He hated elevators.

Not because he feared them but because they gave a man too much time to think.

The bell chimed.

The doors slid open with a hiss, revealing the penthouse floor of the Meridien Grand. Marble. Velvet. Gold-leaf filigree like vines strangling the ceiling. Everything polished to a shine that felt aggressive, as though daring him to look away.

He stepped out, The hall was long and symmetrical, a mirrored cage with no soul in sight. The walls didn’t hum — they listened. It was the kind of quiet that followed mass graves, the quiet right after the screaming stopped but before the flies arrived.

He stopped outside Suite 909.

The brass numbers glinted in the low light, warped in the reflection. For a moment, they didn’t look like numbers at all — more like something coiled. Watching.

Steady the nerves.

He’d interviewed monsters. Warlords with teeth filed to points. Presidents who signed death warrants over breakfast. Mercenaries with tattoos of the people they’d killed.

And yet — this door felt different. Not like a cage. Like a mouth.

He raised a liver-spotted hand, bones cracking softly under the skin, and knocked once.

There was no answer.

There wasn’t supposed to be.

A woman at the lobby desk had handed him a single black keycard. No instructions. 

He slid the card.

The door clicked open without resistance.

He entered.

The suite was dim, every lamp turned low, and the curtains were drawn like funeral veils. The air smelled... strange. Floral, yes. Like lilies. 

The kind of scent you remember not from smell, but from the back of your throat.

He closed the door behind him.

The lock clicked like a trigger.

There, at the far end of the room, seated in a high-backed chair with one leg crossed over the other, was Valmet.

She didn’t move.

She didn’t look at him.

She didn’t have to.

Her silhouette was sharp, sculpted, eerily still — a wax figure waiting to come to life. Her hair was pinned, not a strand out of place. Her suit looked poured on. The shadows cloaked, And just visible in the half-light, her eyes — glowing faintly, sickeningly green. Like the last thing a deep-sea diver sees before something ancient pulls them under.

His spine stiffened.

The scent was stronger here.

He swallowed dryly and stepped further in.

She didn’t blink.

And the thought crossed his mind — uninvited and unprovoked — that he had met evil before. Spoken to it. Shaken its hand and sold it airtime. Evil was a businessman, a statesman, a pragmatist. You could reason with evil.

But this?

No.

Valmet wasn’t evil.

She was something far worse.

He pulled out his recorder with fingers that only trembled slightly.

Then sat down.

And said nothing.

“Ms. Valmet,” the reporter said.

His voice cracked a little. He cleared it, but the damage was done.

She didn’t blink.

Her gaze, glowing like bile in black water, remained fixed just above his left shoulder. As if she were watching something standing behind him — or imagining it.

He pressed the red button on the recorder.

Click. The sound was too loud in the silence.

“My name is Enzo Delmar. Freelance war correspondent. Thirty-four years active. Rift Wars I and II. The Indrid Siege. The Second Collapse. I’ve—”

Nothing.

No flicker. No breath.

Not even boredom.

“...I’ve been asked to conduct an independent assessment regarding your connection to the Marina Mafia and the events surrounding the dissolution of the Reef Pact.”

Still nothing.

“Off the record,” he added. “If that means anything anymore.”

He felt foolish. She hadn’t even acknowledged him. She might not even be alive. Could a corpse hold a posture that perfect?

Enzo glanced toward the far wall, trying to ground himself. One of the paintings caught his eye — a gilded seascape. But the longer he looked, the more he realized the waves in the image weren’t crashing... they were reaching. Like hands.

The room’s lighting shifted slightly.

He looked back.

She still hadn’t moved.

The scent — that mix of lilies and rust and something curdled — seemed stronger now, wafting from her like a warning.

And then—

Click.

The door behind him opened.

Slow. Casual. High heels tapping softly across the marble, accompanied by a whistle — low, off-key, and profoundly inappropriate for the setting.

Enzo didn’t turn around.

He didn’t have to.

“Gods below,” said a voice behind him, gravelly and male — but amused. “You’re doing that thing again, Valmet. The... ominous statue routine.” The words oozed charm like a leaky bottle of cyanide.

Enzo finally turned, half-expecting another assassin, maybe someone dressed in black, face obscured.

Instead, he saw—

Huebert.

He didn’t know the name yet, but he knew the type: trouble, dressed like temptation and humming the tune of a funeral dirge.

Huebert stood tall and elegant in a blood-red cocktail dress, shoulders bare, one arm draped in a dark silk shawl. His face was powdered just something dangerous beneath. Lips painted, lashes curled, perfume sharp.

But the voice?

Still a man’s.

Deep, confident, and completely unbothered by the mismatch.

Huebert gave Enzo a slow once-over. “You’re the interviewer? Huh. Thought you'd be taller. Or more... I don’t know. Alive-looking.”

Enzo blinked.

“I—excuse me, I wasn’t told there would be—”

“A guest?” Huebert said, gliding past him and lowering himself into a chair beside Valmet — though not too close. “I’m not a guest. I’m the goddamn interval act.”

He crossed one leg over the other with theatrical grace, the hem of the dress sliding like water down his calf.

Valmet still hadn’t moved.

“She’s doing her thing,” Huebert said, as if explaining weather. “You’ll know if she’s mad. If she starts talking? Run. If she smiles?” He made a vague gesture, like flicking a cigarette off a balcony. “You’re already dead, baby.”

The words were a joke.

But they didn’t land like one.

Enzo swallowed and adjusted the recorder. It felt stupid. Futile. Like trying to bottle a thunderstorm with a net.

Huebert leaned in conspiratorially. “Can I give you a tip, Enzo?”

“How do you know my—”

“I know everything that gets whispered into microphones,” he replied, voice low and playful, like a lounge singer giving away state secrets. “Now. My tip: ask better questions.”

Enzo opened his mouth to reply, but found himself staring again at Valmet.

She still hadn’t blinked.

He could feel sweat creeping down his spine beneath his shirt.

Huebert grinned and licked his teeth, flashing a gold canine. “She’s waiting.”

“For what?”

Huebert’s smile widened.

“For you to realize this isn’t an interview.”

The room, up until that moment, had felt like a tomb with air conditioning.

Then Valmet spoke.

“Enough.”

Her voice was quiet. Controlled. Deceptively soft — like piano wire pulled taut. The syllables slid through the room like oil across ice. And just like that, the space belonged to her again.

Huebert froze mid-pose, one finger arched near his painted lips. “Well well well,” he said, with mock awe. “Look who decided to unsilence the lamb.”

Enzo turned to her — not out of curiosity, but instinct. You didn’t look away when something like that started talking.

Valmet's eyes found his for the first time.

And held them.

He had faced executioners. Broken men. Mothers who cradled ash urns

This was something else.

She smiled, faintly. Not cruel. Not kind. Just... amused.

“What the media knows,” she said slowly, as if tasting each word, “and what the God Emperor knows... are two very different things.”

The phrase hit Enzo like a slap. The God Emperor was dead. Had been. Declared. Confirmed.

And yet, something in her tone made it sound like he was still in the next room.

Valmet didn’t blink.

“Understand this,” she said. “You’re not here to write our story. You’re here so we can..”

Huebert giggled. Not laughed — giggled — and leaned back in his chair until it creaked. “She’s being dramatic again. What she means is: we’re giving you a front-row seat. Lucky you.”

“I’m starting from the beginning,” Valmet said, still looking directly at Enzo. Her tone carried a strange finality, like she was granting a pardon or signing a death warrant.

Huebert waved a hand. “Beginning, ending, it's all a loop anyway. I say we just jump to the part where someone loses a tongue and gains a kingdom.”

Valmet cut her gaze toward him. “If I let you tell it, Valmet cut her gaze toward him. “If I let you tell it, you’ll start with the body count and work backwards.”

Huebert beamed. “Chronology is for cowards.””

“I’m a creature of structure,” Huebert sniffed. “Just not... linear structure.”

“I start,” she said.

Huebert raised both hands in surrender. “Fine. Fine. She starts. Just don’t blame me when he starts drooling from the ears.”

Enzo tried to reassert himself — instinct, again. “Just to be clear, you’re saying the official narrative—”

“There is no official narrative,” Valmet said, sharply.

Her voice filled the room. Not louder. Just heavier.

“There is only what the world thinks happened... and what we remember.”

She leaned forward slightly, and the green glow in her eyes caught the low light like phosphorescent algae. “And to remember it properly... we need to go back.”

Enzo swallowed, forcing his throat to obey. “Back how far?”

Valmet leaned closer.

“To the last few days before my death.”

Huebert clapped softly, like a child at a puppet show. “Oh goodie. This is the part with the gunfire, the betrayal, the screaming — and the really ugly crying.”

Valmet didn’t respond. Her eyes had already drifted somewhere else — not to a place, but a time.

Enzo, for the first time in years, felt a pang of honest fear in his chest.

Because something in the room had changed.

Like the temperature.

Like the gravity.

Like time had just turned to look at him.

“I was killed,” Valmet began, “on a Thursday. That much I’m sure of.”

Enzo leaned in. Her voice was lower now, reflective — like someone unrolling a memory that had been locked in a box wrapped in chains.

Huebert swirled a glass of something dark that probably wasn’t wine.

Valmet’s gaze unfocused. “It started with a message from—”

Knock-knock.

A rap on the door. Not loud. Not cautious. Just... normal.

Enzo stiffened.

Huebert perked up like a cat hearing a can opener. “Oh, thank the bleeding saints, food’s here!”

Valmet blinked once. Her expression didn’t change.

Huebert was already on his feet, dress swishing as he danced toward the door. He opened it with a theatrical flourish.

“Welcome to the inner circle, darling,” he purred.

A teenage delivery girl stood outside in a neon green jacket, the logo of KANGA Deliveries half-faded on her back. She didn’t even flinch at the sight of Huebert.

“Two combo meals,” she said flatly. “One rotisserie, one ramen, extra chili. You guys want cutlery?”

Huebert winked. “We are the cutlery.”

She didn’t laugh. Just handed him the bags and left without another word.

The door clicked shut.

Huebert turned, triumphant. “Chicken’s still warm!”

Enzo blinked at the sudden shift in atmosphere. The room still smelled of lilies and something faintly like rusted iron... but now also chicken grease and synthetic noodle seasoning.

Valmet took the ramen from the bag without comment. She peeled the lid back slowly, steam wafting up into the quiet.

Huebert sat, kicked off his heels, and began ripping into the bird with his bare hands like a starved jackal at a banquet.

The wet sound of tearing skin filled the room.

Enzo just stared.

There was something fundamentally wrong about it — not the act of eating, but the normalcy of it. It was the kind of dinner you’d share with coworkers, not warlords. 

Valmet ate her ramen in slow, perfect slurps.

Huebert gnawed at a drumstick, licking his fingers. “So anyway,” he said with his mouth half full, “Thursday. Message. Murder. Go on.”

Valmet gestured with her chopsticks, as if the interruption had never happened. “The message wasn’t signed. But I recognized the scent. You don’t forget someone who smells like rose water and wet leather.”

Enzo watched them. Watched the way they chewed. The way they didn’t talk with their mouths full — which somehow made it worse. There was etiquette here. A code. Something old and dangerous pretending to be polite.

Valmet looked at him. Not unkindly.

“You hungry?”

It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t anything.

And yet, something inside him recoiled.

He looked at the food. Perfectly ordinary. Steam rising. Meat juicy. Ramen soft, speckled with scallions and chili oil.

But the thought of eating it — of taking even one bite — filled him with an inexplicable horror.

He didn’t understand why.

Only that if he ate their food, he wouldn’t leave.

Not the room. Not this night. Not this version of himself.

He would be claimed.

So he shook his head. Slowly.

Valmet shrugged.

And kept eating.

They were almost finished eating when Enzo said it.

He hadn’t planned to. The words just slipped out — too tired to be wise, too curious to stay silent.

“I’ve read the sealed reports,” he said quietly. “From the Imperial archives. I know who your father was.”

Silence.

Huebert froze mid-chew, eyes flicking toward Valmet like someone watching a storm cloud form over open water.

Valmet didn’t react at first.

She set the chopsticks down gently.

Then, with surgical precision, she placed the half-eaten ramen cup on the table’s edge.

And let it fall.

It hit the carpet with a soft thump, broth seeping into the expensive rug.

Then, finally, she looked up at Enzo.

Her voice was quiet.

“Just like this ramen,” she said, “every story has a beginning... a middle... and an end.”

Enzo swallowed. Something was happening behind her eyes. Something old.

“But not always the ending you expect,” she continued, her tone flat. “There are no heroes in this tale. No villains, either.”

She leaned forward, just slightly. “Just the end of nothing.”

Pause.

“And the end of everything.”

Enzo felt like the floor was sliding sideways. The air in the room thickened. 

Huebert slammed his hand on the table. “Really? You dropped the ramen?! That was the good stuff!”

Valmet blinked once. “You can order more.”

“You don’t drop sacred chili-oil ramen! That’s an execution-level offense in some districts!”

“You have no districts,” Valmet replied, calmly.

“I had a mood, and now it’s ruined!”

They bickered — fast, fluid, absurd. Like a couple who’d argued over takeout a thousand times before, except one of them could vaporize a man with her stare and the other probably poisoned the last emperor’s tea just for fun.

Enzo sat between them, frozen. Mouth dry.

He wasn’t going to die by execution.

He was going to die by comedy.

And then leave this world in tragedy.

The argument wound down. Huebert picked up the ramen cup with two fingers and sighed dramatically.

“I would’ve eaten that.”

Valmet didn’t respond. She had already turned back to Enzo.

Just those glowing green eyes, watching him.

Enzo stood, slowly. “I think... I think I have what I need for today.”

Huebert tilted his head. “You sure? We were just about to start dessert.”

“Out the door,” Enzo murmured. “While I still can.”

He walked, not quite steadily, toward the exit.