Shubh, clad in black tendrils, her void-kissed wings folded behind her back, expected rot. Corruption. Decay.
Instead, she found...
Peace.
Demon children napped in sunlit fields. Citizens strolled slowly, some reading, others sipping wine or honeyed tea, laughter soft and unforced. Shops were open—but no one shouted. There were no taxes. No guards marching in power-drunk lines. Just... calm.
And then she met the governor.
Not a demon lord, but a former scholar named Malrik, a Tier IV demon who greeted her with a kind smile.
"You came to kill Lady Soma, didn't you?"
Shubh tilted her head, suspicious. "Where is she?"
Malrik chuckled. "Asleep, of course."
Shubh's eyes narrowed.
He gestured toward a large, floating shell-shaped palace drifting gently over a lake. "Hasn't left her chambers in three years. Occasionally dreams something wise, and we write it down. But mostly… she naps. Her dream aura keeps the city calm. You can try waking her."
Inside the Palace of Dreams
