Page 115 of She Who Holds My Wrath

“I didn’t know,” he whispers.

“I know,” I murmur. “And I know it doesn’t make the hole in your heart any smaller.”

He drags a hand over his face, his eyes pinned to the table. “I just… she’s gone. And it feels like everything keeps being taken.”

The rawness of it punches straight through me. I nod because I understand the feeling all too well. “I know.”

When he looks at me again, the fury is gone. What’s left is nothing but grief stripped to its barest form. “I’m sorry,” he says hoarsely. “I shouldn’t have⁠—”

“No,” I lift my hand, stopping him gently. “You shouldn’t have. But you don’t get to fall apart alone and push people away. Just like I didn’t get to do that either.”

He nods once, a lone tear tracking down his cheek. He’s not healed. Not even close. Neither am I. And I don’t think a lot of us will be for a very long time. But he’s listening. And for now, that’s enough.

Chapter 39

KORITHAX

She looks so beautiful when she’s sleeping.

So peaceful. So calm. Untouched, for a few precious hours, by the weight of war and responsibility and grief. Untouched by me, and all the pain and torment I’ve put her through.

Night is the only time I allow myself to come and see her. When I know she can’t bombard me with questions that I don’t have answers for, when she can’t look at me with that mixture of hope and hurt that splits me clean in two. When she can’t try to convince me—gods help her—to stand beside her as king.

I watched her speech to the kingdom three days ago. I stood in the shadows and watched as she addressed our people, as she told them their king had returned. I watched the way the crowd erupted, how joy rippled through them like wildlife as they held up the triangle of my sigil above their heads. They were so happy, so relieved. As if my return meant everything broken would suddenly be mended and whole again.

But if they saw me, if they saw who I was now, they wouldn’t cheer. They’d recoil. They’d be terrified of me and of what I’ve become. They’d tell Daisy to lock me in the dungeons and let me rot. And they’d be right to do so.

I was a monster in my own way before I died. Korithax the fearsome prince. Korithax the ruthless soldier. The fucking Child of Ruin. But now… now I am something so much worse. A man split down the middle, sharing space with an ancient evil that delights in suffering. An entity that whispers promise of destruction and smiles when I bleed for it.

The Void does not enjoy my isolation.

It purrs when I ache from staying away from Daisy, but it wants more. It wants me to destroy everything and everyone around me. It wants to watch me hurt those I love, to watch their pain carve me hollow, and then feast on the hurt I would feel from that, too. It wants me to lose control.

That’s exactly why I’ve stayed away from them. From her.

The Void has changed me in so many ways, but it has not changed how I feel about my little flower. How my every waking thought still bends towards her, no matter how far I try to pull away. Her silver-streaked golden hair, catching the light like moonlight spun through honey. Her ocean-blue eyes that once looked at me with nothing but love and devotion—and still somehow manage to undo me with a single glance.

The soft curve of her stomach I used to rest my hand against in the quiet hours. The pale stretch marks along her hips and thighs like delicate lightning, proof of life lived, and battles won in a body that has given so much. The warmth of her skin, always softer than anything in this brutal realm has a right to be.

The way her lips part when she’s concentrating. The stubborn lift of her chin when she’s angry. The tiny crease between her brows when she’s overthinking and pretending she isn’t. The scent of her—florals, clean skin, and something wholly Daisy that no magic could ever imitate. Even the sound of her bare feet against stone in the early hours that lives inside me like a prayer.

The Void may have remade parts of me, but it has not touched the place where I keep her.

The last time she looked at me, all I saw was pain and fear in her eyes. That alone was enough to convince me that I needed to stay away from her. The bond between us is in agony. It screams at me to touch her, to pull her against me and bury my face in her hair and pretend that our world hasn’t shattered beyond repair. I miss the feel of her plush body against mine, the way she would mould into me so perfectly as if she was carved from the same breath as my soul. Never in my twenty-thousand years of existence had I ever met someone like her. Even without the mate bond, I knew she was it for me, that nobody would ever compare.

She was everything I never allowed myself to want. Everything I was taught I did not deserve.

My father made it clear from early on that I was not meant for softness. I was not meant for love. I was a boy created to destroy, a blade given flesh. Lovely things were never meant to survive my hands. And yet life handed me the most exquisite thing in existence, and she didn’t run. She saw me, saw the monster beneath the crown and the scars and the fire. And chose me anyway. What a foolish, foolish girl.

I move slowly to the side of the bed, careful not to wake her, and look down at her sleeping form. Her hair fans across the pillow in soft waves like a halo around her perfectly sculpted face. Her lips are parted just enough to release quiet, even breaths. Freckles scatter across her cheeks like sun-kissed constellations, more prominent thanks to the spring sunshine.

Thirty-six. I still count them every night. Just like I used to when we travelled the realms to make her immortal. Back when this life felt simpler. Gods. That feels like a lifetime ago. When my greatest concern was securing a bride to piss off the Six. When the future hadn’t yet drowned itself in blood.

If I had known then what I know now… would I have left her alone? Would I have spared her this fate? Let her live a quiet, human life untouched by gods, monsters, grief, and war?

I want to believe I would have. I want to believe I was noble enough to walk away.

But the truth is, when I think about it—I don’t think I could have. Her soul called to mine the moment I learned of her existence. Something ancient and inevitable snapped into place. No warning could have stopped me. No prophecy. No bloodshed. No vision of the ruin waiting for us.