Yet it was all for naught. Even as her paramour took her, she knew no filling of her craving, and she knew no life would quicken within her, for thus was her curse. Thus was her banishment, her prison, to forever crave a child, to forever feel the emptiness in her womb, for only the seed of living men—of the flesh that moved above the rock—could fill her with life, with a rotting, pulsing spawn.

When the summons hit her, Angel hissed and raised her dripping maw.

A summons? After so long?

She screamed.

She sprayed lava from her mouth, and she pulled herself off the beast that mounted her, and she beat her wings.

"A summons! I am called!"

She flapped her wings, scattering the stench of the pit, churning smoke and fire. Flames burst across her, and the calling burned her. She shut her eyes, opened her arms, uncurled her claws.

"Speak, sack of flesh! Speak, creature overground!"

Astral arms pulled her, sucking her up into the stone, tugging her through tunnels. She laughed, wind shrieking around her, rock cracking against her. It had been so many years, so long since the creatures above had summoned her, weak and small and tempting, so beautiful, so warm.

Inferno blazed, and the world cracked, and when she opened her eyes again, Angel stood in a new place, an old chamber, the hall of the kings aboveground.

She laughed, spreading her wings wide, scattering her fire. The sparks landed upon tapestries, burning them, filling this place with her heat. Here was the Hall of Eteer, the throne room of the kings who ruled above her own rotted kingdom. Many times they had called her here in days of old, ancient lords of sunlight, and she had spoken with them, treated with them, and sometimes snatched them into the depths to sew into her sacks of blood.

A new king sat before her upon the throne, younger than the last one, tall and broad. His head was bald, his skin bronzed from sunlight, and true bronze—that metal she had taught the smiths of Eteer to forge—covered him as armor.

Angel hissed at him, sending out her tongue to taste him, licking, exploring. She cackled, drool spilling from her, burning holes into the mosaic beneath her claws.

"You are new," she said, smoke seeping between her fangs.

The mortal stared, face grim, and she saw herself reflected in his eyes: a woman carved of volcanic rock, cracked and red and black, flames engulfing her, her leathern wings wide, her four arms long and tipped with claws, a queen, a barren thing, a goddess of lust and hunger and emptiness.

"I am Raem Seran, son of the fallen Nir-Ur, King of Eteer." Even in her heat, and even as she hissed and spat embers upon him, he did not cower, and he did not avert his eyes. "I now sit upon the kingdom's throne. As is my right, I summon you to my service, Queen of the Abyss."