The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The first step cut through Austin Veyron’s boot.

Jet stone burst upward from the train platform in the form of stairs so steep they vanished into the smoke clouds above them. Chains, teeth, names were etched into each stair’s vertical support pillar in runes that flickered and shifted too quickly to decipher.

The delegation ascended them regardless.

On the tenth stair upward, the stone staircase vanished beneath their feet.

A chain guardian dropped through the stairwell behind them, all blades and gnashing iron limbs. It swung toward Orena first.

She caught it on her spear shaft and yelled over the stomping impact. ”It tests strength!”

Kaela hooked herself to its side before it could lash out. Together they shoved it backwards while Austin Veyron’s Root-Graft pins stayed its feet. Before they could reload, it split into three separate groups of limbs.

Rin chuckled once. ”Finally.”

She scampered up the stair railing, flipped over the guardian closest to her, and sliced through its chain at its neck. Sarielle cleaved through another’s knee joint. Orena clubbed the third guardian’s exposed core with her spear butt.

The stair absorbed them.

Footsteps solidified beneath their feet.

STRENGTH PROVED. OWNERSHIP PENDING.

Tessa read it out loud, scoffing. ”Everything she touches demands ownership.”

”If we keep refusing ownership,” Austin Veyron replied.

The second staircase punished them for it.

Red vapor collapsed in around them. Passing through it upon reaching the next stairwell the group found themselves separated on several ledges apart. Austin Veyron stood alone on a narrow strip of stair opposite an illusion of Elena chained in place.

”Choose.” she said. ”Save her or ascend.”

The chains led into a wheel of stone beside her head. Breaking it would sever the stair section below him out of existence. Walking away would whisk the illusion away back into the red vapor.

Austin Veyron reached for Hook Authority again.

The chains rattled.

Then he paused.

The stair was forcing him to make the choice alone. Trick. Every trap they had encountered played into isolating them.

”Elena!”

She shouted back from somewhere above them. ”I am not there!”

The illusion smirked. ”You waste time.”

Austin Veyron sat down in the stairwell.

She glared at him.

”What are you doing?”

”Waiting for the team.”

Silhouettes solidified around all of them. The red vapor evaporated away, thinning over gaps that several other members of the delegation managed to climb up. Kaela refused to abandon someone who pretended to sacrifice themselves willingly. Sarielle slapped away a crown sent sliding toward her feet in exchange for passage. Rin killed an illusion made in her packmates image rather than pledge allegiance to anyone who promised to save him.

Their platforms converged.

The illusions faded away.

LOYALTY PROVED. OWNERSHIP PENDING.

Tessa shot a glare at Austin Veyron. ”The road is mad.”

”It’ looking out for us.”

Ascending the final flight stairs, the sky roared with chains hanging overhead. Each suspended a black collar in their bights. Climbing raised the collars inexorably toward them, dragging against everyone’s throats.

A voice echoed off the stone around them.

NAME YOUR MASTER. CLAIM YOUR FOLLOWERS. TAKE YOUR PLACE.

Their collars tightened around their necks.

One of the sanctuary volunteers forward onto his hands and knees, choking. Hook Authority twitched against Austin Veyron’s back, itching for use. He could command the collars unlocked and every person on the heart road to follow him past whatever test lied beyond these stairs.

He could embrace what the road wanted him to be.

”Speak for yourself, nobody.” Elena growled behind him.

”I belong to no one,” Orena stated.

Austin Veyron nodded toward her. ”Neither do I.”

Tessa repeated after him.

Rin’s collar glowed red. ”I belong to no one who asks.”

Kaela gritted her teeth. ”Fight’ what I’m choosing.”

One after another, each member of their little group named themselves their own master.

Austin Veyron remained silent until Rin had finished.

The collar around his neck tightened until stars bloomed in his vision. Vharra’s calm voice wrapped through his mind.

YOU ARE MINE BECAUSE YOU DEVOUR WHAT I BUILD.

Austin Veyron remembered his dream he offered to the train before it departed town. A piece of himself that had reveled in what it meant to have power. He thought of every moment in the past or future where simply demanding obedience would have been easier than cultivating loyalty.

”I am owned by my choices.”

The collar cracked apart.

Every collar around them followed suit.

Clouds ripped away to unveil sky.

When they finally reached the top, a heart shaped citadel loomed overhead.

Black palace suspended itself out of empty space over an abyssal pit of writhing chains. Obsidian towers burst upward from rooftop tents. At its center a great engine pulsed within a cage made of bone-white metal.

A woman hung chained above the engine.

Adult sized, armored despite ragged cuts of blood that seeped from where her limbs were tethered into place, curled black horns and the unmistakable symbol of a commander slashed into her back. Dark flame licked from her bindings down into the construct beneath her.

Tessa sucked in a breath.

”That’s Commander Veyra,” she breathed.

Austin Veyron knew who she was.

The same woman who’d first confronted him about wanting everything.

The same woman who first told him that becoming a weapon wasn’t the same thing as living.

Veyra tilted her head up.

Eyelids fluttering open, her eyes found Austin Veyron even atop that massive spire.

The heart engine inside it surged to life.

Dark glass cage branded into Austin Veyron’s back shook.

A balcony opened from the palace wall.

Lady Vharra stepped out onto it, chains and glass dress streaming behind her. Her expression was calm, serene beautiful in the way perfect symmetry could be beautiful.

”Devourer,” she called. ”You have traveled my road without bending the knee to my claim. I commend you for that.”

Austin Veyron clenched his fists.

Lady Vharra pointed at Veyra chained above the execution engine.

”Her execution at dawn will complete the engine’s activation. You have the opportunity to prevent it.”

Bars around Veyra grew tighter.

”In exchange.”

Lady Vharra grinned.

Heart-road shook beneath Austin Veyron’s boots.

This was it. Their final trial.

Elena pushed the remaining members of the delegation out from behind a collapsed section of stairwall as balcony seals popped open atop the citadel. Rows of archers hid behind sightlines along the black crystal towers bellow them, each archer wielding glowing chain bows aimed at the heart-road’s peak.

”We can’t destroy the engine.” Kaela shook her head. ”They have high ground fortified walls and Veyra baiting us in the center.”

”We have time, though.” Sarielle pointed up at clouds brightening overhead. ”Not enough for a sustained attack. Just enough to target weak points.”

Tessa looked up at Commander Veyra chained to her execution platform. ”Commander Veyra helped found one of the first resistance cells beneath the eastern towers. If Lady Vharra executes her during rushlimber everyone who denied us inside those walls will believe the heart engine can’t be stopped.”

Veyra tilted her head upward. Lips moving silently against the stairwell between them. Austin Veyron knew what she said without needing to hear it voiced.

DO NOT TRADE YOURSELVES.

Lady Vharra’s eyes glittered at him seeing what she wanted.

”This isn’t a deal.” She waved her hand between them. ”Give me back the fragment you stole. Bow before the heart engine. Accept your position within it.”

Fragment cage branded into Austin Veyron’s back pushed against his spine.

His instincts tempted him with what she offered.

Raw power flooded into Austin Veyron’s mind from the heart engine mere stairs above him. Owning it would be easy if he agreed. He could harvest that strength and amplify himself so he was stronger than anyone on that balcony.

He could also seal himself in as its next fail safe thrall.

Rin leveled a steady gaze at him.

”Weak leader cliché.”

”I know.”

Orena kicked at exposed stone beneath one of the engine’s service vents. ”Chain engines release underneath the execution balcony. If we can target them, we can sever the feed into that engine without killing Veyra.”

Seven’s white eye pulsed at arrow slits in the glass towers. ”Path of assault acquired. Chance of success: low.”

”Close enough,” Kaela nodded.

Austin Veyron scanned each of their faces in turn. No one looked to him to initiate tactics or strategy.

Elena was already cross referencing escape routes on the map laid out between them. Sarielle mapped chain sequence frequencies. Tessa and Orena poured over the citadel’s layout with blueprints they’d recognized in the war rooms.

Lady Vharra made them fight against one another.

They were going to win because they never stopped working as a team.