The last, potent dregs of Essence from the spectral stag settled deep in Veridia's gut, a thrumming reservoir of power against the gnawing abyss of the Curse. For the first time in an age, she felt something other than hollow hunger. She felt… potential. She stood in the dusty silence of the Great Library, watching the hulking shape of Asterion as he patiently carved another rune into a stone tablet. The quiet, once a luxury, now felt like a cage.
In her palm, the boon she had earned felt like a shard of frozen night, cold and sharp. *One Perfect Lie*. A tool not for a warrior, but for a performer. A key designed to unlock the entire game. The knowledge of its power, fed directly into her mind by the Censor-Symbiote, was a heady, intoxicating poison.
The shift was instantaneous. The weary survivor, the reluctant student of Asterion's quiet truths, vanished. In her place stood the Princess of House Vex, her spine straightening, her chin lifting with an authority she had forgotten she possessed. The tool had arrived. The tutor was now redundant.
She turned to Asterion, her voice cool and clear. "I am leaving."
His heavy chisel paused mid-stroke. He did not turn, but the quiet, sacred rhythm of his work had been broken. His ancient eyes, when they finally lifted to meet hers, showed no surprise, only a deep, weary understanding. "The story moves to its next chapter."
A thin, almost cruel smile touched Veridia's lips. She needed to sever this connection, to burn the bridge of this sanctuary so she couldn't retreat to it. "Your counsel has been… a sufficient distraction," she said, the words cold and precise, each one a stone laid to build a wall between them. "But I have what I need now. Your library has served its purpose." The dismissal was absolute, a performance of ingratitude meant to cauterize the strange peace she'd found here.
Asterion simply nodded, a slow, deliberate movement that seemed to carry the weight of centuries. He returned his gaze to his work, the steady tap-tap-tap of his chisel resuming. "A tool is only as good as the hand that wields it," he rumbled, the sound like stones grinding deep underground. "Be careful you do not break on the stone you mean to shape."
Veridia offered him a final, dismissive look. She turned and walked out of the library's dusty silence, stepping from the cool, still air into the harsh, unforgiving light of the Scablands without a backward glance. The age of sanctuary was over. The age of performance had begun.
***
The climb up the Manticore's peak was a brutal, grinding misery. Loose scree slid under her worn boots with every step, a cascade of pebbles whispering of a long fall. A high, thin wind whipped at her rags, a razor's edge of cold that stole what little warmth her body possessed. The peak loomed above, a jagged tooth of black rock against a slate-grey sky, seeming to grow no closer.
As if summoned by the sheer wretchedness of the moment, Seraphine's shimmering illusion appeared beside her, gliding effortlessly over the treacherous terrain. Her voice was a silken knife, dripping with mock concern.
"Oh, dear sister. All that effort just to die on a bigger rock? The ratings for 'pathetic scrambling' are solid, I'll grant you, but a bit repetitive, don't you think? You need a new act."
Veridia ignored her, her body aching but her mind a cold, sharp engine of pure calculation. The plan was a beautiful, intricate thing, a clockwork of cruelty, and she turned it over and over, admiring its perfection.
*The Target: Ignis, the Sun-Scorched.* He was not just a beast. He was an ancient, a being of immense pride and power. A "Sweeps Week Special," as the producers would call him. His defeat would be a season-defining event, a spectacle of such magnitude the Patrons would shower her with rewards.
*The Problem: A straight fight was suicide.* He would incinerate her from a hundred paces, and her show would end in a puff of anticlimactic ash. Seraphine would narrate her pathetic end with glee.
*The Solution: Weaponize his pride.* The Manticore's arrogance was his armor, but it was also the chink in it. He would never engage in a sordid, demeaning scuffle with a creature he deemed beneath him. He would expect a battle, a tribute of fear, an acknowledgment of his own majesty.
*The Key: The One Perfect Lie.* The boon was not a club to smash his defenses. It was a key, designed for a specific lock. A brute's lie—claiming she was a goddess, or his equal—would be an insult to his intelligence. Ignis would see through that instantly. Her lie had to be one his ego desperately *wanted* to believe. It had to flatter the very core of his ancient, lonely being.
She mouthed the words, polishing them in her mind. *"I have come to offer myself as a willing sacrifice, a tribute to the last true monarch of this world."*
It was a masterpiece. It would bypass his aggression entirely, appealing directly to his monumental vanity. It would transform a quick, messy slaughter into a grand, ritualistic 'sacrifice.' The prolonged, dramatic encounter would be a feast for the Patrons. Matron Vesperia, with her obsession for tragic beauty, would be ecstatic. The ratings would shatter every record. And the resulting Boon… the Boon would be legendary. Powerful enough for her true goal.
She reached a small, windswept plateau, her muscles burning, her lungs screaming for air. A grim, confident smile touched her lips. She was no longer a victim being thrown to the beasts. She was a producer, and she was about to deliver the performance of a lifetime.
***
Veridia stopped, leaning heavily against a jagged spur of rock. She allowed her shoulders to slump, her head to hang, her entire body to become a portrait of utter, hopeless defeat. It was a carefully staged moment, a piece of theater for the unseen cameras she knew were always watching, always hungry.
She looked up, her eyes finding Seraphine's smug, floating visage. With a focus born of pure spite, Veridia summoned a single, perfect tear, letting it trace a clean path through the grime on her cheek. Her voice, when she spoke, was a broken whisper, perfectly pitched for maximum pathos.
"Sister, dear… I'm so sorry." She took a shuddering breath, a flawless performance of a soul cracking under pressure. "For everything. I was wrong." Her gaze fell to the rocks at her feet, a gesture of absolute capitulation. "I'm ready to give up."
Seraphine's mocking smile froze. For a fraction of a second, a flicker of genuine shock crossed her features. It was quickly replaced by a look of absolute, triumphant glee, the expression of a predator that has finally watched its prey lie down and die. The audience metrics, a shimmering icon in Veridia's mind, began to spike wildly, a chaotic explosion of pity and schadenfreude from the Patrons.
The trap was set. The bait was taken.
Seraphine leaned in, her voice a venomous, triumphant coo, savoring every word. "Oh, darling. Don't you worry. This is going to be the best episode yet."