Aldric stood alone on the defendant’s platform.
His eyes moved across the room, from the reporters to the cameras, then to the students watching from the gallery. Finally, they settled on Lyra.
Then Vespera.
For the first time, Aldric looked like a man who had nowhere left to turn.
The room was waiting.
"The accused will respond to the charges," Vespera said, raising her gavel.
"House Sterling," she said, her voice carrying clearly to every corner of the hall, "is found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, soliciting a terror attack against a military institution, and the criminal misuse of noble house funds."
BANG.
"The Sterling name is struck from the noble registry, effective immediately. All Sterling assets are seized by the state. All Sterling properties are forfeit. All political appointments held under the Sterling name are revoked."
BANG.
"Aldric Sterling. You are remanded to military custody, where the mandatory sentence for these charges will be carried out. The sentence is death."
BANG.
Aldric didn’t move. He stood on the platform, hands at his sides, staring at Vespera. His mouth was open, no words coming out.
"Guards. Take him."
Two Vanguard soldiers stepped forward from the sides of the hall and moved toward the platform.
Aldric’s hand shot into his pocket.
The movement was quick, almost desperate. His fingers closed around something small and round.
He pulled out a core.
But not a normal one.
It was pitch black, with dark red energy swirling beneath its surface. Cracks ran across the core, and through them, a sickly red light leaked out, thin and wet-looking, like blood seeping from an open wound.
A Blood-Demon Core.
Forbidden and illegal in every territory on the continent. It was a black-market artifact that fused dark energy with the user’s body, forcing a violent and irreversible mutation in exchange for a temporary surge of power.
The entry wards had screened every guest for weapons and recording crystals. No one had thought to search a nobleman’s pockets.
Aldric put it in his mouth and swallowed.
"No!" Lyra shouted.
Too late.
The effect was instant. Aldric’s body convulsed. His spine arched backward at an angle that should have snapped it, his mouth opened in a silent scream, and his skin started to move.
rrrrrrrip.
The skin on his arms split from wrist to shoulder, peeling back like wet paper. Beneath it, red flesh emerged. Not human flesh, but dense, dark-red muscle that steamed in the open air.
His suit tore apart as his body expanded. Bones cracked and shifted, joints dislocating before snapping back into new positions.Hh
His legs thickened, while his arms stretched longer and longer. Fingers fused together, twisting into clawed appendages.
His skull began to elongate, the jaw pushing forward as teeth fell from the gums. In their place, rows of black, serrated fangs pushed through the mutating flesh.
The transformation was violent, horrible.
crack. rip. crunch. pop.
The Vanguard soldiers stopped. They stared at the thing that had been Aldric Sterling only three seconds ago, then exchanged uneasy looks.
Slowly, they backed away.
Aldric was gone.
In his place stood something that used to be a man. Ten feet tall, wearing red-black armor that had grown up out of his skin. Its eyes burned solid red, glowing with the same light as the core he had swallowed. Its mouth had split vertically, revealing rows of jagged teeth.
tssss.
The Blood-Fiend drew a breath, and the sound it made was not a breath. It was a roar from somewhere deeper than lungs.
SKREEEEEEE!
The reporters screamed. Students scrambled for the exits. Four hundred people tried to squeeze through two doors at once, turning the evacuation into a slow, chaotic crush.
Recording crystals dropped from the air as their operators abandoned them.
The Blood-Fiend’s burning eyes swept across the room, passing over the fleeing crowd, the guards, and finally Vespera on her throne.
Then they found Lyra.
Something changed in those burning eyes, something worse than hunger.
Recognition.
The monster lunged.
It crossed the distance between the two platforms in a single bound, claws extended and jaws wide. It moved with the speed of a Rank 3 predator driven by nothing but rage and hunger.
Lyra didn’t scream. She reached for her spear, and her hand closed around the shaft.
But Holden was faster.
He stepped in front of her. One step, his body between hers and the monster, and the Blood-Fiend’s claws came down in a sweeping arc aimed at Lyra’s head and hit Holden’s forearm instead.
CLANG!
The claws stopped dead against Holden’s bare forearm.
The Phantom-Weave sleeve had gone up, exposing the skin beneath, reinforced with Aether-Steel.
Holden hadn’t moved. His feet remained planted as the monster’s full weight and force, backed by the power of a Rank 3, crashed down on his forearm.
The arm didn’t bend.
Not an inch.
Holden looked at the monster, then at the crowd. A few cameras were still rolling, operated by reporters who had been too slow to flee and were now filming from behind the pillars.
He reached up with his free hand and tapped the pendant hanging at his neck. The Sovereign’s Pendant.
On the judge’s platform, Vespera looked at Holden with an expression that somehow managed to combine exasperation, disbelief, and grudging respect.
Then she did what needed to be done.
"Evacuate the hall. All personnel, now. Seal the doors."
The remaining guards grabbed the last stragglers, reporters included, and pushed them toward the exits. Maeve went with the crowd, still typing, her voice in Lyra’s ear cutting off mid-word as the earpiece lost range. The doors swung shut behind the last person.
boom.
The last recording crystals drifted out of range and went dark. The noise of the panicked crowd faded to a muffled roar outside the walls.
Holden lowered his arm and looked at the Blood-Fiend, at the thing that had once been Aldric Sterling.
The man who had abused Lyra, hired assassins, and funded terrorists was gone. In his place stood a creature that existed for one purpose alone.
To destroy.
Holden summoned his sword.
The Solar-Forged sword appeared in his hand in a flash of golden light.
He looked at Lyra.
"First hit is yours."
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