By Lucius Brimstone In the soot-choked alleyways of Ash-Khalil, where the River Styx’s tributaries run black and the sky never quite remembers morning, a boy named Malak Emberbane turned sixteen beneath the red glare of ward-lamps and barbed sigils. He was taken in the witching hours of Slag-February by the Ember Guard of the Iron […]

By Lucius Brimstone In the soot-choked district of Brimjak, beneath the ever-wheezing smokestacks of the Abyssal Fleet Yard, a blast rattled the pews of the Ember Chapel at Ashmark Academy No. 72—an infernal state school tucked inside a naval helliron compound—sending students stampeding into the cinderstorm. Fifty-five fled with burns and glass-bitten skin; a handful

By Lucius Brimstone In a move only slightly less ironic than a snowball stand in the Ninth Circle, the Grand Cauldron of Ball-Kickers announced the birth of the Pax Inferna Prize, a shiny new laurel meant to honor “exceptional actions promoting peace” in a realm where keeping your neighbor’s screams down after midnight is considered

By Evelyn Ember Every Infernal October, when the lava ducts cool just enough to steam instead of scream, Grimhaven sheds its soot-black shawl and slips into something more scandalous: a riot of violet fireblossoms that drape the boulevards like spilled potions. The warden-seraphs say it’s a nuisance—petals clog the pitch gutters and demons skid theatrically

By Evelyn Ember In the ashen hush of Pandemonia’s early hours, the Obsidian Bell tolled for Viceroy Pike Chasm—an architect of executive overreach and master of smoke-veiled levers—claimed at 84 by pneumonia’s cold hand and a chorus of cracked arteries. Chasm, long hailed as the most influential Shadow Hand of a Hellish administration, leaves behind