He’d left their bodies to rot. Physical reminders of how far he’d come, since that very first time Nor and Darai had shown him how to craft this domain.

Some of those dead demons would rise again, as they always did.

But for now, they remained motionless. And that was fine with Valen, for he had work to do. Minds to connect with, orders to give.

The frozen grass crunched underfoot as he walked down the sloping hillside, a torch held tightly in his fist. The flame flickered, but did not give out, even with the power of the wind.

For Valen controlled all things here.

This was his kingdom. His domain.

And far across the battlefield, waiting for him, like a monster in its own right—a dark fortress. The place where his compulsion, the height of his ability, the center of everything for him and Nor, stood. Valen smiled, his first real smile in days, as he stepped over the dead, his eyes on the giant obsidinite castle that cast a shadow across this land.

Here, he was a king without a crown. But he didn’t need one—not in this place.

Here, there were no limitations on what he could do.

Valen visualized himself wearing a cloak of deepest crimson—Nor’s favorite color—as he did each time he visited the castle in his mind. In the space between one breath and the next, the cloak appeared, fabric snapping in the wind like the crack of the whips that had once been used to drag him down to the depths of humanity in Lunamere—to force his compulsion to manifest, if he wished to survive.

The fabric shimmered with each step he took, illuminated by the steady flame of his torch, and bones shattered beneath his boots as Valen reached the edge of the battlefield. The wind, howling at his back, seemed to quiet. It had always talked to him, the wind. Whispered little things that were like secrets from deep within his own soul.

But tonight, it was silent. As if everything came to a sudden stillness when he reached the threshold of his domain.

Valen looked up, craning his neck toward the top of the castle, taking in each perfectly aligned black obsidinite stone. This fortress housed every mind he compelled across Mirabel. Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands, all bent to his will.

Home, his body hummed. For a moment, he thought he heard Nor’s voice calling his name. A flicker, distant as he glanced back across the battlefield, to that dark tunnel that led to their linked doorway. But the sound faded almost as soon as it began, and he carried on, dismissing it as he drew closer to his castle.