The doors finally burst inwards with a splintering crash, and the four survivors pushed into the room. In the lead was the Captain in Crimson, her oversized plate armor leaving her puffing for breath. The other three figures followed her, two of her own Crimson Guard along with the mercenary in black. He followed the other two lazily, weapon not even drawn, scratching at a rashy patch across his cheek as his eyes flicked over the throne room.

Time seemed to slow for the mercenary, as it always did when his soul had felt some lethal danger or another while his mind still tried to catch up. The scene in front of him was the most gruesome he had seen in this long day of butchery and betrayal. Before his eyes could trail the long Crimson Carpet that led across the palatial throne room up to the towering throne itself, he had already noticed far more red than the (admittedly short lived) visits before.

It's as though the whole room is awash in the royal colors, even the floor is...

As the woman advanced down the carpet, eyes down and observing Imperial deference even as she no doubt planned deliver some speech absolving herself of her planned treason, the mercenary was already moving. Five, six, seven steps forward and he caught her and yanked her backwards hard enough to make her lead foot kick comically into the air. The two guardsmen didn't even try to stop him, their long training impossible to break as they kept their eyes down on the floor.

They don’t see, they don't understand. This was a terrible mistake.

"How dare you-" she started, but now her gaze had been pulled up to see what he already had. The floor was covered in two inches of blood, her steps were closer to wading through a latrine of gore than treading the Crimson Carpet. Still, this wasn’t what had made him pull her back.

Where there ought to have been a single, thin, treacherous and winding path of plush crimson carpet barely wide enough for one foot to follow another winding through immaculate white sand, there was instead a congealing pool of sludge that rippled dully with each step. Floating in it, perfectly spaced throughout the massive room, were thirteen corpses laid face down with a single arm each outstretched. The mercenary had already realized who they were before he ever grabbed the woman, of course. They were the Conclave, marked easily by their robes even now as they laid soaking in blood. The thirteen magisters that had bankrupted the entire Empire with first their training, then their endless need for "research" and the importing of "historical artifacts". Absurdly, each of them had a single card from the Deck of Souls floating in the blood in front of their hand, as though the group had drunkenly passed out in the middle of late-night gambling at the tavern.

Those corpses weren't the reason he had dared to lay hands on the Captain in Crimson, a crime punishable by death under ancient law.

"Run, you stupid bitch." He hissed into her helmet, shoving her back behind him and into the arms of the two guards.

The Emperor's corpse was at the foot of the Imperial steps, those that led to the throne itself.

One step for each of the Conquests, each flat platform between the steps marking a great peace, each carved of marble. Those that approach reveal themselves in first how many steps in the sand they leave beside the Carpet, and next how long they take to climb the stairs, and on which peace and conquest they linger. A man that knows his history can flatter those upon the throne by choosing where to stop and speak from or impress with their subtlety even by which steps they tread upon and which they set foot upon.

The mercenary remembered this suddenly, spoken in a forgotten tutor's voice, although he had never cared at all about the deep symbolism and impenetrably archaic social rules of the Imperial Court. That tutor had been one of the most expensive and least useful investments the mercenary had ever made, even worse than hiring the whore with three tits. When he had finally done a great deed worthy of Imperial attention, the man upon the throne was already a gibbering lunatic more interested in the "arcane mysteries" than the battles being fought in his name across his collapsing empire. Worse, the whore with three tits was in actuality just a whore with two tits, one of which had two nipples.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Everything in my life, a disappointment. He laughed to himself, softly. Desperately. Hysterically.

The steps had bloody, bare footprints upon them. Every platform, no matter how large, was still pristinely white.

I've gone mad. The mercenary realized this with a sort of calm detachment, not at all matching his usual irreverent (if self-proclaimed) charm. Behind him, he heard the screech of poorly fitting plate armor grinding against itself as the woman stood, but she was mercifully silent for the first time since all those months ago, right after her appointment, when she had first approached him in order to "discuss the future".

The Emperor's corpse was not why he had interposed himself between the girl and the throne.

After all, wasn't this exactly what they had planned? Sure, they had intended more of a graceful, dignified exit for the mad old fuck. After all, they had wanted to preserve the divine history of the office, to perfectly balance both the demands of propriety and those of the riotous citizens now carrying out their "second siege". Second siege, because as the citizens of the great Imperial City surrounded the palace, the city itself was of course surrounded by the barbarian horde.

I've gone mad, and no amount of delaying will stop me from having to confront it.

Atop the throne sat something. Every instinct the mercenary had developed over years of blood in battle, years of intrigue at court, even the years he had spent as a whore's son on the streets of the capitol, screamed not to even look at it, let alone let it speak to him. The thing was wearing the skin of an unremarkable man, perhaps in his early to mid-twenties. From his seat on the throne far above, his features were difficult to make out beneath the gore that covered his skin. His posture, however, was clear. He sat with one leg crossed over the other. His elbows rested on the arms of the throne, leaving bloody smears on the white silk. One hand was pressed against his cheek, his head lazily tilted against it, while the other held an ornate dagger with so little care that the tip dangled towards the floor.

The thing was nude, aside from the blood it wore like a second skin.

"I don't understand." The woman's voice came from behind him, and she sounded like the girl she really was. Tired, broken, overwhelmed. Not a war leader, schemer, or politician. Just a teenage girl who had been given an ancient title to mock and spite and belittle the great men of the city. Just a girl who had desperately wanted her father to at least notice her, if not love her.

The thing on the throne was watching her hungrily, leaning forward as though to speak, and the mercenary felt his body fill with the cold rush of ice water. The same feeling as when he saw an arrow flying towards him, or a blade slip past his guard. He didn't have time to question why he was protecting her, this girl that had paid him to organize the betrayal of her own father, betray the divinely blessed Child of the Sun, the anointed Emperor of the civilized world. It was something native to every man, maybe, to protect a woman from the things that lurked in the dark.

Before the creature could speak to her, the mercenary spoke first. If he had wanted to intimidate, or beg for mercy, or mock the creature and himself and the sort of sick world that allowed this to happen... all of that failed him. Instead, he could only rasp out the question that had been pounding in his head since he had entered the room and seen the lounging monster, this thing pretending to be a human being.

"What are you?" He rasped out, his throat raw. For some reason, instinctual maybe, he asked it in the Old Tongue. The Tongue of Demons. The language he had learned only out of rebellious spite after the Emperor snubbed him instead of granting him a Triumph. The language it was death to be accused of speaking.

The creature wearing the flesh of a man leaned back, clasping its hands together over its lap with the dagger pointed lazily outwards like an obscene, bloody mockery of an erection. A long silence filled the air. Its mouth slowly twitched into something like an echo of a smile. Even that twitching expression didn't reach its eyes. The thing answered back in the same tongue that the question had been asked in.

“I am the only angel that comes when man calls its name.”

The mercenary turned and ran, pushing the girl over as he sprinted to the splintered door.

Then, the creature moved.