Page 105 of She Who Holds My Wrath

The Void recoils inside me, hissing in sharp displeasure at my refusal to bend to it. The sound rakes through my skull, pushing, furious, pressing hard against every weak place it can find.

My knees nearly buckle as I force myself upright. Every muscle trembles with the effort, my body feeling split between what I want, and what it hungers for. But slowly, stubbornly, I straighten my spine.

I don’t know how to rip it out of me yet. I don’t know how to master it, silence it, cage it before it cages me. But I know one thing with absolute certainty: it will not use her. It will not turn Daisy into leverage, into prey, into some prize to be guarded and devoured. Not while there is breath left in me. Not ever.

I crack my neck, trying to ease the crushing pressure settling across my shoulders and down my spine. The walls of the training hall bear the marks of what I nearly became. Before I can finish destroying the rest of it, along with myself, I turn and force myself out.

The corridors feel longer on the way back. Every step closer to our chambers makes my chest tighten. I don’t know what I’ll find when I open that door. I don’t know if she’ll be asleep, or crying, or sitting there waiting for me with questions I don’t have answers to.

When I finally push the door open, the room is empty. The bed untouched and cold. Panic flares again, sharp and suffocating, The Void instantly reacting. I reach for the bond without thinking, following it like a lifeline. She’s still with him. I feel his presence threaded with shadows and irritation. Maelkar.

My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache. Every instinct in me screams to go to her. To find her, touch her, make sure she’s real and still within reach. But I can’t. Not yet.

The Void gnaws at that instinct, twisting it into something uglier. It begs for destruction—for shattered doors, broken walls, blood on my hands, anything loud enough to drown out the pain and satiate its desires. It wants me moving, raging, taking. Ignoring it feels like trying to hold back a flood with bare hands.

Instead, I force myself to sit heavily on the edge of the bed we shared only hours ago. The mattress dips beneath my weight, still carrying the faint warmth and scent of her, which nearly undoes me. Bracing my elbows on my knees, I force myself to try and breathe through the ache tearing my chest apart. Each inhale feels jagged, each exhale stolen.

Three months. Three months of watching her suffer. Of her dying without actually dying. Of me being remade into something that might not fit beside her anymore.

I fought so hard once to overcome my fear of love. All my life, I was taught love was weakness. A leash. A flaw to be exploited. Kings who loved were buried by it. Men who cared were made to kneel. I learned early that darkness survives by needing no one. Then she arrived and ruined every lesson I had ever bled for.

Somehow, impossibly, I loved her. And even worse, I let myself be loved in return. And now that very love has become the easier wound for the monster inside me to claw open. The Void senses it. Hungers for it. Knows she is the softest place in me, and digs into it without mercy.

I never fit her. She was the sun and warmth and stubborn, radiant light. I was death, shadow, ruin given flesh. We should have burned each other alive. Instead, it worked. Against reason, against nature, against every law the gods ever tried to impose. The universe had blessed me with her as my mate—perhaps as repayment for every torment I had endured before her. A mercy I had never expected to receive. And now I am right back at the beginning. Standing in the dark, wondering how something like me could ever remain beside something like her.

I don’t know how to be her husband now. I don’t know how to be anything but a weapon filled with destructible rage. For the first time since Velentha dragged me back from The Void, the thought that terrifies me most isn’t the war. It’s the possibility that I came back too broken to deserve her at all.

Chapter 37

DAISY

The next morning doesn’t feel normal at all.

There is no softness. No sense of rest or renewal. Only the dull, relentless need to keep moving before my thoughts can catch up to me. The indoor training ring reeks of scorched stone, iron, and sweat by the time Maelkar finally lowers his sword and tells me to take a breather.

I shake my head immediately. If I stop, I’ll think. If I think, I’ll remember the look on Korithax’s face. The way Maelkar’s throat sounded beneath his grip. The black fire. The fear. So I keep moving.

Sweat clings to my skin, dampening the back of my tunic as it clings to my spine. Every muscle in my body aches from hours of punishment, but pain feels cleaner than panic. Simpler than grief. My fire hums beneath my skin, restless and volatile, answering every sharp emotion I try, and fail, to bury.

I haven’t slept properly. Truthfully, I don’t think I could even if I tried. Every time I closed my eyes after Korithax left, I saw Korithax standing over Maelkar like a stranger wearing my husband’s face.

Maelkar circles me with maddening ease, sword loose in his grip, shadows swirling around his boots. “You’re overthinking again,” he says mildly.

“I’m really not,” I snap, unleashing my flame.

White fire roars from my palm, racing down my blade and igniting it. I slam my sword into his with enough force that the metal screams. My sword glows, warps, then melts, hitting the ground in a smoking heap. I stare at it, chest heaving.

“…Shit,” Maelkar mutters.

I close my eyes and exhale through my teeth. “Another one.”

There’s a beat of silence before footsteps fill the space behind me. I don’t turn around. I don’t need to. I feel them before I hear them. Sunlight and pure light magic, warmth, and gravity. Sariya and Elyistria stand at the edge of the ring.

“Where is Korithax?” Sariya asks gently.

I don’t answer. Instead, I stride forwards with a new blade and channel my fire again, harder this time. I swing fast as Maelkar barely blocks. The blade shrieks in protest, the metal buckling. Gods fucking damn it. My flame is getting stronger, making the swords in this godsforsaken realm unable to sustain it any longer than a few seconds.

“Daisy,” Elyistria says quietly.