The last intact jar on Rein's shelf cracked down the middle.
A fine dusting of dried wildmint drifted down like ash as the cottage groaned, bent inward by the force of whatever she had just become.
Rein stared, unmoving.
Asmodra, Demon Lord of Crimson Flame and Queen of the Burning Legion, hovered in the heart of his home with a look on her face that said "worship me" "Sell me your soul" just as clearly as it said "touch me again and I'll never let you leave."
She raised her arms.
The thorned vines that had burst from the floor obeyed instantly—wrapping around the cottage's wooden beams, lacing the walls like hungry serpents, pulsing with red-hot veins of fire.
Rein's humble home was becoming… something else.
No—someone else's.
Why the hell did he help her.
The table where he mixed his tinctures shattered beneath the weight of an altar-like slab of obsidian.
His ceiling stretched upward, impossibly high, vanishing into an illusion of crimson sky.
The floor beneath him shimmered, and suddenly it wasn't wood anymore—it was stone, veined in red, humming with raw heat.
"What are you doing?!" Rein finally yelled, backing into a wall that hadn't been there a second ago.
Asmodra didn't answer at first.
She floated to the center of the room—no, chamber now—and extended her hand toward the center of the stone.
The vines moved like hands, building what could only be described as a throne-bed hybrid—part chaise, part execution chair, laced in black roses made of glass and ash.
"For centuries," she said softly, "I have ruled empires. Burned gods. Broken realms."
The vines unfurled behind her like wings.
"But in all that time… I have never been offered anything without fear. Without gain. Without conditions."
She turned to him.
"You gave me warmth. You gave me quiet. You gave me tea."
Her voice lowered.
"Now, I give you sanctuary. Eternity. Me."
Rein swallowed. "I don't want eternity."
"That's fine." She smiled. "You'll want me soon enough."
A dozen vines coiled near him now, not threatening, but forming a semicircle—like a velvet rope around a prize display.
Behind them, the world outside vanished. The cottage was gone. The village was gone.
Only the Crimson Palace remained.
Only her.
Rein's pulse raced.
"I need air," he said, half-laughing, half-panicking.
"You have all the air you need," she replied.
"I want to leave."
"Why?" she asked, curious.
"Because you're insane."
She tilted her head, as if trying to understand the word. "No. I'm devoted."
He stepped back, trying not to trip on the swirling vines.
She stepped forward.
"You're frightened. I can feel it," she said. "But you're also curious."
She was right. And that made it worse.
Then she pointed toward the throne.
"I made that for you. Our first bed. Say you'll sit with me."
"No."
"Then I'll carry you."
"Don't—"
She raised her hand.
The vines surged forward like gentle hands, coiling around his ankles, calves, thighs, lifting him without force but without pause.
"Put me down!" Rein yelled, twisting in midair.
Her eyes gleamed.
"Eventually."
____
Rein woke to velvet.
Soft, warm, suffocating velvet.
He flailed instinctively, hands hitting silken pillows, his foot tangling in a fur-lined sheet, his face half-buried in what smelled like rose-scented oil and—was that cinnamon?
He bolted upright.
And immediately realized two things.
He was completely naked.
He was no longer in his house.
His breath caught as he scanned the room—or rather, the chamber.
The walls curved like a cocoon of crimson silk, studded with dark obsidian thorns that gleamed faintly with heat.
Curtains—if you could call them that—hung in massive arcs from above, flowing down in sheer layers of red that shimmered when the warm light caught them.
The floor pulsed faintly beneath his bare feet like a living heart.
The bed he sat on was massive, circular, too large for any single human being—like it had been made for royalty… or a god.