The silence that followed was almost more damning than the statement itself. Sir Niklaus Niemend, oldest member of the king’s guard stood straight backed across from his new king. He had spoken truthfully and would not back down now. Nor would he break eye contact. A man could not afford to look weak when dealing with a predator, and if the horned behemoth across from him was anything, it was certainly a predator.

“You!”, King Char the Bloodfather hissed through clenched teeth. His perfect, pearlescent white teeth shone through his blackened lips. They were a dam struggling to hold back the venom and vitriol building on the other side. A smile specifically crafted to hide the danger lurking beneath. The anger brewing in his ruby red eyes burned with the intensity of a primordial flame, “You dare?”

The demon had asked for Niklaus’s opinion, and Niklaus, always a gambling man, had taken a chance. He was hoping that Char knew better than to punish men for honesty.

“Of course I dare. You want to be the greatest ruler these people have ever had do you not? Beloved and feared in equal measure?” Niklaus waited for Char to nod before continuing. He barely received a shrug from the large demon, but pushed forward anyway, “Then it is important to know where your power comes from. It’s not their love, nor their fear. It’s the number of sick and hungry. You bear the burden of keeping them healthy and well fed. Fail that duty, and it does not matter how loved you are, how feared you are, those people will rebel. Your crown is forged from bone and burden and hunger and pain.”

“You think I fear a rebellion from those huddled, squabbling masses? I will crush them just as I crushed your meager armies!” Char spat to the side while puffing out his bare chest. His red skin caught the light from the fires burning around him and reflected it back, giving the nearly empty throne room around him an even more sinister glow. “Just as I crushed you and your pathetic band of kings guard.” He raised his hellish sword up to Niklaus’s neck. The twisted, triangular blade was longer than a man was tall, barbed and wicked, designed not just to kill but to cause suffering in those it left alive.

Niklaus ignored the blade and the smug look on Char’s face and faught off the urge to hold his wounded side. He knew it was bleeding badly, but barely felt the wound anymore. That was a bad sign. But then again, so was the blade at his throat. So he swallowed his fear and took another gamble. “True, but then you will just be the king of a pile of corpses. A rather large pile of corpses I’ll admit, but a rather sad kingdom indeed. And a terrible start to an empire if you ask me.”

It was that last morsel that finally gave the infernal conqueror pause. He lowered his sword and turned abruptly towards the throne, striding across the room where he picked up the charred corpse of King Ferdinand IV with a single meaty hand. He discarded the old ruler like trash into the wind, tossing him across the room with ease. He sat upon his new throne and turned back to Niklaus, a newfound hunger glinting within his eyes.

It was quite possibly the hardest thing Niklaus had ever done to force his face to show nothing, to remain a mask of indifference, to not twist with the insurmountable disgust swelling within him. He avoided looking at the old king or the other corpses around him. Instead, he locked eyes with the tyrant before him and continued to stand tall. He had no hope of defeating Char in battle, but maybe he could still save his people. One wounded, dying man against an otherworldly threat. Not great odds, admittedly.

“An empire? Go on.” The Bloodfather spoke with all the authority of hammer striking anvil, he left no room for questioning. This was a creature accustomed to being obeyed.

“You are, quite possibly, the greatest conquerer our people have ever faced. You didn’t just lay seige to our city, you destoyed our walls. You broke the Unbreakable City of Kas.” Niklaus was betting that Char was as vain as he was formidable, and took the budding smile on his face as the sign of a hand well played. “But can you build a better one in its place? Are you and yours more than just destoyers?”

“We,” the demon spoke after a period of contemplation, “rarely are.”

“I thought as much,” Niklaus continued. “You have an opportunity here to turn our great city into the center of your great empire. Rule the people here the right way and they’ll follow you. We are a proud people, probably too proud, and if you try to squash us into submission we’ll resist. Leave some of the old power in place though, a familiar face as your right hand man perhaps, and the people won’t feel as downtrodden. If you leave us the room to grow along side you, then you’ll have more than just a foothold in our realm. You’ll have the birthplace of The Bloodfather’s Empire. Our Unbreakable City and your Unbreakable Army.”

“My Unbreakable City,” Char said matter-of-factly. His voice somehow a mix of honey and gravel. His face a mask.

“Of course, Your Majesty, I misspoke,” Niklaus said the words as if they didn’t break his heart to speak aloud.

“You play a dangerous game,” the tyrant spoke with a sly grin upon his face, as if he finally understood the man in front of him, “You’d really gamble their lives to save your own?”

“What can I say, maybe the two of us aren’t so different.”

Char paused for what felt like an eternity to Niklaus, “Perhaps not.”

Another pause.

Another eternity.

Finally, the demon king spoke, “Fine. I will let you live, but you will help me rule this city. You will help me build an empire. If not, I will lay waste to this city and all the others. And I will make you watch while I drive your kind to extinction before ending you myself.”

And there it was, the last gamble Niklaus thought he’d ever take had paid off. He’d given his people a chance. Char the Bloodfather had it backwards, because of course he did. The idea of self sacrifice was so alien to him, it had never occurred to him that Niklaus was actually betting his life, his _soul, _to save his people.

The surrounding world may suffer, but his people would thrive, and that was a win in his books.

“I accept.”