I am not weak. I am not broken. Not anymore. And the last thing I will ever claim to be is a victim.
He will regret the fucking day he made me feel like one again.
I fight to keep my heart steady, my breath even, but the rage simmering beneath my skin makes it damn near impossible. Our rhythms are too closely matched—if mine slips, even slightly, they’ll feel it. Wake. Move. And I’ll lose the advantage before I’ve decided how best to kill these demons wrapped in divine Judgment.
So I stifle the rage as much as I can, and let the beast rioting inside me offer her solutions, while I mentally map out the location of my weapons.
I have to be swift. There can be no space for hesitation. Not when one misstep could cost me my life, which means there’s little room for error or mercy.
But this is my home, and that changes things.
I know every inch of the space it allows. Where the floorboards creak. Where shadows pool thickest. Where each piece of furniture sits like a familiar ally. I know where every weapon is stashed, the mortal ones and the immortal ones alike, blades forged for bloodshed and tools meant to end creatures who believe themselves untouchable.
The room is still washed in the eerie red glow, transformed by the ominous moon. The air shifts as a breeze slips inside from the window, cool and coaxing, tempting me once more toward it.
Toward flight.
No.
The forest offers no safety. No refuge. Orán holds dominion there, over root and branch, vine and leaf. I will not be bound to another tree.
Inside these walls, I can avoid nature for a little while. Buy myself some time before Orán bends the living world to his will and brings it crashing through stone and timber.
It’s Pollock I need to prepare for.
For his voice slipping into my thoughts, where his presence has no right to be. He will attempt to pry my mind open again, but I can’t let that happen.
Closing my eyes, I force myself to think and search for a way to keep him out.
Pollock used my past to anchor me to this form and bring me back. Could I somehow do the same? Use a strong memory to ground me in the present, or keep it walled up in my mind so it’s the only one he sees?
Like the lessons with the Horsemen in the training yard, I could treat this as an opportunity to adapt and learn.
Pollock stirs.
My time has run out.
I vault over Orán, feel his hand catch briefly in the thin fabric of my nightgown, but I don’t let it slow me. The cloth tears down the seam as I wrench free, baring skin and fury alike, and I sprint down the hall.
“Eri, wait?—!”
I’m already gone—feet slamming against the floor, blood roaring in my ears. I bring down the hallway table as I go and let it and all that rests upon it crash behind me. I burst into the front room where there’s space to move, to fight, to finish this.
Footfalls thunder behind me.
I upend the couch with a grunt, muscles burning as I flip it onto its back. My hand dives beneath the frame and rips the Velcro harness strapped to its underside free. Twin daggers slide into my palms. The power in them sings the moment my hands circle the handles. The metal blooms with pale, unforgiving light as runes flare to life along the fuller as dormant divinity wakes.
A weapon capable of killing divine beings, and my house is full of them.
“Eliora.”
Orán reaches the threshold first—and stops cold.
I face him naked and armed, my stance low and lethal, blades held loose and at the ready. Whatever he sees in my expression makes him still. Makes him understand. I am no longer his dear Eliora, if I ever was.
“Call me that again, Horseman,” I say quietly, “and I will gut you from spleen to neck.”
The front door slams open.
