Page 66 of She Who Holds My Wrath

She’s violently trembling from fear, and the sight of it turns my stomach. What has this bastard done to her for her to respond like this? My heart aches for her, but I quickly push those feelings aside. There’s no time for pity. Sympathy will get me killed. I can’t let myself be in my head or feelings right now.

“Stay here,” I whisper back calmly. “Do not come out until I tell you to. Understood?”

She nods once, wrapping her slender arms around herself. I pass her the cloak to keep safe, and to make herself warmer. I can’t have anything restricting me right now. I’ve trained with Maelkar for a while now, and I like to think I’ve come pretty far. But Kaelith is powerful, and I know this isn’t going to be easy. Training doesn’t make you immune to the sick, lurching panic that comes when you realise you have to kill a man who has a hand in creating people’s worst nightmares.

I press my face to the tiny gap between the passage door and the stone, and peer through. He’s there—tall, composed, and watching the world beyond the window without a single care in the world. The evening lights smear over his shoulders. He looks absurdly peaceful. But I know I’m staring at a predator in a suit.

With one final steady breath, I quietly push open the door with the slightest of movements, grimacing at the slight creak the hinges give. Well… there goes my sneak attack. I unsheathe my dagger, feeling its familiar weight in my palm, and step into the room with my spine straight, and my jaw clenched.

“It’s about time the help arrived. I need my hair—” He cuts himself off mid-sentence as he turns, the words dying in his throat the instant he realises I’m not one of his serving girls.

Silence slams down between us. His expression shifts in slow, terrible stages. Irritation to confusion, confusion to disbelief, then disbelief to something sharp and dangerous. The room shrinks around us, the air thickening until even breathing feels like an effort.

His gaze drops to the dagger in my hand. Then back to my face.

I give him a vicious smile, rolling the blade once across my fingers, letting the steel catch the torchlight. “Hello, Duskwalker.”

Chapter 27

ARAN

Two days ago

The descent beneath Zeriavoss feels like walking into the Pits themselves.

The tunnels narrow as we go, the ceiling pressing lower, the walls slick with preserved heat that never quite cools. The air hums faintly, a constant pressure sits behind my eyes and teeth, like the oxygen here is so far depleted and corrupted it’s desperate to extinguish any form of life. Every inhale tastes of iron and ash. Every exhale feels stolen, as though this place is aware of us, and can snuff us out at any minute.

Velentha walks ahead, her oil lamp slicing through the dark. The light makes her shadow stretch long and distorted across the stone, flickering with ever step she takes. The deeper we descend, the stranger the air becomes. It almost feels… dense. Saturated with something ancient and exhausted, like power that has been left to rot in its place. It makes my skin crawl.

Lucifer trails behind us, his boots striking the stone with unhurried confidence. He doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest. But then again, this is his realm. His section of Hell. His nightmare to command.

“You know,” he drawls, “for something called the Heart of Hell, this place could really use some decor. Maybe a rug. A bit of soulfire mood lighting.”

I don’t turn around. “Shut up,” I mutter, my jaw tight enough that my teeth ache.

He steps up beside me, smirk already in place with his crimson eyes glittering faintly in the lamplight. “What? You don’t appreciate a man trying to lighten the mood before we possibly collapse an entire cavern system?”

I glare at the wall instead of him. Looking directly at Lucifer always feels like inviting trouble. It’s like staring at a blade close to the heart for too long to see if it’ll cut. I don’t trust him. I certainly don’t like him. And right now, I need him more than I want to admit. Which both irritates me, and makes my stomach twist.

Velentha stops abruptly, and her lamp dips towards the floor. “We’re here.” Her voice is softer than usual, stripped of its usual calm certainty in a way that gets my immediate attention.

I move closer as the light reveals a wide clearing in the rock. Ancient runes spiral across the obsidian floor, half-buried beneath centuries of dust. They don’t look carved. It looks like they had grown here, like veins fossilised in stone. They pulse faintly, a dull glow that brightens and fades in slow, tired rhythms.

“This is it,” she breathes. “A dormant leyline. Særathi-made. It runs beneath every realm, but it’s been asleep for tens of thousands of years.”

I swallow, suddenly aware of how loud my own heartbeat sounds in the quiet. This deep down, even the screams from the Pits can’t be heard.

“How do you wake it?” I ask, lowering myself behind her. My knees protest, joints stiff from tension and too little rest.

“With a pulse.” She pulls a small dagger from her belt, the blade catching the lamplight in a brief, cold flash. “Leylines respond to blood and intention. That’s how the gods built them. You tell them where to go, and they listen. If they want to, that is.”

Lucifer crouches beside us, close enough that I can feel the faint heat radiating from him. “And if they don’t?” he asks, one brow lifting.

“Then, they eat us alive,” she answers matter-of-factly.

He gives a low whistle, leaning back on his heels. “Cheerful.”

I scrub a hand over my face, suddenly exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with the lack of sleep. Every muscle in my body feels coiled too tight, ready to snap. My mind keeps circling the same thought over and over.