'Azryth's version was different.'
He stood in his throne room.
Not a memory of it, not a vision of it, the actual room, high ceilings and dark stone and the particular quality of light that came from infernal sources, warm and amber and faintly restless. The court was in session, his court, reorganized and loyal, every position filled with someone who owed their standing to him specifically.
'He had reclaimed it.'
Not through a mortal binding or an unprecedented merger or any of the chaos that had no place in infernal politics. Through patience and alliance and the kind of long strategic thinking that demons who lived long enough either developed or died without. Decades of careful work from inside the amulet's constraints, building influence through intermediaries, waiting for the precise moment.
The moment had come, and he had taken it.
Veyrith was gone, the throne was his, the power was his, everything stolen had been returned with interest.
