The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The black chair sat at the center of the Hollow Crown.

Austin Veyron did not sit.

The chair glided toward him instead.

Roots unfurled from its arms and wrapped around his wrists, binding them together without touching. Across the crater, the inner ritual pulsed with life. Every black crown mark etched into the road became a mirror, and every mirror showed a different ending.

In one, the gates of Freehold collapsed and the Hunger Emperor’ hunger feeders poured through Grand Meridian. In another, Lia and Mara knelt inside black circles while Sable watched them receive crowns. In a third, Calder lay beneath a throne of roots with no one left to watch him say no.

’TAKE THE SEAT’, the Emperor commanded.

The Devour seed blazed.

[ SOURCE ACCEPTANCE AVAILABLE. ]

[ ALL CANDIDATE ROUTES STABILIZED. ]

Austin Veyron could feel the vow behind his words. If he accepted, the black circles would cease. The scout marks would go silent. Maybe the city would survive the First Feast.

The price was left unstated because the throne already expected him to understand it.

He would become the Emperor’ s chosen mouth.

Behind him, the portable ledger shimmered. The white witness lines were under assault. Black road wardens burst from the crater walls and began scaling the inside of the route, trying to cut the scribes off from Austin Veyron’ s decision in the present.

Veyra held the first line. Rin moved along the inner wall of the crater, severing roots before they could reach Lia and Mara. Maelis and Sarielle opened a path through controlled fire while Calder stood next to the nearest witness mark, waiting his turn to speak to the candidate seat.

’SECOND CANDIDATE: ACCEPT TO SHARE BURDEN.’

Calder looked at Austin Veyron.

”I can take half.”

”No.”

”If we split it—”

”We do not solve chains by splitting the crown.”

The chair squeezed their wrists tighter.

A vision flashed before Austin Veyron: Grand Meridian ablaze while he refused to intervene. It was bright enough to hurt. Elena was framed by the ruins of the lobby desk, shouting his name. Marcus lay on the ground beneath a feeder. The common ledger flickered out.

Austin Veyron took a step forward.

Then he heard Nahlia’ s voice echoing through the witness route.

”A future without present choice is evidence. Not destiny.”

The words cleaved through the image.

Austin Veyron looked again. The vision of future had no volunteer routes, no white roots, no one left making choices. It wasn’ t a threat. It was the Emperor’ s desired conclusion.

”I will not accept your terms for saving them,” Austin Veyron said.

The chair screamed.

Sable stepped through the inner crater from the opposite side. Her black crown had stretched taller over the last several minutes, splitting in two like beaten antlers.

”You continue to act like refusal is some kind of nobility,” she sneered. ”I accepted because I was tired of everyone leaving me behind. The Emperor gave me strength. He gave me a purpose.”

”He gave you a cage with a throne in the center,” Lia spat.

Sable’ s face contorted.

The black chair rotated toward Lia.

’ELIGIBLE WITNESS DETECTED.’

Roots buckled across the crater floor.

Veyra slashed them down before they reached Lia, but the candidate seat had already found the flaw in their formation. It could not claim Austin Veyron while they held witnesses at the present time route. Instead it would target someone already standing next to him.

The black roots ensnared Calder’ witness line.

’NEXT CONTESTANT: CALDER VALE.’

Calder’ s seed flared gold-red.

The chair pulled away from Austin Veyron.

It hadn’ t failed them. It had simply changed its target.

The black roots ripped Calder’ witness mark from the portable ledger line and began dragging it toward the candidate seat. He shoved against the ground with both hands, but the Devour seed pulsing in his chest responded to the ritual far more strongly than Austin Veyron’ civic duty had. A crown of dark chain lit formed over Calder’ s head.

Vharra went white. ”The throne has him on file as a previous candidate. It can twist every old bargain he walked back against him.”

Calder saw the mirrors now. Austin Veyron watched them reflected in Calder’ s eyes: the prison crown slammed over him. The faces of everyone he’ d let down. The belief that taking power would allow him to protect everyone else.

The chair spoke from across the crater.

’TAKE THE SEAT. PREVENT THEM FROM LEAVING US.’

Calder pressed his fingers into stone. ”I know that voice.”

Austin Veyron stepped toward Calder, but the chair raised a cage of black roots between them.

Sable smiled. ”That’ s what’ s wrong with you. You refuse until someone else has to pay for your decision. I bit because I couldn’ t bear the thought of anyone else leaving me.”

Rin threw her knife. It sliced through the chain light suspended above Sable’ s head and forced her back several steps. Veyra and Maelis carved through the barrier while Sarielle protected the road wardens away from the scribes. Lia and Mara locked arms where they stood at the white root line.

The candidate seat deployed black smoke in an attempt to quiet them, but they shouted their names anyway.

”I am Lia.”

”I am Mara.”

The present- choice route pulsed brighter white.

Calder stared across the field of roots at Austin Veyron. ”Tell me what you want me to do.”

Austin Veyron considered it. The old reflex was still there: give the order, solve this now, shoulder the weight alone.

Instead he asked, ”What do you want?”

Calder grimaced between pain and rage.

”I want to say no.”

The chair’ s roots clenched tighter.

”I refuse to chain anyone to myself just so they’ ll stay.”

Light exploded from the candidate seat.

The witness route flared white hot. Austin Veyron, Veyra, and Rin converged on Calder simultaneously. They didn’ t tear him free by force. They cut the black command tendrils he accepted from the throne.

The roots recoiled in disgust from Calder.

But the candidate seat didn’ t release the witness mark entirely.

It burned a dark sigil into Calder’ s wrist.

’CONTESTANT REGISTERED.’

The throne hadn’ t won.

It had marked him for later.

Across the crater, Sable’ lips curved into another smile.

”Now the Emperor has two seeds to tempt.” she said.

The black sigil on Calder’ wrist beat in time with Austin Veyron’ hidden seed. Somewhere beneath the Hollow Crown, the Hunger Emperor had rewritten one of his contests.

’TWO CANDIDATES. ONE SOURCE.’

The words shimmered over the floor of the crater.

Nahlia read them aloud through their link on the portable ledger. ”The Emperor is willing you two to compete against each other. If one of you accepts, he will use that choice to leverage the other.”

Calder eyed his wrist. ”Then we do not allow him to tear us apart.”

”That’ s not sufficient,” Vharra replied. ”He will not stop with you two. He will come for everyone whose choices allow this refusal to continue.”

The road wardens massed outside the inner crater renewed their offensive. The portable ledger root began to splinter under their collective might. If they broke the witness line, the candidate seat could isolate Austin Veyron and Calder once more.

The rest of the team moved before Austin Veyron could respond. Maelis repositioned their fire to the outer ring. Sarielle ushered the wounded scribes behind another shield of bodies. Rin and Veyra threw themselves at the break in the root while Lia and Mara covered their hands with the present choice mark, refusing to let the black smoke blanket their voices.

Austin Veyron finally understood the battlefield. The Emperor didn’ t just want one throne. He wanted everyone to forget that the burden could be shared.

He pressed his own hand to the white root beside Calder’.

”We don’ t compete.”

Calder pressed his hand on top of Austin Veyron’ s. ”We witness for each other.”

The white trail exploded with light.

For the first time, the candidate seat recoiled in horror from their touch.

Sable swung her arms wide. The Hollow Crown’ inner gate began shutting in on the expedition.

”Then remain.” she said. ”Witness each other when the time comes. When the Feast begins.”

The black walls crested over them.

The contest had transformed into a siege.