The temple was buried beneath ash.
Not metaphorical ash—real. Thick, scorched earth that had not cooled in centuries. The priests called it a cursed valley. The nobles called it a collapsed mine. Kael knew better. He had read enough to recognize the difference between misnamed ruins and hidden power.
The ash didn't bother him. It clung to his boots and robes, grey-black and bitter, but it didn't touch the mask. Nothing ever did.
He didn't speak to the guards that followed. They wouldn't understand. None of them would. This place had called to him long before they arrived. Not in dreams, but in pressure. A thread pulled tight behind his ribs. A hush between heartbeats. It was the same pressure he had felt when he looked at his brother's chest and saw his name burned into skin.
Now he followed it again.
The entrance had been sealed with stone. He lifted a hand and let the magic spiral from his fingers in silence. The runes responded immediately, crumbling apart without resistance. Forbidden script slid off the gate like melted wax.
They entered.
The air was stale. But not dead.
The inner walls were covered in murals—not paint, but etched carvings, like tattoos engraved into the bones of the world. Demons. Dozens of them. Tall, winged. Masculine in form, but more beautiful than any human man. And far more dangerous.
The records said they were temptations incarnate. Not because of lust. Because of power. They bent kings with a smile, shattered priesthoods with a whisper.
One had blue skin. Another silver horns. Another—Kael paused.
This one was different.
Carved larger than the others. Standing above a kneeling line of sorcerers and angels. His expression wasn't cruel.
It was radiant. Almost soft.
But his eyes were wrong.
They followed.
His beauty was carved in impossible detail—not feminine, but elegant. Not youthful, but eternal. White hair long as a veil. A smile like invitation and execution at once.
The others feared him. That was clear. In every depiction, he stood alone. Untouched.
"He had no name," a priest whispered, reading from the runes. "Only a title: The Demon Who Loved No Gods."
Kael's heart didn't beat faster.
It slowed.
He stepped closer.
Reached out.
Didn't touch.
The demon in the stone looked like no one he knew.
And yet, Kael could see the echo of his brother in the curve of the mouth.
In the tilt of the neck.
He would never say it aloud.
But he didn't need to.
He did want the demon.
Kael had never felt hunger before. Not like this. Not the kind that curled behind the sternum and burned slow. Not the kind that whispered to him in a voice that felt like his own.
This was new.
Wrong.
And he welcomed it.
The way the demon looked—so unbothered, so exquisite, so above consequence. His lips curved with promise. His body framed like something designed to be worshipped. There was nothing boyish in him. Nothing fragile. He was made to seduce gods and break kings.
Kael breathed slowly through the mask. It hid the smile he couldn't stop.
He wanted the demon.
He wanted the way he stood. The way he smiled.
The way his body could hold both beauty and ruin at once.
He wanted to summon him.
To own him.
To kneel before him.
To worship him.
To offer him everything.
To be broken by him, if it meant being seen.
The seal he carved into his brother had been instinct. This was purpose.
Kael studied the altar longer than any of the others dared.
He sketched the runes into his glove with a finger, memorizing each one.
The demon had no name. But Kael would name him.
Would bind him.
Would bring him into the world the same way he brought his mark into flesh and bone.
Not now.
Not yet.
But when the world forgot the shape of desire, Kael would remember.
He turned.
And the mask turned with him.
He smiled beneath it.
Not for the court.
Not for the queen.
Not even for his brother.
But for the demon whose body waited in stone—
—and for the future where Kael would no longer be alone.