Across the chamber, Thorrin drives claws through Saulo's chest—quick mercy for creature who'd suffered enough. The castrated dark elf dies with something approaching gratitude, finally released from existence that served no purpose except demonstrating his mistress's cruelty.
Malakor and Kaerith continue their brutal dance until rage finally succumbs to calculated violence. Kaerith's claws find the perfect angle, tearing through ribs to still the heart beneath. Malakor drops to his knees, choking on blood, then falls forward onto skulls that once crowned other failed kings.
Dead. All three of them.
The throne room stinks of blood, sex and voided bowels. Kaerith settles into the bone seat, panting heavily as crimson drips from his wounds onto skulls below. He looks like demon crowned in hell, ruling over graveyard of everyone who chose differently.
I stare at the woman I killed, waiting for horror to hit me. For guilt or revulsion or any human response to taking life. Butthere's nothing. Just satisfaction at task completed, like cleaning blood from cave floor or disposing of bones in ravine.
That absence of feeling terrifies me more than any nightmare could.
Because looking at Beda's corpse, I don't see murder victim. I see proof that I've learned Elira's lessons about what love actually costs when the world offers no alternatives to becoming what survival requires.
The old Lyssa died in this throne room alongside creatures who chose inferior approaches to necessary evolution.
What remains is something new. Something that can kill efficiently while feeling nothing but professional satisfaction at work well done.
And the most frightening realization of all is understanding that this feels right.
Like coming home to who I was always meant to be.
