Page 71 of She Who Holds My Wrath

I scramble backwards on instinct, my heart hammering, but he’s already there. His weight crashes down over me, pinning my hips and trapping both my wrists in one of his hands above my head. No leverage. No space. Nowhere to go.

He leans forwards, pressing his forehead to mine. “I can’t kill you. The Six would never forgive me,” he murmurs, his voice making my stomach twist. “But they said nothing about putting you on the brink of death.”

Before I can spit back, his fist explodes into my cheek. My head violently snaps to the side, the agonising pain vibrating through my skull. My vision swims and my ears ring as he releases my hands and begins violently beating me. My head, face, neck, chest, all receive blow after blow. I try to fight back, lashing out with my hands, scratching, slapping. But it’s no use. I can feel the blood pouring down my face, my skin bruising and swelling as he pummels into me over and over.

“I’m sorry, Korithax,” I whisper behind a choked sob, the apology tasting like blood and defeat. But I still refuse to scream. I won’t give Kaelith that.

My vision tunnels, the edges of the room dimming as my eyelids drag lower and lower, too heavy to hold open. The blows blur together, impact after impact until they feel distant, muffled, like they’re happening to someone else. Then they slow.

And suddenly stop, as a roar tears through the chamber, deep enough to vibrate through the mattress, through my bones, through the floor itself.

I force my eyes open on a ragged gasp. My dagger is buried to the hilt in Kaelith’s shoulder. Violet blood spills down his arm in thick, glossy rivulets, dripping onto the mattress. Selunea stands behind him, shaking so violently she can barely remain upright, her hands slick with his blood, eyes wide with terror and determination tangled together.

“You dumb fucking bitch,” Kaelith growls, his voice lethal as he rises from the bed.

He backhands her with brutal force. Her small body lifts clean off the ground, flung sideways like a discarded doll. She hits the stone with a sickening crack and doesn’t even have time to cry out.

“No—” the word barely leaves my lips. I try to push myself up to help her, but everything hurts. It hurts so bad. Every inch of my body burns. Not like heat, not like flame, but like something inside me has been scraped hollow. Where is my power?

I reach for it again, clawing inwards for that familiar well, that molten core that has always answered my call. Nothing. Just emptiness. A cold, terrifying void where it should be. He hasn’t drugged me again. It would be impossible for me to not have noticed this time.

My head lolls sideways as I struggle to breathe through the pain, each inhale shallow and ragged. That’s when I see it—a sheathed sword mounted on the wall beside the bed, its hilt gleaming faintly in the aurora light.

I glance back to Kaelith. He’s looming over Selunea now, fists rising and falling, the sound of bone and flesh striking echoing dully through the room. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t even try to shield herself. The sight makes something inside me snap. Rage floods the hollow space where my magic failed. If I can’t burn him, I’ll butcher him.

With nothing but sheer determination, and the last drags of adrenaline clawing through my veins, I slowly roll to the edge of the bed. The movement feels like peeling my own skin off, but I keep going, teeth grinding together so hard my jaw aches. My feet hit the floor and nearly give out, but I cling to the mattress, hauling myself upright on trembling legs.

Don’t fall. Don’t black out. Not now.

Using the bed for balance, I stagger towards the wall, fingers leaving faint smears of blood across the sheets. The sword’s hilt is cold beneath my palm as I wrench it free, the metal whispering as it slides from the sheath. Clutching it with both hands, I turn, every step towards Kaelith an act of pure defiance against the way my body screams to collapse. The room tilts and swims, but I keep moving, guided by fury alone. My eyes fall to Selunea, who lies crumpled at his feet, completely motionless. I don’t let myself look at her face, because if I do, I’ll break.

I plant my feet behind him, arms shaking violently as I lift the sword overhead. The weight drags at my shoulders, threatening to tear the blade from my grasp, but I lock my elbows and force it higher. For just one, tiny moment, I hesitate. Not out of doubt, but because this is final. There’s no coming back from it. But then I look at Selunea again. And my decision is made.

“Fuck. You,” I rasp between gritted teeth.

I bring the sword down with everything left in me. Strength, rage, grief, terror—all of it poured in one desperate, savage strike. This time, I don’t hold back. This time, I scream, the sound tearing out of me as the blade bites through flesh and bone. The resistance vanishes in a sickening instant. The sword slips from my numb fingers and clatters to the stone.

Beside it, Kaelith’s severed head tumbles, his mouth parted in shock, his constellation eyes already glazing, as if he still can’t quite believe this is how he ends. His body joins, swaying for a grotesque heartbeat before collapsing with a heavy, final thud that seems to echo forever.

My stomach lurches violently. I can’t control the way my mouth floods with saliva as bile rises in my throat. I stagger, bracing my hands on my knees and retch up the little food that’s left in my stomach. Acid burns my throat, tears streaming down my face as my body convulses again and again. The stench hits immediately—copper, vomit, smoke, blood—all thick and suffocating, coating the back of my tongue. My eyes sting, vision blurring. But it isn’t just from the retching or the smoke still curling through the room. It’s the realisation settling in like a weight I can’t shift.

I killed him. It wasn’t in a ferocious war. It wasn’t with my magic. It was with my own hands. My first kill. The thought of it lands hollow, too big to process, too heavy to carry. There’s no triumph, no relief. Just a sick, trembling quiet inside of me.

Swallowing hard, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and force myself upright. There’s no time to fall apart. There’s never time to fall apart these days. I pull myself together and step over Kaelith’s corpse, my boots slipping slightly in the spreading pool of violet blood and drop to my knees beside Selunea. Her chest rises in shallow, ragged breaths. Barely, but it’s moving.

“Hey… hey, stay with me,” I whisper, voice breaking as I gather her into my arms. Her body is frighteningly light, limp in a way that makes terror spike. “Selunea?” I murmur. “Where are the healers?”

Cerulean blood slicks my hands, warm and sticky, coating into my sleeves. It mixes with the crimson already coating my skin, blending into a dull, bruised purple that smells sharp and metallic. Her heavy onyx eyes open slowly. She manages a small, crooked smile through cracked black lips as blood trickles from the corner. A wet, rasping laugh bubbles up and turns into a cough. She looks past me for a moment, as if seeing something I can’t.

“You did it,” she whispers, voice so faint I almost miss it. “You killed him.”

A single, silvery tear slips from the corner of her eye, carving a clean path through the blood smeared across her cheek. My thumb trembles as I brush it away, terrified I might hurt her even with something so gentle.

“I did,” I manage, forcing a smile. “You’re free, Selunea.”

“Free,” she echoes, but her lips wobble with the effort. “Not here. My soul is… waning.” Her gaze drifts past me, unfocused, softening in a way that makes my chest ache. “I hear her calling.”

Her expression changes, the fear that once was loosening into something peaceful blooming beneath the pain. “I get to see my maemae,” she murmurs, a fragile wonder threading through her voice. “She’s waiting for me.”