Page 35 of She Who Holds My Wrath

He grins, a little crooked, a little mischievous. Exactly the way he did when he thought he’d gotten away with something. Exactly the way he did when the teacher had caught him causing trouble when he bumped into me and Korithax.

“Are you… alright?” I ask, but I don’t know what answer I want. I don’t know if there’s one I could survive hearing. The question feels wrong the moment it leaves me. Too small. Too fragile for what sits between us now.

He tips his head slightly, as if he’s listening to a far-away thunder. “I was fast. I got to the game early.” His little chin lifts in defiance. “I’m not scared.”

My hands tremble. Because I am. Gods, I am so, so afraid. He looks too small standing there—barely reaching my hip, and clutching that ridiculous toy sword like he’s some great hero from a story. Like he believes he could protect anyone from anything. Like he believes the world is still kind.

He holds the wooden sword out to me. “You dropped this.”

For a moment, I can’t move. Because the way he’s looking at me—it isn’t with fear. It isn’t with confusion—it’s with trust. Complete and unwavering.

Slowly, my fingers close around the toy. The moment my skin touches the wood, the weight of it changes. The simple blade grows heavy in my hands. The grain of the wood shifts beneath my fingers, hardening, sharpening. Wood dries into bone. Bone fractures into glass. Glass forges into iron. Then something older than names, something heavier than metal. Something that feels like it has existed long before the world learned how to name things.

White flame ignites along the blade. It burns without heat, without smoke. It is not a sword at all, not really. It is a choice that has been sharpened. A promise that has been forged. And somehow, I know it’s mine.

The darkness breathes once more.

Flames bloom in the distance—pure white domes, moving like slow-tide lanterns. One glides closer until an enormous, scaled snout presses into my palm. Crimson, iridescent, eyes like embers swallowed by a night sea appear before me. Vesindiyah.

Her mind brushes mine, the way wind combs tall grass. Not words, but the words that would take if fire itself could speak: ride/rise/remember.

“I don’t know if I can be her,” I say, and the admission tastes foul here, like rotting blood. “I don’t know if I can be me without ruining everything I touch.”

Heat ghosts over my wrist where her breath would be. The meaning settles anyway: you are not asked to be her; you are asked to be whole.

The dark parts, just a little. Enough to make a corridor of shifting shadow. Stone walls on either side, slick with something that might be time slipping away. I hear dripping. Footsteps. Chains dragging over tile. As I move—if this is moving—I realise the walls aren’t stone at all. They’re book spines. Stacks and stacks of them, reaching into the dark.

Sovarith. The spires, as dreams remember them. The titles rearranged when I try to read them: WAKING THE— then the rest blurs; GODB— then the letters scatter like startled birds. TRAITORS WITHIN bleeds across the spines before vanishing. My hand trembles as I reach for one. The moment my fingers brush the leather, it bites me. Hot, sharp, like a snake’s fang. Blood wells up, bright against the dark.

The book laughs. Pages flutter open, and the sound that escapes is like children screaming.

“No,” I whisper, cradling my injured hand to my chest. “Stop.”

But the shadows slither down, twisting around my ankles, forming chains. They rattle, pull, drag me down onto my knees. I try to fight, but I’m weak here. A voice drips into my skull like poison.

“Little queen.” Lucifer’s voice. Smug. Velvet. Cruel.

“No—” I shake my head. “Shut up.”

“The tiniest amount of kindness from a monster,” the voice purrs. “And you called it salvation. Now you’re our damnation.”

The chains cinch tighter. Tighter. Tighter. Tighter.

I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating. I’m dying.

Another voice cuts through the dark—softer, with a hint of a tremble. “Daisy?”

My heart lurches at the familiarity of it. “Talia?”

And there she is—just out of reach, standing barefoot in the shadows. Her navy cheer outfit is torn, stained with filth, her dark hair limp with blood. She looks so small, so breakable.

“You left me,” she whispers. Her honey-brown eyes shining with tears. “You said we’d go together. You promised.”

“No. No, I tried. I tried to save you—” My voice shatters. I claw against the chains, desperate to reach her.

She tilts her head, almost childlike, almost cruel. “Then why am I burning?” Her skin begins smoking, ember cracks crawling up her arms. Her screams echo through the void as fire devours her.

“STOP!” I scream, yanking so hard against the chains my wrists split open. Crimson, hot blood spills down my hands, drip, drip, dripping down my fingertips.