size of a mountain range. Its scales were plates of black basalt and calcified obsidian, thick enough to deflect the falls of falling stars. Its colossal horned head was cradled within a crater of boiling adamantine, jaws closed, nostrils venting geysers of white-hot steam that smelled of crushed diamonds and copper. Pierced through the crown of its skull were six towering obelisks of ancient sky-iron—the original pins of the Great Seal.
Five of the obelisks were dark, their runes extinguished when Aurelia bound the corresponding Shards into her chest.
Only the central obelisk still flickered with a faint, dying ember of void-violet light—the lingering resonance of the Sixth Shard, now holding the slumbering titan by a thread as thin as spider-silk.
"There it is," Theron gasped, dropping to his knees upon the landing, clutching his chest as the sulfuric fumes tore at his withered lungs. His milky eyes wept tears of blood. "The cradle of the First Coil. The final pin is slipping. Look at the fissures along the skull!"
Across the titan’s brow, cracks miles long were weeping molten gold. The stone scales were grinding together with a sub-audible shriek that vibrated directly through the soles of their boots, rattling the teeth in Aurelia’s jaw.
"The serpent isn't waking naturally," Aurelia observed, her silver-violet eyes narrowing to razor slits.
Beside her, Malakor unhooked his great sword, holding the broad blade low. His nostrils flared, his amber eyes scanning the sea of petrified obsidian ridges surrounding the serpent’s head.
"Blood-scent," Malakor growled, his voice a low, vibrating snarl of disgust. "Fresh blood. Mortal blood."
Aurelia’s gaze followed his blade.
Clustered around the base of the central obelisk atop the serpent's skull were hundreds of figures clad in the crimson-and-gold livery of the High Barons' private guard, working frantically alongside cloaked cultists bearing the brand of the Broken Ouroboros. They were hauling iron cages filled with weeping slaves and captured soldiers to the lip of the skull-fissures, cutting their throats and pouring rivers of living arterial blood into the cracks to dissolve the ancient seal.
At the head of the ritual stood a tall, slender figure in the ornate plate of the Grand Chancellor.
"Sean," Aurelia whispered, her voice colder than the northern glaciers. "The snake in my council chamber."
"He didn't just submit to the throne," Malakor snarled, his scarred lips peeling back over his teeth in a feral sneer. "He surrendered the capital to keep our eyes on the surface while his cultists ran to the deep. He wants the serpent to wake."
"He wants the world to burn so he can rule the ashes," Aurelia said, her ancestral blade clearing its scabbard with a pure, silver ring that cut through the roaring vents of steam.
Beneath her breastplate, the Six Shards responded to the proximity of the sky-iron obelisks, bursting into blinding, incandescent life. The power rushed through her veins like liquid lightning, demanding to be unleashed.
Malakor stepped up beside her, his broad shoulder pressing hard against hers, the black shadow-flame on his steel hissing with murderous hunger.
"How do you want to handle the traitor, empress?" he asked, his voice dripping with venomous delight.
Aurelia looked at the butcher who held her heart, a ruthless, breathless smile curving her lips.
"Leave the cultists to the starlight," she said softly. "Save the Chancellor's head for your blade."
"My pleasure," Malakor rasped, his free hand catching her by the chin, stealing one quick, fierce kiss that tasted of impending ruin.
Together, they leaped from the landing, descending upon the titan's skull like falling stars of judgment.