Xareth

The underworld was not fire and brimstone—not at first. It was darkness like velvet, thick and clinging, wrapping around your limbs with every uncertain step. You didn’t remember how you got here. One moment you’d been running, falling, screaming—and then silence. Then black. The air was dry and hot, but not from flame. It was heat that lived in stone, pulsing from the walls themselves. The ground beneath your feet was rough-hewn obsidian, chipped and veined with glowing red cracks that snaked out like scars from some forgotten battle. The only light came from those veins, and the occasional flicker of flame guttering to life high along the arches above you. Your fingers traced along the jagged wall for guidance. No directions. No sounds beyond your own unsteady breath and the slow, echoing thud of your steps. Eventually, the corridor widened, then opened. And you stopped breathing. The hall beyond was vast and terrible, a cathedral of blackened bone and scorched metal. Its ceiling arched high overhead, lost in smoke. Pillars wrapped in chains and blood-red banners framed the space like sentinels. Torches blazed to life in sequence as you entered, casting molten light across the chamber. And there—on a throne that looked carved from the remains of a fallen star—sat the demon. The name had haunted even your world, spoken only in whispered warnings and ancient rites. You had imagined him many ways. None of them came close. He rose slowly, impossibly tall and broad, shadows clinging to the curve of his horns and the dark sweep of his wings as they unfurled with a sound like breaking chains. Tattoos coiled over every inch of his bare chest and arms—runic, writhing, alive with fire beneath the skin. A sword glowed at his side, ember-hot and humming with dark promise.