The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The outer gate began closing before anyone could reach the crowned child.

Black roots burst through the crater wall and folded inward like iron teeth. The portable ledger line fluttered beneath the expedition’s feet. If the gate closed, the scribes would lose their path back to Grand Meridian.

"Keep the line open," Austin Veyron ordered.

The scribes fell to one knee and reaffirmed their signatures. Maelis burned the roots closest to the white markers. Sarielle held a shield of silver fire over the portable root tube. Veyra and Rin charged towards the child while Calder searched for the command knot inside the closing gate. Sable watched from below.

"You are late," she called. "The candidate has already been offered the source."

The child wore a black crown of roots around her throat. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old. Her hands trembled as roots dragged her toward the second circle.

Austin Veyron halted at the gate’s edge.

"What is your name?" he asked.

The girl looked up at him through tears. "Mara."

"Did you choose that crown?"

Sable laughed.

Mara’s mouth opened, but she no longer made sound. The black crown tightened around her neck.

"That is choice," Sable said. "Fear is a reason. Survival is a reason. You do not get to erase a choice because you dislike what it costs."

Austin Veyron understood the trap. Sable wanted him to treat Mara as a tool to be rescued or as an enemy to be defeated. Accepting or refusing either proposition would prove the Emperor’s theory that power determined whose choices mattered.

"Mara," Austin Veyron said. "Do you want help answering?"

The crown pulled against her. Her fingers clawed at the roots strangling her throat.

Then she nodded.

The portable ledger recorded her movement.

’PRESENT CHOICE REQUESTED.’

The black roots around the gate screamed.

Veyra reached Mara first, cutting two crown tendrils free. Rin severed the roots leading from the second circle. Calder located the command knot beneath the crater floor and sent a precise resonance pulse through it.

The gate ceased closing.

Sable advanced.

She crossed the crater floor faster than any human body should. Her black crown flared and a wall of hunger rose between Austin Veyron and Mara. Austin Veyron caught the wall with his white root chain while Maelis burned a hole straight through its center.

The Devour seed demanded a direct answer.

[CONSUME ACCEPTED CANDIDATE CORE.]

Austin Veyron shook his head.

"Mara," he called. "The crown is lying. You can refuse it."

The girl stared at the black circle beneath her feet. "It says if I refuse, it will eat my brother."

Sable smiled.

"There is always a price," she said.

Lia stepped forward from behind the scribes, holding up her silver bracelet.

"They said that to me too," Lia told Mara. "They never stop asking. You do not owe them the answer they want."

Mara stared at Lia.

The black crown loosened for one second.

That was long enough.

Mara screamed. "I refuse."

The present-chose line struck the crown.

White light burst from the portable ledger root. The black circle cracked open. Veyra yanked the remaining tendrils free and Rin carried Mara out of the circle as the gate roots collapsed behind them.

Sable’s restraint finally failed.

"You think refusal wins?" she shouted. "The Hollow Crown has already opened its inner seat."

A new crack split the crater floor.

Below them, a massive black throne emerged from the Hunger Emperor’s roots. In front of it was a single chair sized for Austin Veyron’s body.

Mara clutched onto Austin Veyron’s sleeve. "The seat takes the candidate first," she whispered. "Then it makes the others watch."

The gate halted moving.

The expedition had survived the first test.

But beyond the gate, the Feast ground waited for Austin Veyron alone.

The outer crater shuddered as the black throne rose higher. Its roots stretched through the ruined towers, absorbing strength from every remaining scout mark. The portable ledger line held at the gate, but the scribes could feel the pressure bearing down on them now.

"Someone is working the relay," Nahlia said. "Austin Veyron, the inner seat is not just a trap. It is an origin mechanism."

"If I take the seat, you can force the Devour seed to name a source?" Austin Veyron asked.

"And if you refuse?" Calder asked.

"The throne may drag you in anyway," Nahlia said. "It has been waiting centuries for your reservation record."

Austin Veyron looked down at Mara and Lia, then at the volunteers stabilizing the portable route. He could leave the crater. He could take the candidates back to Grand Meridian and seal the Hollow Crown until they’d trained a larger army.

But the black throne was already forming routes to the other scout marks. Every second it remained active, the First Feast grew stronger.

Vharra stepped to his side. "The crown will continue asking until it finds someone. If you don’t take the seat, it will choose another candidate."

Austin Veyron didn’t want to accept that logic. But he also couldn’t pretend the threat would vanish on its own.

He addressed the expedition. "No one goes into the seat with me. You hold the route, keep the candidates safe, and maintain a way out. If the throne attempts to make this a private choice, we force it to answer to witnesses."

Each member answered in their own way.

Veyra would hold the gate. Rin would guard the roots. Calder would sever any command line that tried to isolate Austin Veyron. Maelis and Sarielle would protect the scribes from road wardens. Lia and Mara would maintain the present-choice signatures they’d burned into themselves.

No one gave Austin Veyron permission to become sovereign.

They gave him something stronger: people willing to watch him refuse.

The black throne’s voice boomed throughout the crater.

’CANDIDATE Austin Veyron: TAKE THE SEAT.’

Austin Veyron stepped forward into the inner gate.

The Hunger Emperor had designed the Hollow Crown Gate to make a single choice unavoidable.

The Freehold had come to the feast grounds to prove that inevitability was its own kind of prison.

Austin Veyron crossed the inner threshold. The black throne answered by rooting a path from its bone beneath his feet. Each step revealed a different future. If he took the seat, every scout mark in the city died with him. If he refused, the candidates were torn into the circles.

Accept the Emperor’s source and stand alone over a silent world where no human could leave his protection.

The seed warmed at the latter vision.

Austin Veyron did not look away. "Is that the future you want me to fear losing?"

The throne offered no response. It did not need to.

Behind him, the portable ledger extended into the inner ritual space as far as the scribes could manually force it. Lia and Mara spoke their names into the white root. Calder repeated that he remained himself. Veyra and Rin renewed their defense of the gate. Every witness Austin Veyron took beyond the threshold weakened the black throne’s isolation.

The Emperor’s voice became one many.

’WITNESSES DO NOT CHANGE HUNGER.’

"But they change what hunger gets to call inevitable."

The black chair twisted towards him.

The ritual had begun.

Every white witness line inside the crater shuddered beneath the Emperor’s slow starving gaze, waiting for the chance to verify each refusal.

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