POV: Alma

“High priestess…”

I turned and looked at the monk. He knelt as was proper in the inner sanctum of the high temple, and his white and gold robes concealed his entire body from view. The only reason I could even tell the monk was a man was from the timber of his voice.

“Yes? You have my attention.”

The monk shifted slightly, a sort of nervous shuffling that told me I wouldn’t like what I was about to hear.

“High priestess, it would seem that there is a new devil pit…”

I surprised my urge to turn away in disgust. Devil pits, or dungeons as the uninformed call them, were bastions of evil. They spawned monsters, feed on the souls of the righteous, and grew more powerful by taking the life of mortals. It was the duty of all the righteous servants of the true god to destroy this evil, but the appearance of a new devil pit shouldn’t cause a monk to be this nervous.

“So we must simply send a pilgrimage out to destroy the devil pit, this is no cause for alarm.”

The monk shifted nervously again.

“Unfortunately high priestess, I do not believe it will be so simple to destroy this devil pit…”

I cocked my head in curiosity at that.

“Oh, and why is that?”

The monk looked up and I saw his face for the first time, he was a man of middling years with sun tanned skin and a salt and pepper beard. His green eyes were colored with worry and something that made my stomach sink. There was doubt in his eyes.

“The devil pit has reached out to the kingdom of Metia…”

***

POV: Kalsaia

It was hard to contain my rage.

Everything, the plaything of voids had ruined everything.

I had carefully planned out how I could gain a foothold on Quellios, I had even created a scion I could use to infiltrate the mortal realm, and then the damn Ascendant Angel came along. When the pulse of divine might ripped through the abyss I had thought that I was going to perish, but I survived. Unfortunately the scion I had been training used the pulse to escape to the mortal realm.

Kelic, I had named him Kelic. He was to be my gateway, a stepping stone that would open the way to the global conquest of a fertile world.

My fist was clenched, my talons digging deeply into my palms. This had been more than a mere set back, it had been a total disaster that my rivals hopped to use to dethrone me. Quellios was lost to us, the world was now protected by both divines and voids, and worse yet it appears as if I have lost an “heir”.

No matter Kelic was a mere tool that I planned to dispose of whenever he proved to be a liability, and no matter the noble houses were well aware of my intentions when I gave birth to the child. All the common demon sees is that I have lost my child, and now that the noble houses smell blood in the water they are more than content to simply let that misunderstanding spread.

I hated the so called “angel” Altorus, but he was beyond my power to punish.

I hated my child Kelic, but he was also beyond my reach…

Unless… He isn’t…

I sat a little straighter in my throne and felt a smile creep across my face as I contemplated what this could mean.

His soul never returned to the abyss… A void would never accept a soul that was so tainted, especially not after they learned of his parentage… But then, I am positive he died. I felt the moment his life ended, so that leaves the question…

My small smile grew to a twisted grin.

“Where is my precious scion now…”

I closed my eyes and concentrated as I cast out feelers, tethers of power that would seek out even the smallest hint of Kelic’s soul. They would find him wherever he might be in the multiverse, it was only a matter of time.

As my power drained at a slow but constant rate I opened my eyes, my mood had just had a drastic shift for the better.

“Oh, my dear precious son… Mommy’s coming, and she has so much left to teach you…”