The creature grinned, its serrated teeth shimmering under the nonexistent light, pure glee trickling through every gnarled inch of his battered frame.
"Relax, little one. I don't eat guests. Anymore." It mused, a light chuckle escaping its chest.
Rowan's body froze up, his stomach crumpling into itself as the beast-thing's warm breath caressed his face, its scent a putrid mixture of iron and scorched leather.
"Wh-what even are you..."
The creature's chuckle rumbled through the dark like rolling boulders, its mutilated wings shifting as if to catch a wind that wasn't there.
"Names first. I am Selzahar. Though, once, I was called something far grander. That time's passed now--a good time, it was."
His voice dimmed, becoming almost somber before snapping back with a tilt of his head and a disarming grin that didn't reach his hollow eyes.
"Selzahar..." Rowan muttered, trying to wrap his head around the absurdity.
"Yes, yes," Selzahar mused, "and you, you're something rather... unique."
Rowan's chest tightened as Selzahar's eyes traced him with a scrutinizing glint, as if peeling back skin, digging through bone, searching for something underneath the meat.
"Not many humans come here, you know," Selzahar continued, his tone layered with an indistinguishable humor, "or should I say, not many... things...? Beasts...? Whatever it is you are."
There was a flicker in his voice--an almost imperceptible contempt, a thread of loathing that lingered just beneath the surface.
Rowan blinked, confusion muddling the terror that gripped his gut. But Selzahar moved on, feigning ignorance to the weight of his words.
"I was the one who brought you here," Selzahar said with a great dramatic flair, sweeping his mangled hand through the void. "You see, I get very, very bored sitting inside that stupid orb all day."
Rowan's brow furrowed. "Orb?"
Selzahar grinned wider, if such a thing were possible, his sharp canines flashing.
"Yes, the 'god sphere,' as those meatbags call it. It's me."
Rowan staggered back, slipping on the non-existent floor beneath him, his arms flailing wildly.
"Y-you're the god sphere?!"
"In the raw, baby," Selzahar cackled, tapping his chest with a massive finger, sending little splashes of coagulated blood from his gut wound into the void.
Rowan's mind reeled. How could something so wretched, so grotesque, be the same divine entity the king worshiped like a holy relic?
"But... why bring me here?" Rowan managed to spit out.
Selzahar's expression darkened, the humor dying out of his face like a candle snuffed by unseen winds.
"Because you're broken," he said, voice low and reverent. "Just like me."
There it was again. That sting of hatred. Not at Rowan directly, but at the world, the circumstance, maybe even at existence itself.
Rowan's throat closed up. He wanted to shout at Selzahar, to deny it, to scream that he wasn't broken, that he was normal--but deep down, he knew that wasn't true.
"You're not like the others," Selzahar murmured. "You're something different. Something forgotten."
Rowan clutched at his arms, suddenly feeling cold, the creature's words latching onto the fractures in his soul, prying them open with wicked fingers.
"I don't know what you mean," Rowan said, though even he could hear the hollowness in his voice.
Selzahar laughed again, softer this time, like a father amused by a child's clumsy lie.
"You will," he promised. "In time."
The beast flicked his wrist lazily, and Rowan felt the floor buck and writhe beneath him.
"Now," Selzahar grunted, his voice almost tender yet sharp at the edges, "go back. Play their little game. Take the grimoire."
"Wait, wh--"
Before Rowan could finish, a massive hand swatted the air--and him--sending him spiraling backward into the abyss, his stomach lurching, the edges of his vision blurring until--
Whump!
Rowan slammed back into existence, stumbling into the throne room on shaky legs. The throne room's light, though dim, pierced his senses like jagged glass.
The others stared at him, expressions ranging from concern to impatience. Kaia tilted her head, her lips pursed. Elias crossed his arms. Liora watched with a glint of unreadable interest.
The god sphere--now still and golden once more--hummed.
"Present your hand," the king commanded, his voice clipped but not unkind.
Rowan numbly lifted his hand. As he did, a soft whirring noise echoed, and before him, a grimoire descended from the sphere's center.
It was an unhindered white.
Unlike the others', it bore no crest, no gleaming sigil, no ornate embroidery.
The book landed in Rowan's hands with a dead weight, like a brick, its surface chillingly smooth.
He flipped it open.
Nothing.
Page after page after page of pure white.
No symbols. No runes. No inscriptions. No diagrams. No blessings.
Just silence, stretched out and bound in leather.
Murmurs trickled through the throne room like water through cracks.
"Is it broken?" someone whispered.
"Maybe he's defective..." another muttered, just loud enough for Rowan to hear.
Even the king furrowed his brow, the first crack in his otherwise composed demeanor.
Rowan felt the heat crawl up the back of his neck, shame clutching his heart like a vice.
But deep inside--deeper than the shame, deeper than the fear--there was something else.
A strange, unfamiliar hum.
A pulse.
Rowan closed the grimoire.
And it thrummed in his hand--once, a heartbeat, raw and potent.
He tucked it under his arm, saying nothing.
"Well," the king announced, trying to mask the slight unease in his voice, "that marks all four--five of you heroes. With that, I believe it is high time I explain to you your future happenings in this world."
Rowan stepped back into line, his white grimoire pressed tightly against his chest, the whisper of something long-buried scratching at the edges of his mind.
And somewhere, in the depths of the god sphere, Selzahar watched, a crooked smile pulling at his mutilated lips.