Chapter 29 Solis
The grand hall had fallen into an unnatural hush. Every noble, every servant, every guest had turned their attention to the center table where Darius now sat beside the woman of extraordinary beauty.
Solis regarded him with calm, sorrowful eyes that seemed to contain vast empty horizons. She glanced once at Mara and Veth, who had moved closer to the table.
"Plague," she said softly, a faint elegant smile touching her lips. "And War. How very curious. The first two have already chosen to walk beside you."
Mara inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment. Veth crossed her massive arms, studying Solis with open curiosity but no immediate hostility.
Solis turned her full, graceful attention back to Darius. "And you... the man who ended Veth’s beloved sixty-year war with nothing but paper, words, and quiet persistence. How wonderfully unexpected you are."
Darius studied her in return, taking in every detail. "You already know who we are."
"Of course," Solis replied, her voice smooth and melodic like aged wine. "I have watched from afar. The entire continent trembles with stories of the man who collects Calamities not as weapons or slaves, but as... companions." She tilted her head with refined elegance. "Tell me, Darius Valeborn. What burning ambition drives you that makes two such dangerous beings follow you so willingly?"
Veth snorted from behind him. "He talks too much. That is his only real power."
Solis smiled faintly, but her eyes never left Darius. "I doubt it is quite that simple. So? Ambition? Do you secretly seek to rule the very empires that once discarded you like broken glass?"
"No," Darius answered honestly. "Ruling them would only mean becoming what they already are."
Solis’s elegant eyebrows rose with genuine interest. "Then loneliness? A man seeking connection after seven long years of exile and rejection?"
"I have known loneliness well," Darius said. "But I am not here because I fear it."
The nobles around them had grown strangely quiet. Their forced laughter had faded. Their movements became slower, more mechanical. Even the servants moved as if the air itself had grown heavier around Solis.
Solis leaned forward slightly, composed and graceful. "Purpose, then. You wish to be remembered as the one who dared challenge the gods themselves?"
Darius shook his head. "Purpose is a word people use when they need justification for their actions. I simply want the corrupt system that created you…that cursed my bloodline…to stop existing in its current form."
Solis’s eyes sparkled with deepening fascination. "Desire, at least? Power. Pleasure. Immortality. Every man wants something for himself in the end."
"I want to finish what I started," Darius replied steadily. "Seven marriages. Then we see what comes after. Nothing more. Nothing less."
A long, weighted silence stretched between them. Around the grand table, the nobles continued forcing food into their mouths, but their expressions had grown distant and vacant. Even Veth had grown unusually quiet, poking at her plate with noticeably less enthusiasm than before. The oppressive atmosphere of Solis’s presence was beginning to affect everyone.
Solis studied him like a complex, unsolvable puzzle. "You do not want worship. You do not crave immortality. You reject conquest and simple pleasure. I cannot easily categorize you, Darius Valeborn. That is... incredibly rare."
Mara watched the exchange with intense focus. Veth shifted restlessly in her seat but remained silent, the usual fire in her eyes dimmed slightly by the heavy emotional emptiness filling the hall.
Darius offered a small, tired smile. "Maybe I am not meant to fit neatly into any single category. Not weak enough to discard. Not ambitious enough to fear. Not mad enough to dismiss."
Solis laughed softly, a sound like wind moving through empty, forgotten halls. "You answer with honesty wrapped carefully in restraint. Most men lie when I ask such questions. Or they posture dramatically. You simply... speak."
She reached out with delicate fingers and finally picked up a single grape from the plate in front of her. She held it for a long moment, then set it back down without eating.
"The longer people remain near me," she said quietly, almost sadly, "the more empty they become inside. Yet you sit here, largely unaffected. That is quite intriguing."
Veth muttered under her breath, "This place is making me restless in the worst way."
Mara remained completely silent, but her gaze never wavered from Solis.
Darius leaned slightly closer to the Famine Incarnate. "You carry a deep hunger yourself. Not for food. For something far more meaningful."
Solis’s expression softened, the sorrow in her eyes deepening into something almost vulnerable. She leaned toward him, her voice barely above a whisper, intimate and direct.
“Tell me something honestly.”
A pause.
“What are you starving for?”
The entire hall seemed to hold its breath. Even the air itself felt heavier, waiting for his answer. The nobles had stopped eating entirely. Veth and Mara watched with rapt attention.
Solis’s beautiful, sorrowful eyes remained locked on his, waiting.