RAVEN'S GAMBIT

Keraptis sat in silence, the air around him dense with latent power. His scrying pool rippled with afterimages of fire and shadow. Zahur the Flame-Sworn had been tended to and dismissed, his wounds scabbed by flame and soot. Now, only the crackle of arcane wards and the slow ticking of time remained.

The chamber was not of this world—a fold between reality and the arcane. Glyphs pulsed along every surface. Keraptis stood slowly and approached the blackened altar in the center, placing his hand over an obsidian relic.

"Come, Raven," he whispered. "Let us parley."

The name alone summoned a breeze of divine consequence. Shadows bent. Light flickered. And then he appeared.

Raven materialized in a swirl of violet smoke and moonlight, a figure draped in midnight-blue robes, his eyes like wells of starlight.

"You speak my name with too much confidence for one who trespasses so deeply in fate," Raven said.

Keraptis smiled. "And you arrive with too much arrogance for one who interferes so brazenly in mortal affairs."

Raven walked slowly, appraising the wizard. "You ask for an audience. You seek civility. Do not waste it on insolence."

Keraptis chuckled, though his eyes did not. "It’s not civility I seek, godling. It’s clarity."

Raven raised a brow. "Ask your question."

Keraptis leaned against the altar, hands folded. "Why them? Why do you meddle with these mortals, these gamblers of fate, these fools clawing at tombstones and myth?"

Raven smiled faintly. "Because they matter."

Keraptis's lip curled. "They are insects. They crawl through my tomb. They steal my relics."

"They resist your tyranny."

Keraptis's voice dropped to a growl. "They are nothing."

Raven shrugged. "You seem concerned for someone who thinks so little of them."

The tension sparked, subtle and creeping, like ozone before a storm. Keraptis stepped forward, his power coiling invisibly in the air.

"Perhaps I'm curious," Keraptis said. "Or perhaps I wish to understand why a god wastes power on pawns."

Raven stepped toward him. "Because power without purpose is just noise."

Keraptis's hands clenched. "And what is your purpose, Raven? To raise heroes like sheep for slaughter? To watch them fail? Die?"

"To give them a chance," Raven said, voice a razor's edge.

"You dare," Keraptis hissed, eyes glowing, "to dictate purpose to me in my sanctum?"

"You invited me here."

"To answer, not to mock me."

Raven's wings flared faintly, though he hadn’t moved. "Then ask yourself why you seethe. If they were meaningless, you would not be trembling."

Keraptis sneered. "Do gods tremble, then? Shall I test the strength of your words, divine one?"

Raven paused.

"Do not provoke me, wizard."

Keraptis grinned.

"But isn’t that what you want? Permission? I wonder, Raven… if I make you strike first… what happens next?"

The air cracked like thin glass.

Raven’s hand rose, palm outward.

Keraptis whispered, "Go on."

And Raven struck.

A single bolt of astral force—radiant and pure—lanced toward Keraptis like a comet.

The moment Raven’s hand struck Keraptis’s face, time itself seemed to hesitate. The impact was light—ceremonial, even—but its implications cracked like thunder through the ether. A low hum pulsed through the Citadel and far beyond, a resonance of broken covenants. The ancient accord of the gods—no direct assault on mortals—had been violated.

Raven stepped back, wings twitching, his expression betraying immediate regret. “You smug son of a—” he started.

Keraptis didn’t let him finish.

Arcane glyphs flared across the tiled floor, bursting into chains of light that erupted upward and wrapped around the god’s limbs like serpents. Symbols carved into the air itself ignited in a furious blue blaze, and Raven's feet were suddenly rooted, his wings shackled mid-motion.

“Ah,” Keraptis sneered, lifting one glowing hand to stroke the air in mock reverence. “There it is. The moment I’ve waited for. You gods always think you’re above your own laws. But all I needed was a nudge.”

Raven tried to pull free, but something was wrong—he felt it instantly. The rules of divine engagement were not just social contracts—they were cosmic. And in breaking them, he had invited consequence. His strength faltered, his feathers dimmed to ash-gray, and his senses reeled.

“Your power… diluted,” Keraptis observed, circling him like a vulture admiring its catch. “You’re not banished, not yet. But this momentary lapse… has made you vulnerable.”

Raven’s breathing grew shallow. He shifted, wincing. “I’m still a god,” he spat.

Keraptis smiled coldly. “Yes. But now? A god in chains.”

With a flick of his fingers, shimmering runes danced from Keraptis’s cloak and coiled into the restraints. The manacles seared into Raven’s wrists and ankles. One locked around his throat, pulsing with black-red flame—a collar of silencing. Only faint wheezing laughter escaped the god’s lips.

“I can’t kill you,” Keraptis said. “Yet. But bind you?” His eyes narrowed. “Oh yes. And I will learn everything I wish to know.”

The chamber shifted as he spoke. Columns of light vanished. Walls pulled inward like a collapsing ribcage. They stood now in a prison forged of half-thoughts and fractured time, a divine oubliette no mortal could even perceive—a cell made to contain the infinite.

Keraptis walked closer, eyes gleaming with zealous triumph. “Why them, Raven? Why these pitiful mortals? Why shield them? Whisper to them? Favor them?”

Raven’s smile returned, blood pooling at the corners of his mouth. “Because they’ll end you.”

Keraptis’s hand shot out. Lightning, cold and sharp as needles, leapt from his palm and carved into Raven’s side. The god arched but did not scream. Instead, he laughed harder.

“They’re nothing,” Keraptis hissed. “They squabble and stumble through my traps like blind mice. I’ve watched them beg, bleed, and fail. You think they are your champions?”

“Not think,” Raven croaked. “Know.”

With a growl of frustration, Keraptis summoned a burning sigil that slammed into the back wall of the cell, shaping a viewing portal. “Then watch them die,” he said. “Watch them lose heart. Watch them fall.”

Raven’s gaze locked onto the vision. He saw his chosen—Tessa, Bran, Sir Cedric, Elric, Lira, Thog, Theron, Elowyn, Thalia, and the others—stumbling through the tomb’s foul depths. Faces drawn. Morale thin.

“They are not gods,” Keraptis said, “but I will see to it that they die like insects.”

Raven, though bound and beaten, only laughed harder.

“You always did talk too much,” he whispered.

TO BE CONTINUED...