Chapter Text
“So,” Seviathan grunted as he set his empty glass aside, “Who’s next? C’mon guys… don’t leave me hangin’ here.”
The group of demons around the small table glanced to each other. Their eyes, each one more sinister than the last, narrowed in thought. A few of them grumbled quietly as they shifted their chips around. In the center of the table sits a pile of cards, the winning pool currently tucked safely in the bag at Seviathan’s feet.
It seemed no one was wanting to challenge him.
“Guys,” Seviathan flashed a smile he knew would be charming, “It’s just money! There’s loads of money around here! And who’s to say I’ll win again? It’s just luck… C’mon,” he tried to lure them, “One more round, winner takes it all.”
No one budged.
Sighing to himself, Seviathan picked up his bag and dropped it onto the table. All eyes widened.
“I said all, didn’t I?”
“I’m in,” one man with the characteristics of a bull grunted.
“Me too,” said a woman with a Mohawk.
“Me three,” croaked a… something… in a hood.
Biting back a giggle, Seviathan began to shuffle the cards.
One more round, he thought, one more sum of idiots in my debt. Fuck, this shit is easy. No wonder they do it so much in Pride.
The cards danced between his fingers, the suits and counts blurring together as he worked them. But no matter which way they settled, Seviathan knew how to deal them in his favor. He could feel it in the base of his skull and in the tug of his gut; the whispers of the cards, the pull of the game, the very essence of the gamble he was making.
Because that was the deal he struck.
His life and the means to his goals in exchange for a single favor. What that favor would be, Seviathan didn’t care. So long as it didn’t physically harm him or threaten his bank account, he’d do whatever it takes to fulfill the agreement. Besides— if he didn’t want to, all he’d have to do is avoid Pride and that strange incense-stinking Overlord. How hard could it be?
He had zero doubts in his mind that he made off like a bandit.
And thanks for that, Charlotte, he smirked inwardly. All because of you, I’m sitting higher and fatter than my father ever could. Fuck you, but thanks.
Seviathan dealt the cards out one at a time to each invested player. His hands hummed with warmth as he did, each face-down bit of paper and laminate hissing it’s worth behind his eyes. He had no doubt that he was going to emerge victorious yet again.
But just as the last card was placed and he was getting ready to take these suckers for everything they had, a shadow emerged at his elbow. That shadow, taking the form of a Hellhound, bent at the waist and whispered in his ear.
“A missive from your father, sir.”
Seviathan blinked.
He swallowed.
“W-what,” he cleared his throat, “What does it say?”
“I’m not sure,” the Hellhound replied in that same hushed tone, “But it arrived with a gift.”
Seviathan wasn’t expecting this. His father, who has wanted nothing to do with him ever since he’d tried to get the Princess back in his rightful hands, has been completely silent. Seviathan never received calls or texts or letters of any kind. The only ones he did get were from his mother and sister, and even those were vague descriptions of lament.
But a letter and a gift from his father?
It must be important.
Settling his cards in one hand, Seviathan reached the other out. The Hellhound placed the requested items in his palm.
The letter was plain and without any indications of who it was from, but the wax insignia it bore was undoubtedly imprinted by his father’s ring. The gift was a small and thin box that was equally as uninteresting in its beige wrappings.
Seviathan opened the box first. Peeling away the paper, he let the scraps fall to the table before lifting the lid. Inside, lonely and naked, sat a shimmering crimson blade with an ebony handle bearing fine artwork of a twin-headed snake coiling upwards with lapis lazuli set in the eyes— the family heirloom.
Confused as to what this meant, he opened the letter. It wasn’t his father’s writing that greeted him, but instead his brother’s. As Seviathan read what was written, it felt as if those twin snakes were slowly constricting his intestines.
Eyes everywhere. Whispers of an heir. The crown lingers in shadowed fate.
Come home.