It began with her blood.
Talia had always been the most devoted—Lucien's Saintess, his high priestess, his first conquest and most loyal vessel. Her body had sung the first hymns of blasphemy. Her lips had spoken the first reversed prayers.
Now, her flesh remembered.
And it changed.
It started as fever. Her body burned with more than lust. Her moans became agonized chants. Her skin rippled with unseen patterns, glowing red beneath the surface like molten sigils.
Lucien stood over her, intrigued.
"She's evolving," he whispered, voice tight with restrained hunger.
Priestesses gathered, afraid and awed.
Talia thrashed on the altar, back arching, nails raking deep into the obsidian stone. Her breaths came in hisses. Her eyes rolled back—then opened glowing.
Not with light.
With flame.
Her transformation came in waves. Her bones cracked, reformed. Her legs fused and split, like blooming flowers kissed by fire. Horns coiled from her temples—beautiful, spiraling, etched with forbidden script.
Her spine split open, revealing a second row of vertebrae formed of living, humming runes. Qi bled from her pores like incense.
Lucien stepped forward, cupping her face.
"Do you still know me?"
Talia smiled through bloodied lips.
"My Lord… I feel you in every cell."
She sat up, and wings burst from her back—not feathers, but tendrils of living flame shaped like hands in prayer.
Her voice deepened. Sweetened.
"I see now. I wasn't meant to remain human."
Lucien kissed her. Their energies pulsed.
"You were always more," he whispered.
In the days that followed, Talia changed the rites. She rewrote the scripture of the Temple with blood and flame. Her presence warped reality—mortals who looked at her too long wept and orgasmed in equal measure.
She no longer walked. She glided, suspended by heat and faith. Her tongue now split into two tips, each whispering a different verse simultaneously.
She gave sermons in moans. And every night, she offered herself to Lucien—not for pleasure, but as communion.
Through her, Lucien saw deeper into the void.
And something looked back.
A vision came to them both.
A throne—vast and black, floating in a sea of screaming stars. And atop it, not a god, but a bride. Talia, crowned in horn and fire, seated beside Lucien, her body half-human, half-divine, and entirely unnatural.
They saw worlds bowing, not from reverence, but because there was no other choice.
And beneath their feet: the corpses of gods.
Talia woke from the vision drenched in wet fire, her Qi a halo of corrupted fertility.
"I am not your Saintess anymore," she whispered.
Lucien smiled, tracing her new curves—her limbs now jointed like a dancer, yet sharp as blades.
"No," he agreed. "You are my Queen."
Thus was born the first Daemon Consort of the Furnace God.
Talia, flame-blooded, song-tongued, mother of temples, and future destroyer of heavens.
And the world would burn with her name.