She exhales slowly, then nods. "Someone will check on you in a few hours. If you need to leave before then, follow the markers back to the main corridors."
She leaves me there, her footsteps retreating quickly, and I'm alone.
I set down the bucket and cleaning supplies I've been given and take a moment to orient myself. The walkway stretches in both directions, narrow but stable, with waist-high railings that feel insufficient given what's contained below. I can see several bays from where I'm standing—dark shapes moving within some, others appearing empty though the hum of magic suggests otherwise.
My eyes drift to one.
The enclosure is larger than the others, a semi-open volcanic basin sealed with layered rune barriers that shimmer faintly in the heat. The creature inside is massive, his form shifting between shadow and solidity in a way that makes it hard to focus on him directly. His body looks armored in natural formations—bone, obsidian, something that glows like living magma depending on how the light catches it.
His eyes find mine.
They're deep, luminous voids that don't reflect light so much as absorb it, and there's an awareness in them that makes my breath catch. Not predatory. Not hostile.
Recognition.
I should feel afraid. Every survival instinct I have should be screaming at me to move, to put distance between myself and something so clearly dangerous. But instead, I feel... calm. Settled. Like something in my chest has finally exhaled after holding its breath for too long.
I don't realize I'm smiling until my cheeks pull slightly with the expression.
The creature tilts his head slightly, and the movement is deliberate, curious. He doesn't approach the barrier. Doesn't test the containment. He just watches me, and I watch him, and the silence between us feels less like absence and more like understanding.
I don't know how long I stand there before I finally tear my gaze away and reach for the cleaning supplies. My hands are steady as I begin scrubbing the walkway, but I can feel his attention on me, constant and undemanding.
And for the first time since I arrived at House Virex, I don't feel like I'm somewhere foreign.
I feel like I'm somewhere familiar.
2
MALREC
The basin water runs cold against my skin, and I welcome it. The heat from the lower stables clings to everything—clothes, hair, the spaces between my shoulder blades where tension coils like a living thing. I scrub my hands methodically, watching volcanic ash and dried blood spiral down the drain in dark ribbons. Another successful feeding. Another day where nothing escaped, nothing died that wasn't supposed to.
Control. Always control.
A knock interrupts my rhythm, sharp and perfunctory.
"What?"
The door cracks open enough for Varek to stick his head through. My second-in-command has the good sense not to enter fully. "The new servants arrived. Two more humans, like you requested."
I don't look up from the basin. "Put them to work."
"Already done."
"Good."
He hesitates, and that pause makes me glance toward him. Varek doesn't hesitate unless there's something he thinks I should know but doesn't want to say.
"What?"
"One of them is down in the stables already. Cleaning the outer walkways."
My hands still in the water. "You sent a human into the stables on their first day?"
"Nimae did. Said we needed the walkways maintained before the new shipment arrives next week, and all the other laborers were occupied."
I bite back the irritation crawling up my throat. Nimae is efficient, competent, and occasionally too practical for her own good. Sending an untested human into the stables isn't necessarily reckless—the outer walkways are separated from the enclosures by multiple barriers—but it's the kind of decision that assumes best-case scenarios. And in my experience, best-case scenarios don't exist when infernal beasts are involved.
