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Unknown
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I stared blankly at the ornate grandfather clock, its pendulum swinging in a steady, hypnotic rhythm. With each measured tick, a slow, suffocating dread coiled tighter in my stomach, rooting itself deep. My thoughts drifted, tangled in the relentless march of time—until the sharp, confident sound of footsteps echoed down the marble hall behind me.
"You seem nervous, my Coro." The voice was smooth, unwavering.
"I am, Lorde Diligence," I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Do not be. The other Monarchs will sense your weakness."
I hesitated, my eyes fixed on the final seconds slipping away before the meeting of the Monarchs. "Of course, my Lorde."
As if on queue, reality fractured around me. One moment, I was within the Court—safe, grounded—the next, I was standing on an onyx pedestal, suspended above an endless void. My breath caught as I stared into the abyss below, half-expecting it to rise up and consume me.
Then, a child’s wail pierced the silence.
I tensed at the unexpected sound, my gaze shifted to the right to take in my surroundings. To my right floated an empty pillar identical to mine, and above it, a woman sat upon an ornate marble throne—Lady Patience. She was breathtaking, her presence commanding, but it was her eyes that held me captive. They shimmered like a starry night sky, vast and endless, locked intently on something to her right. I followed her gaze to the next pillar and throne combo and found it resting on a hulking figure seated on the throne beside her—Lorde Humility. A familiar face.
Anticipation tightened in my chest as my gaze drifted downward, already knowing who I would find below him.
On her own pillar, stood his wife and coro—my longtime friend, Zoe. She met my eyes with a warm smile, lifting her hand in an effortless wave, as if this were nothing more than a casual reunion. The dread in my stomach eased at the sight of her annoyingly vibrant red hair—too bold to ignore, too familiar to be anything but reassuring. I returned her wave with a small smile, but before either of us could speak, something in the air shifted.
Our attention was drawn toward another pillar, almost opposite of me, where a woman I’d never seen before had begun to sing. Her voice, soft and hypnotic, carried through the space, an attempt to soothe the wailing child… no, children?
My eyes narrowed. The pedestal opposite from mine did not hold just one small figure, but two.
“Sloth, explain yourself,” Lorde Diligence commanded, his tone sharp, expectant.
A pause. A slow inhale. Then, Lorde Sloth finally opened his eyes, heavy-lidded and unbothered. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
Lorde Sloth’s smirk unfurled like a creeping vine, stretching across his face at an agonizing pace. “No,” he repeated, dragging out the word as if even defiance itself wasn’t worth the effort.
The children''s cries swelled, growing almost deafening.
“Don’t even start bickering—I almost had them calmed down,” the hypnotic voice rang out, tinged with annoyance.
“Watch yourself, girl. You speak to a Monarch,” a cold voice cut through the air. Lorde Pride—a tall, unnaturally lanky figure—glared in her direction.
A hollow scoff followed. “My wife speaks in my place, inhuman mutt,” Lorde Gluttony countered, his voice thick with disdain.
A low chuckle rumbled from Lorde Humility. “Bethany speaks in mine as well, my prideful opposite.”
Before the tension could escalate further, a calm yet commanding voice sliced through the discord.
“Enough, everyone. They’re coming,” Lady Chastity declared.
Around me all fourteen Monarchs of Sin and Virtue rose from their thrones and floated down to the pillars in front of them as if gravity didn’t exist.
“Kneel.” The command echoed from everywhere at once, layered voices weaving into a single undeniable force. Before I could even process what was happening, my knees hit the cold surface beneath me.
“We welcome you,” the Monarchs spoke in unison, their voices rippling through the air like a decree woven into the fabric of reality.
“Arise.”
The invisible weight pressing me down vanished, and as I lifted my gaze, dread coiled back into my chest.
The abyss below us was gone. In its place stretched an endless meadow, dense with <b>timekeepers</b>—delicate, ethereal flowers known to bloom only in the presence of the Monarch of Time.
And in the center of our circle of pillars stood two figures.
The man, the Monarch of Space, bore an uncanny resemblance to my own Monarch—tall and powerfully built, with olive skin and tightly cropped black hair. They could have been twins.
Beside him, the Monarch of Time was his stark opposite. She was short, almost skeletal in her frailty, her skin an unnatural shade of white. Her hair, just as ghostly, fell around her like strands of spun moonlight.
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Their presence alone bent the atmosphere, the weight of time and space pressing in from all sides.
“Humility, explain yourself.” The deep male voice rang out, steeped in authority, leaving no room for hesitation.
A low chuckle broke the silence.
“There is nothing to explain, my Lorde,” Humility replied. “I wanted a child. I conceived a child.”
“Humility, you have once again broken one of our royal decrees.” The soft female voice followed, its tone devoid of emotion, as if the verdict had already been decided.
“I did.”
A black vortex formed above Lorde Space’s hand, swirling with an unsettling energy as a small humanoid figure began to take shape.
A sudden, piercing shriek tore through the air, yanking my attention toward Lorde Humility’s onyx pillar.
“Release h—” The word never fully left Zoe’s lips.
Her leg twisted unnaturally mid-syllable, a sickening crunch echoing through the air as if she were nothing more than a strand of string, effortlessly knotted by the Space Monarch’s will. She crumpled to the ground, unconscious from the shock, before any of us could fully register what had just happened.
Lorde Humility lunged toward the Monarchs of Space and Time, his intent unmistakable. But the moment he crossed the edge of his onyx pillar, he slammed into an invisible barrier, his momentum cut short as if he had struck solid stone.
Before the sound of the thud had fully faded, Zoe’s other leg twisted violently, the sickening sound of snapping bone echoed through the realm as it exploded into a spray of blood. The crimson mist splattered against the barrier, painting it in a grotesque display.
“Move against us again, and I will kill her, Humility,” the Monarch of Space sneered, his voice cold.
No one dared to react aloud, but the unspoken horror was evident in the eyes of those around me—even in those who despised Lorde Humility. Discomfort, disgust, silent outrage. It lingered in their gazes, thick in the air, yet not a single soul moved. No one interfered. They couldn’t.
Lorde Humility knelt beside his wife’s broken, bloodied form. His face betrayed nothing—no anger, no sorrow—only an unreadable calm. “I apologize for my outburst, my Lorde and Lady.”
A newborn now floated where the black vortex had once been, small and helpless, its silent cries lost in the stillness of the moment. Slowly, it descended into Lady Time’s waiting arms, and she cradled the child with an eerie gentleness. “We took away the Monarchs’ ability to conceive as an act of goodwill—to maintain the balance between sin and virtue. Yet, despite knowing this, you used your royal signature to defy our decree. Such defiance will not go unpunished, Humility.”
Lorde Space continued, his voice as cold as before. “We will take this child from you, raise her, and prepare her to eventually take your place.”
“My Lorde, please—” Lorde Humility began, his tone stripped of the calm he had held before, but he was cut off before he could say more.
“Quiet.” The single word from Lorde Space carried a heavy threat.
“This decision has already been made. The only purpose of this summit is to make an example of you for the rest of the Monarchs,” Lady Time declared as she gently stroked the baby''s barely grown hair.
A long pause settled over the gathering as the Monarchs of Space and Time met each of our gazes, one by one, their scrutiny heavy and absolute. Then, their attention returned to Lorde Humility.
The expression on his face sent a shiver down my spine. I recognized that look—it was the same one Lorde Diligence wore just before swinging his axe at the execution block.
A single tear traced down Lorde Humility’s cheek. “I’m sorry, everyone,” he murmured, his voice strained, as if the weight of the world itself was pressing down on him.
Lorde Diligence scoffed beside me, but Lorde Humility continued undeterred. “I must protect my family, even if it sends the world into chaos.”
His eyes began to glow as a crown formed on his head.
“Kneel,” he commanded, his voice carrying the same undeniable authority as the Monarch of Space.
They did.
All of them.
Everyone fell to their knees in unison, a cacophony of gasps and murmurs of confusion filling the air.
Lorde Humility took a slow step forward, his voice steady, unwavering. “Just because I am the Monarch of Humility does not mean I am weak.” His gaze locked onto Lorde Space. “You miscalculated. You should never have used your royal signature so freely in my presence, under the assumption that I could not usurp it.”
He advanced toward the two kneeling Monarchs at the center, each deliberate step laced with quiet fury. “You are both a threat to my family. And you have crossed a line you never should have.”
The Monarchs of Space and Time didn’t even have the chance to respond. Their heads twisted sharply, bones snapping like dry twigs, contorting just as Zoe’s legs had—before ripping clean off. Blood sprayed across the field of Timekeepers, staining the delicate flowers in deep crimson as their lifeless bodies collapsed.
“Hear me, other Monarchs,” Lorde Humility’s voice rang out, unwavering and absolute. “The barriers around you will remain until I am gone, and I will open portals back to your domains while I still wield Lorde Space’s royal signature.”
His gaze swept over the kneeling figures, their expressions shadowed with shock, the blood of the fallen Monarchs still fresh in the air.
“Move against me or my family,” he continued, his tone heavy with the weight of an unbreakable decree, “and I will do to you what I did to them.”
He lumbered back toward his pillar, the weight of his actions pressing into the silence that hung thick in the air. Upon reaching his pillar, he knelt and plucked a single timekeeper from the ground, carefully placing it inside Zoe’s mouth.
In that instant, the rest of the meadow’s delicate flowers shredded themselves into nothing, a storm of petals scattering like confetti across the ground.
Zoe, still unconscious, winced as her body reacted. Her legs, broken and lost just moments before, began to rewind through time—bones reforming, flesh knitting itself back together—until she was whole once more.
Lorde Humility exhaled, then turned his gaze toward Lorde Diligence. “I’m sorry it had to happen this way, young man,” he said, his voice heavy with something between regret and resolve. “I will leave the bodies so you may give your father and aunt a proper burial.”
And just like that, he lifted Zoe into his arms, stepped through the portal— And vanished.
At last, after everything, I turned to look at Lorde Diligence.
He stood motionless, staring blankly at the lifeless bodies of Lorde Space and Lady Time, his expression hollow, still caught in the aftershock of what had just transpired.
“Wow,” Lady Wrath muttered, her voice breaking the heavy silence—the first words she had spoken since arriving.
I shifted my gaze, scanning the other pillars. The reactions were mixed, scattered like the remnants of the shredded Timekeepers. Some Monarchs remained frozen, their expressions unreadable, while others had already made their exits.
Lady Patience, Lorde Sloth, and Lady Lust—along with their respective Coros—had wasted no time in vanishing, slipping away through the portals without so much as a word.
One by one, the others trickled away, departing only after fully processing the weight of what had transpired. But not Lorde Diligence. And not me.
Hours passed in silence, the stillness pressing down like an unseen force. I waited, expecting him to speak, to give me a command—but none came.
Lorde Diligence’s expression slowly shifted as time passed—what little emotion remained drained from his face, leaving behind something hollow. Cold.
Slowly, ominously, the dread in my chest crept back in, tightening like a noose with each passing moment. Because I knew—sooner or later—I would be expected to help kill my friend or die trying.