Page 97 of The Devil's Canvas

But something shifts. Not in the air—beneathit.

The fireplace roars to life behind us, the flames climbing high and sharp, burning black-gold. Heat pulses like a heartbeat, and from the fire’s core, something emerges—not thrown, not placed.

Born.

A blackened scroll, etched in molten gold, floats down onto the hearth like a verdict.

I stand before Julian can stop me.

It’s hot in my hand. Heavy, humming. No seal. No ink. Just the carved symbols—his Mark and mine, intertwined.

Beneath them, a message that doesn’t read so much asdeclare itselfinto my mind.

Julian reads over my shoulder, but I’m already there.

The bond has been witnessed. The flame has answered. You are summoned. The Council awaits.

The words don’t threaten. They don’t ask.

They expect.

I stare at them, pulse steady, blood thick with something no longer fear.

The Council has spoken. But so have the flames.

And whatever comes next will have to burn through me first.

Chapter Seventeen

Julian

TheInfernalCouncildoesn’tfrighten me—not in the way it used to. I’ve stood before them more times than I care to count. I know the weight of their gaze, the way silence folds under their authority like ash under pressure.

But Ophelia? She’s another story entirely.

It isn’t fear for her that tightens my chest—it’s fear of her reaction. Not because she’s fragile. She far from it. It’s that she doesn’t filter herself when she should. She’ll speak when silence is safer. Push when stillness is survival. And she doesn’t yet understand that down here, boldness isn’t admired. It’s tested.

She has a way of challenging power that makes the ground shift. And in this room, the ground is already alive.

The Council’s chamber is not what mortals would imagine. There’s no judge perched above two tables. No gavel. No script of polite arguments exchanged in hushed tones. That kind of structure can’t exist in Hell. It wouldn’t last a second.

This place is older than that. Older than order.

The hall is vast, carved from what feels like the ribcage of the underworld itself—vaulted high above, the ceiling lost to shadow. No benches. No jurors. No comfort. Only jagged crescents of cold flame floating overhead, casting flickering light onto obsidian walls that drink sound whole. The floor beneath us doesn’t just exist—it breathes. Slow and deep.

At the far end of the chamber, the thrones await.

Seven in total. None of them the same. None of them empty.

One is forged from bone, yellowed and cracked. Another from molten gold that still bubbles at the edges like it remembers fire. There’s one woven from petrified roots and cinders, another etched with screaming faces frozen mid-agony. One throne flickers with shifting shadows, its form changing by the moment. The rest are carved from materials I wouldn’t name even if I could.

They don’t simply sit. They loom.

Figures cloaked in darkness—no faces, only hints of glowing orbs where eyes should be. The light from their forms pulses faintly, like stars hidden behind storm clouds. Ancient. Watching. Waiting.

Ophelia’s voice is quiet but steady. “Julian… is this the Infernal Council?”

I expect panic. Instead it’s the curiosity in her voice that unnerves me.

---