The Kingdom of Aetheria had stood for a thousand years, its crystal spires catching the light of three suns. But in the final winter of the thousandth year, seven shadows slipped through the gates disguised as travelers, and the kingdom began to rot from within.
They called themselves only by the names the old priests had given them long ago.
Pride came first, a tall woman in silver armor that had never known a scratch. She walked into the Hall of Mirrors where the queen held court and declared, in a voice like cold bells, that no sovereign on earth was fit to rule beside her. The queen, flattered by the compliment hidden in the insult, made Pride her chief advisor the same afternoon. Within a month every mirror in the palace showed only Pride's reflection, and the queen forgot her own face.
Envy arrived next, a thin man with green eyes that never blinked. He became the palace chronicler. Every night he whispered to the nobles: "She trusts Pride more than you," "He was given a greater title than yours," "They say your wife looked too long at the captain of the guard." By the equinox, half the court was poisoning the other half, and no one noticed the realm's borders shrinking.
Wrath rode in on a red horse that left scorch marks on the marble roads. He challenged the king's champion to a duel over an imagined slight and split the man from crown to groin with a single blow. The crowd cheered. Wrath grinned, blood on his teeth, and offered to fight anyone else who felt dishonored. Soon the streets rang with steel from dawn to dawn, and the army that should have guarded the frontier was busy settling private vendettas.
Sloth never bothered to stand when he entered the city. He lay down in the great library and refused to move. Scholars stepped over him at first, then around him, then not at all. Books gathered dust. The astronomers stopped watching the sky. The engineers let the aqueducts crack. "There will be time tomorrow," Sloth murmured, and tomorrow never came.
Greed opened a counting house in the market square and offered gold for anything (memories, years of life, the color of your children's eyes). People laughed at first, then queued for days. The treasury emptied. The fields went unplanted because farmers sold the seed grain. The rivers stank because no one paid the cleaners anymore. Greed's scales never balanced; there was always one more coin he needed.
Gluttony took over the royal kitchens. She cooked banquets that grew larger every night, dishes dripping with fat and spice and forgetfulness. The guests ate until their bellies burst, then ate more, weeping with pleasure and shame. Famine walked the countryside while the capital gorged itself to death on honeyed peacock tongues and wine pressed from unborn grapes.
Lust needed no disguise. She danced in the moonlit gardens and every heart that saw her forgot its vows. Marriages dissolved by morning. Brothers knifed each other over a smile. Mothers abandoned infants. The priesthood ordained new rites in her honor that left the altars slick with fluids no prayer could wash away.
Seven shadows, seven wounds. Aetheria's crystal spires cracked and fell. The three suns dimmed behind smoke.
On the last day, a child wandered through the ruin of the palace. She was starving, barefoot, eyes too old for her face. In the shattered throne room she found seven figures seated around a broken table, feasting on nothing but air.
The child looked at them and asked, "Are you the sins that destroyed the world?"
Pride stood first, armor dulled with dust. "We are its kings now."
Envy hissed, "She has more life in her than we do."
Wrath reached for his sword and found only rust.
Sloth tried to lie down again but the floor was too cold.
Greed opened his hands and saw they were empty.
Gluttony retched, but nothing came up.
Lust reached for the child with trembling fingers and could not remember why.
The child picked up a shard of mirror from the floor. In it she saw seven frightened people wearing crowns of bone.
"You're not kings," she said. "You're just hungry ghosts who forgot how to leave."
She laid the shard on the table and walked away.
Behind her, the seven sins sat in silence as the final sun set and did not rise again.
And somewhere far beyond the borders that no longer existed, a single green shoot pushed through the ashes, patient as forgiveness, stubborn as dawn.