[Location: Envy Circle, Fifth Hell]
The Circle of Envy occupied half of the Fifth Hell like a jewelled parasite wrapped around a dying heart.
Where other circles burned, rotted, or scread, Envy shimred.
Its skies were not red but iridescent — a swirling oil-slick of colour that never settled on a single hue, as if the firmant itself couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Towers of mirrored crystal rose from black marble plains, each structure subtly different from itsneighbourr yet clearly designed to outshine it.
Nothing here was ugly.
Nothing here was modest.
Nothing here was enough.
Palaces competed with palaces. Spires leaned just slightly higher than the one beside them. Bridges were carved from solid erald glass, not because it was practical, but because soone else had once used sapphire.
Even the air tasted comparative.
And at the centre of this endless architectural rivalry stood House Beelzebub — ruling Castle of the Satan of Envy.
Not far from the ruling Castle of House Beelzebub stood a smaller estate — though "smaller" in the Fifth Hell was a relative insult.
The manor rose from a terrace of black crystal shaped like overlapping scales. Its walls were made of reflective green glass that showed not the viewer's true reflection, but a subtly improved version — posture straighter, features sharper, presence more refined.
Every visitor left slightly dissatisfied with themselves.
Which was, of course, the point.
This was House Veltraxis, a noble vassal family sworn directly to the Satan of Envy. Their speciality was not war.
It was a comparison.
Information gathered here was filtered not by truth, but by hierarchy, desire, and emotional imbalance. If soone in Hell wanted sothing, they shouldn't… Veltraxis knew.
Inside the manor's upper observatory, a circular chamber open to the prismatic sky, a demoness stood before a suspended pool of liquid mirror.
Her skin was pale jade, her long hair a gradient of silver to violet, and her eyes—too large, too bright—reflected ten different futures she wished were hers.
Lady Seravelle Veltraxis, Matron of the House.
And currently, very displeased.
"Why should I believe you, Ashira the Occult— A traitor to the Satans, Loyalist of Morningstar House." She spat out the last words.
Ashira did not flinch at the title.
Most demons would have.
Most would have lashed out, burned sothing, or at the very least corrected the insult with sharp pride. But the Occult Fla Witch simply stood with her hands folded inside the sleeves of her dark, sigil-stitched robe, violet firelight crawling faintly beneath the fabric like a second pulse.
Her eyes—aquamarine hellfire—regarded Lady Seravelle through the floating mirror pool between them.
"Titles," Ashira said mildly, "are like perfus in the Fifth Hell, Lady Veltraxis. Chosen less for accuracy and more for the reaction they provoke."
Seravelle's lips curled.
The mirror pool reflected her not as she was, but as she preferred to be seen: taller, more luminous, presence magnified. Ashira's reflection, in contrast, showed her as smaller, slightly diminished, with her robes more worn than in reality.
The manor itself was attempting to belittle her.
Ashira didn't acknowledge it.
"You stand in my observatory," Seravelle continued, voice smooth as polished glass, "in the heart of my domain, and speak the na of a bloodline that was politically erased before my grandmother shed her first skin."
She tilted her head.
"And you expect not to treat you as either a fool… or a relic."
Ashira smiled faintly.
"I expect you," she said, "to be curious."
That word hung in the air.
In the Fifth Hell, curiosity was more dangerous than rage.
Seravelle stepped closer to the mirror pool. The liquid surface rippled, showing fragnted visions—glimpses of other estates, rival demonesses, shifting alliances. Every reflection is just slightly better than the last.
"Your confidant, Zareth—The Bold, has already stated your words of betrayal to the demon kind. Wanting to help restore the reign of Morningstar House," Seravelle finished softly, eyes narrowing. "Yes. The rumours have reached even here."
The liquid mirror trembled.
Across its surface flashed distorted echoes of recent whispers:— Aetheric resonance in the mortal realm
— Grayfia Lucifuge sighted
— Three fiancées moving together
— Old contracts stirring
Seravelle's gaze sharpened.
"You walk a dangerous path, Witch," she said. "The Satans do not tolerate nostalgia. Especially not nostalgia with fangs."
Ashira's smile didn't fade.
"Nostalgia," she said gently, "is longing for sothing that no longer exists."
She lifted her eyes to et Seravelle's reflection.
"I deal strictly in things that still do."
The temperature in the observatory dipped a degree.
Seravelle waved a languid hand. The mirror shifted, showing a hazy vision of the mortal realm — skyscrapers, neon lights, mana threads crisscrossing the air like glowing spider silk.
Three presences flickered at the edge of perception.
Pink.
Violet.
Black.
Seravelle's eyes lingered on the violet one.
"Lady Ezravia has not visited the Fifth Hell in person for nearly eighty years," she murmured. "She prefers… quieter gas."
Her gaze slid back to Ashira.
"And now she roams the human world with her fellow fiancées, chasing a ghost."
Ashira tilted her head. "Do you believe it is a ghost?"
Seravelle didn't answer imdiately.
Instead, she extended one clawed finger and touched the mirror.
Ripples spread.
A new image surfaced — old records, contracts etched in infernal law, sigils layered over sigils.
Seven engagent bindings.
One central crest.
Morningstar.
Seravelle's lips pressed thin.
"Political marriages," she said. "Symbolic unity between sin thrones. A balancing asure after… unpleasant history."
Her eyes flicked up.
"Symbolic… until the groom vanished."
"Sealed," Ashira corrected softly.
"Erased," Seravelle countered.
Ashira didn't argue.
Instead, she asked, "If sothing erased returns… does that not make the erasure the illusion?"
Seravelle laughed — a delicate, glass-like sound.
"You speak like soone who wants to take a risk."
"I speak like soone who knows you already are," Ashira replied.
The mirror flashed again.
This ti, it showed sothing subtler.
Not Dominic.
Not directly.
But the distortion around him.
A pull in probability threads.
Fate lines bending toward a single unseen centre.
Seravelle's pupils thinned.
"That…" she whispered, "is not political."
"No," Ashira agreed.
"It is gravitational."
Silence stretched between them.
Below the observatory balcony, the city of Envy glittered — a thousand estates trying to outshine one another, unaware that the true competition might soon shift realms entirely.
Seravelle withdrew her hand from the mirror.
"If the Prince lives," she said slowly, "the engagent contracts regain legal force."
"Yes."
"Which ans," Seravelle continued, mind racing now, "the fiancées' movents are no longer romantic eccentricities."
"They are positional alignnts," Ashira said.
Seravelle exhaled through her nose.
"Beelzebub will not like this."
"No Satan will," Ashira said. "A keystone returning reshapes arches that thought themselves stable."
Seravelle turned sharply.
"Why tell ?"
Ah.
There it was.
Not disbelief.
Not denial.
The real question.
Ashira t her gaze evenly.
"Because House Veltraxis survives by knowing what others want before they admit it."
Seravelle's expression didn't change, but interest sharpened.
"And what do I want?"
Ashira stepped closer to the mirror pool. For the first ti, her reflection aligned with reality — the manor's distortion failing to diminish her.
"You want," Ashira said quietly, "to be the first to understand the board shift."
A pause.
"Before your rivals do."
Seravelle's lips curved slightly.
Flattery didn't work in Envy.
Accuracy did.
"And what do you gain?" she asked.
Ashira's gaze drifted briefly toward the mortal realm vision.
"I prefer a future where Hell fractures along predictable lines," she said. "Not blind panic."
"Predictable for whom?"
"For those who see early," Ashira replied.
Seravelle studied her.
Then, slowly, she laughed again.
"You are not asking to support Morningstar."
"No."
"Not asking to oppose the Satans."
"No."
"Then you are asking to… watch."
Ashira inclined her head.
"And prepare."
Seravelle walked a slow circle around the mirror.
"In Envy," she said, "we do not move first."
She stopped.
"We move best."
Ashira smiled faintly. "Then you understand."
Seravelle flicked her fingers.
The mirror shifted again — now showing threads branching outward from the mortal realm.
So led to the Fourth Hell.
So to the Sixth.
So to hidden enclaves in the human world.
One thread pulsed brighter.
House Naberius.
Seravelle's eyes glead.
"Ah," she murmured. "The hound duke has already scented sothing."
"He has released watchers," Ashira said. "Subtle ones."
Seravelle smirked. "Subtle by Fourth Hell standards."
She waved her hand.
A ripple passed through the mirror, distorting the thread linked to Naberius.
"Let his spies chase reflections," she said lightly.
Ashira raised a brow.
"You will interfere?"
"Not interfere," Seravelle corrected. "Compete."
She turned, eyes alight with calculation.
"If Naberius gathers emotional data on Lady Ezravia… I will gather emotional data on Naberius."
Ashira chuckled softly.
"Envy at work."
"Of course," Seravelle said. "If a duke desires soone who desires soone else… the leverage becos exquisite."
She stepped closer to Ashira.
"You have given a delicious puzzle, Witch."
Ashira bowed her head slightly.
"Then my visit was worthwhile."
Seravelle's gaze sharpened again.
"Do not mistake interest for alliance."
"I never do."
"Good," Seravelle said. "Because if this Prince proves weak… I will help erase him properly."
Ashira's expression didn't shift.
"And if he proves strong?"
Seravelle smiled.
"Then I will decide who benefits most from standing near his shadow."
Ashira turned to leave.
"Curiosity satisfied, Lady Veltraxis?"
"For now," Seravelle said. "But send word when the gravitational pull changes."
Ashira paused at the threshold.
"It already has," she said quietly.
Then she stepped into violet fla and vanished.
...
[Later — Private Chamber of Seravelle Veltraxis]
The mirror pool here was smaller. Personal.
Unfiltered.
Seravelle stood alone before it.
She let the glamour drop.
Her reflection showed not perfection — but calculation.
"Dominic Morningstar," she murmured.
The na tasted old.
Dangerous.
Valuable.
She touched the mirror.
It showed Ezravia laughing faintly in the mortal realm, eyes soft in a way rarely seen in Hell.
Seravelle's lips curved.
"Ah… cousin," she whispered. "So that is where your attention lies."
The mirror shifted.
Now it showed Naberius striding through a war corridor, aura storming.
"Predictable," she said.
Another shift.
Raum, smiling lazily as servants prepared ornate infernal gifts.
"ssy," she sighed.
Then—
A blur.
A distortion.
Sothing the mirror couldn't quite resolve.
A presence surrounded by threads of attachnt, loyalty, and fate.
Not dominant.
Not overwhelming.
But… central.
Seravelle leaned in.
"…Interesting."
The mirror cracked.
A thin fracture.
She pulled her hand back, eyes narrowing.
"Not weak," she murmured.
"Not erased."
She straightened.
"Very well, Prince."
Her smile returned, sharp and elegant.
"Let us see who envies whom… when Hell finally looks your way."
Outside, the sky of the Fifth Hell shifted colour again — green to gold to bruised violet.
Sowhere far above the Circle of Envy, political currents changed direction.
And in the mortal realm…
None of the girls beside Dominic had the faintest idea.
Which, perhaps, made it all the more dangerous.
***
Stone , I can take it!
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