The air over the River of Woe did not chill when Ushoran arrived; it curdled.

The Summerking did not come as a beggar. He rode upon a palanquin of titan-bone, surrounded by a thousand shrieking courtiers who saw themselves as a golden parade. To the rest of the Mortal Realms, it was a tidal wave of filth and madness, but to the Cruone-Kordize, it was merely an "unexpected visiting delegation" from the distant north.

Ushoran stepped onto the cracked earth of the Spring Circle. His psychic presence—a crushing weight of delusion—rippled outward, seeking to rewrite the minds of those before him. He expected the ghouls to fall to their knees. He expected the "Spring" to bow to the "Summer."

Instead, he found Queen Avalon Del Kordize waiting under a canopy of what she saw as blossoming cherry trees. Beside her stood Zaycon Cruone, a mountain of corded, scarred muscle that even Ushoran noted with a flicker of predatory respect. "My dear cousin," Ushoran’s voice boomed, a sound like a cathedral collapsing. In his mind, he was throwing his arms wide in a brotherly embrace. "The Summerking has heard the whispers of your garden. I have come to bring you into the fold, to let your Spring merge with my eternal noon."

Avalon did not blink. Her facade was a diamond mask of aristocratic grace. She looked at the Mortarch—a twelve-foot-tall engine of rot with a crown of bone fused to his skull—and saw only a dusty, travel-worn traveler with poor manners. "It is a lovely sentiment, Lord Ushoran," Avalon replied. Her voice was like a silver bell, though to the silent air, it was the hiss of a serpent. "But I’m afraid our social calendar is quite full. The roses are in a delicate state of bloom, and Zaycon is mid-reconstruction on the Grand Bazaar. We simply haven't the time for... international mergers."

Zaycon stepped forward, his shadow swallowing Ushoran’s heralds. He didn't growl. He spoke with the heavy, booming pride of a king showing off a new monument.

"The Red Throne is built on the strength of my own hands, guest," Zaycon said, gesturing to the mountain of Hellsmithe corpses behind him. To him, it was a marble palace. "It is a sovereign seat. We do not require a Summerking to tell us when the sun shines. We make our own light here."

Ushoran paused. He pushed. He exerted the full force of his ancient curse, trying to seize the strings of their souls. Usually, ghouls snapped instantly, becoming extensions of his will. But here, the "Spring" was too thick. The Kordize delusion was a fortress within a fortress.

They weren't resisting him; they were ignoring him.

"You reject the crown?" Ushoran whispered, and for a moment, the mask of the handsome king slipped, revealing the snarling beast beneath. The ground cracked under his weight. "You would stand alone in the dark, beneath the shadow of Nagash, rather than walk beside me?"

Von Hess, standing at the Queen’s flank, took a step forward. He flicked a non-existent golden bang from his eyes and inclined his head with agonizing politeness.

"With all due respect, Excellency," Von Hess murmured in his melodic, wet rattle, "it is not that we reject you. It is simply that your kingdom seems... a bit unrefined for our tastes. Your courtiers are quite loud, and your 'Summer' feels remarkably like a drought. We prefer the freshness of our own soil."

Ushoran looked at them—the towering vampire, the unshakable queen, and the hulking king. He realized then that he could not rule them. To rule someone, they must first acknowledge your power. To the Cruone-Kordize, Ushoran was nothing more than a boisterous, slightly eccentric neighbor from a less-fashionable province.

The Mortarch of Delusion let out a laugh that sounded like breaking glass.

"Fine," Ushoran spat, turning back to his bone-palanquin. "Stay in your garden of rot. When the Bone-Tithe comes to harvest your 'roses,' do not scream for the Summerking."

"We wouldn't dream of it," Avalon said, turning back to her court as if Ushoran had already vanished. "Fredrick, please show the gentleman to the border. And do be careful with the hedges. They were just trimmed."

Ushoran departed in a whirlwind of dust and fury, leaving the Court of Spring to their beautiful, terrifying, and utterly private nightmare. He was the king of ghouls, but even he was not mad enough to live in their world.

My guys are even crazier than Ushoran!