Page 164 of She Who Holds My Wrath

“This,” she says, voice cracking like breaking ice as she takes my hands, her mis-matched eyes never leaving mine, “is what your realm will look like next, Sunshine Queen.”

The nickname feels like a blade sliding between my ribs. For a moment, no one breathes. They let her live to deliver a message of ruination. They let her live to show that whilst they can grant mercy, they will have none when it comes to me. When it comes to my people, my kingdom.

Before I can stop myself— “I want to see it,” I say.

Aran turns sharply to face me, his voice stern. “Daisy⁠—”

“I said, I want to see it,” I reply, leaving no room for argument.

I feel Korithax’s gaze burning into the back of my skull. I glance at him, his eyes measuring, calculating.

“You should not,” he says, though it’s more of a suggestion than a command.

“I should,” I reply. “If we’re going to fight this war, I’m not doing it blindly.”

A long pause, his eyes darting back and forth as they search mine. Then he nods once. “Stay close to me.”

He wraps an arm around my waist, grabs hold of Aran, and signals Virena to hold onto me.

“Tell the guards to have the rest of the leaders summoned here for when we return,” Aran says to Cassyr and Ezra.

Before he has a chance to respond, the world shifts and everything lurches. Teleportation with Korithax is never gentle. It feels like being dragged through the throat of a star, and I can’t say I missed it too much. I stumble before quickly righting myself as my feet find solid ground. Huh. Not as bad as when I was mortal. Good to know.

I’m met with stillness. Cool, crisp air slams into my lungs and my heart falters. The first thing I notice is silence. No wind. No wildlife. No giggling sprites or stags made of mists galloping around with the distant sound of rushing water. Nothing, other than the sound of Korithax’s sword scraping out of its sheath. I pull my dagger from my thigh, just for precaution.

The second thing I notice, is the smell. Burned magic. It’s sharper than smoke—metallic, wrong, and almost sweet in the way decay sometimes is.

Ahead of us stretches Fjellheim Heights. Or what remains of it. When I was here last, it was an indescribable realm of floating clouds, rainbow bridges, and crystalline structures that were all surrounded by melodic sounds of tinkles and chimes. Now? It looks like the bones of a dead god.

Structures have melted into warped skeletons of glass and stone. Entire valleys appear flattened, as though a giant hand pressed down from the heavens and simply… erased them. The rainbows are gone. Even the sky looks wounded. Streaked with unnatural colours that ripple faintly, like bruises across reality itself.

Virena does not move forwards. I glance at her to see she’s staring straight ahead, devastation plastered across her features.

“I have not walked it yet,” she admits hoarsely.

Understanding hits me. She couldn’t bear to look. To see the destruction of a realm she governed with such pride. What once was a glorious realm of mists, clouds, and rainbows. Something I imagined heaven would look like, if it were real… is now nothing but a grim landscape of death.

I make the decision to step first. Boots meet ash along the clouded ground. It crunches beneath my feet, and I realise it is not ash at all, but bone. Fragments of people that once were, that will never be again. I swallow down the bile threatening to rise. Bodies lie everywhere—some armoured, some not. Many frozen mid-motion, expressions locked in the final shape of their terror.

“What could possibly do this?” Aran whispers behind me.

Virena answers without looking away. “Something that wanted us to understand how small we are.”

Korithax kneels near a felled stag, a long burned-out arrow buried within its chest. He drags his fingers along it, pulling it out carefully as he inspects the tip.

“Starfire,” he mutters. I look at him as he frowns down at the arrow in his hands. “That is not Divine magic.”

A new fear blooms inside my chest. What have they done? What have they created?

Virena speaks again, her voice distant as she finally takes everything in. “My remaining forces are withdrawing.”

Korithax rises slowly. “You are abandoning the war.” It isn’t a question. “You are being a coward.”

Virena whirls on him. “COWARD?” She screams. “Do you not SEE what has happened, Korithax?!”

The air trembles, dark rain clouds gathering as mists swirl erratically at her feet.

“There is no winning this war!” she screams. “They have beasts you could not imagine. Soldiers drawn from a realm I do not understand!”