Queen Morghana Bloodfyre stood alone on her private balcony, obsidian-bck skin absorbing the crimson glow of the volcanic fields that surrounded the royal fortress. The night air swirled with sulfur and ash, scents that other beings found repulsive but had always meant home to demons. Her amber eyes, now reflecting the molten ndscape below, remained fixed on the eastern horizon where the faintest lightening suggested the coming dawn.

  She had not slept. Not since the war council and those words spoken in anger.

  "For two thousand years, you are no prince of demons."

  Banishment. Not formally decreed with royal ceremony, but effectively the same. The words had escaped her before she could contain them, frustration finally breaching the careful walls she had built around her interactions with her youngest son.

  Behind her, the royal chambers remained dim and empty. She had dismissed all servants hours ago, needing solitude with thoughts she dared not share. Even queens had secrets that required privacy.

  As if summoned by her thoughts, a presence materialized from the shadows near the chamber entrance. Princess Seraphine moved with characteristic grace, her crimson-gold skin catching the volcanic light as she approached.

  "Mother." Seraphine's voice was carefully neutral, a skill she had perfected over centuries. "You summoned me?"

  Morghana did not turn from her contemption of the horizon. "What news of your brother?"

  Seraphine stepped onto the balcony, keeping a respectful distance. "Azaril prepares to leave. He believes the banishment real and binding."

  "As he should," Morghana replied, her voice revealing nothing of her inner thoughts. "Words spoken by the Queen cannot be unsaid, even those uttered in... haste."

  "He packs supplies and has consulted old maps. I offered him the amulet as you suggested." Seraphine paused, a subtle hesitation that would have been imperceptible to most. "He detected the tracking enchantment."

  This drew Morghana's attention. She turned slightly, studying her daughter with new interest. "Did he now? And yet he accepted it?"

  "Yes. He seems to believe having a connection to the realm, even one of surveilnce, might prove useful." Seraphine's lips curved in a slight smile. "He grows more pragmatic than I expected."

  "Perhaps," Morghana murmured, turning back to the horizon. "Or perhaps he simply understands that knowing where he is does not obligate us to aid him. Your brother has always been more perceptive than your other siblings give him credit for."

  A momentary silence settled between them, broken only by the distant rumble of volcanic activity. The Queen's fingers tightened imperceptibly on the balcony's edge, fracturing the stone slightly.

  "You could retract the banishment," Seraphine suggested carefully. "Words spoken in war council are often... exaggerated."

  "A Queen does not retract her procmations," Morghana said firmly. "Even hasty ones."

  "Then he will leave," Seraphine concluded. "By morning, if I judge correctly."

  The Queen's expression remained impassive, but her fingers tightened further on the balcony's edge, causing another small fracture in the stone. The tiny sign of emotion would have been missed by most, but Seraphine noted it with interest.

  "Let him go," Morghana said finally. "Perhaps he needs to see that other kingdoms are not the paradises he imagines."

  Seraphine studied her mother carefully. "And if he finds something worth staying for?"

  "He won't." The Queen's voice held absolute certainty. "The demon blood runs in him, different as he seems. Sooner or ter, he will learn that nowhere else will accept what he truly is."

  "And when he returns?"

  "If," Morghana corrected. "If he returns, he will be stronger for the journey. Perhaps finally a prince worthy of his bloodline."

  Seraphine hesitated, then asked what no other would dare: "Is that truly what you want, Mother? For him to become like Vexus? Like Makar?"

  For a moment, something fshed across the Queen's face—something almost like pain. Then it was gone, repced by the impassive mask she always wore.

  "I want him to survive," she said simply. "In this world or any other. Now leave me."

  Seraphine bowed and withdrew, her mind already calcuting how this unexpected development might be turned to advantage. Azaril's absence would create possibilities—and dangers—she hadn't anticipated.

  Alone on the balcony, the Demon Queen remained motionless for a long time, her gaze fixed on the distant horizon beyond the demon nds. The direction her youngest son would likely travel. Though none would ever see it, a single tear of liquid fire traced down her obsidian cheek, sizzling as it fell from her jaw and hissed into nothingness before reaching the ground.

  For a fleeting moment, the pressure behind her eyes built—a sensation so rarely allowed that it felt almost foreign. She had suppressed her own mind circle abilities for over a millennium, channeling that forbidden power into heightened awareness of her surroundings instead. Now, she permitted herself the briefest touch of that power, extending her senses outward and downward, through stone and distance to where she knew her youngest son prepared for departure.

  He was gathering the st of his supplies, securing his pack. The mental powers he'd revealed so dramatically in the arena incident were merely an echo of her own carefully hidden abilities. She could have taught him control, could have shown him how to use those powers while appearing to rely solely on physical strength as demon tradition demanded. But such teaching would have required acknowledging what they shared—what she had passed to him alone among her children.

  And acknowledgment would have endangered them both.

  Better he believe himself unique in his difference. Better he learn to survive without the crutch of her protection. The demon realm was changing, resources growing scarcer, tensions rising. Someday, a different kind of strength might be needed. Someday, her strange, schorly son might return with perspectives no pure warrior could provide.

  Or he might never return at all.

  The pressure behind her eyes subsided as she withdrew her awareness, once again containing that forbidden power behind walls of self-control built over millennia. The Queen of the Demon Realm could not afford to reveal such weakness, even to herself. She had survived and ruled by embodying the strength her people valued above all else.

  "Prove me wrong, my son," she whispered to the empty air. "Find your strength, whatever form it takes."

  In the distance, the first pale light of dawn began to creep over the eastern horizon. Soon her youngest son would cross the Firefall Border, leaving demon nds for the first time in his six centuries of life. Two thousand years of exile stretched before him—time enough to become something entirely new.

  Something that might someday save them all.

  The Queen straightened, schooling her features back into their customary expression of regal indifference. It was time to return to the demands of ruling a realm built on strength and conquest. Time to deal with the hunger that drove her people to increasingly desperate raids. Time to be Queen Morghana Bloodfyre, whose cold calcutions and iron will had maintained order for millennia.

  As she turned from the balcony, a distant guard captain saluted from his post far below, never suspecting the complexity of emotions that had passed through his queen's mind. To him and all others, she remained the embodiment of demon strength—unwavering, uncompromising, and utterly without sentiment.

  Just as she had always needed them to believe.