I was the storm.
And her voice—the one buried deep inside for so long—rose up, speaking through mine.
Ancient.
Righteous.
Unshakable.
“You have damaged this world for the last time, Vael.”
His smile cracked—finally,finally—splintering into something desperate.
I raised my hand.
And this time, there was no mercy.
Onlyjudgment.
“Ihonouredyou,” he screamed, staggering to his knees. “Iprotectedyou! Do you even know what Isacrificed?”
His voice was shrill now.
Panicked.
Drenched in the kind of madness that believes obsession is love.
I looked down at him—this man who had caged me, broken me, claimed me.
And I opened my mouth.
Blazing black flames erupted from within my chest.
Not fire—shadowfire.
It howled as it left me, shrieking through the air, alive with fury and ancient wrath. It struck Vael like divine retribution, devouring him whole.
The shadows hit him like a tidal wave.
He screamed as they tore through him—black tendrils punching into his skin, dragging through flesh like it was wet parchment. Veins ruptured. Muscle peeled. His body convulsed, twitching against the marble as the magic devoured him from the inside out.
My shadows pierced his mouth, his eyes, his ribs—splitting him open in ribbons of meat and magic. His bodybrokein stages: the sternum cracked, his spine arched unnaturally. The blood came in bursts. Dark. Steaming. Until even that couldn’t hide the poison inside.
And still—he crawled.
Scraping forward on shattered limbs. Bones jutted like knives from his elbows. His jaw hung open, dislocated. “Elira,” he rasped. “You were mine…”
His screams were terrible.
They echoed across the altar, the walls, the sky.
But I didn’t flinch.
The shadows stripped flesh from bone.
They swallowed his lightning, his pride, his twisted hunger.
And when they were done, there wasnothingleft.
