Page 89 of She Who Holds My Wrath

I move to his side and place a shaking hand against his cold cheek. “I’m so sorry,” I murmur. “I should have done this sooner. I just needed more time with him.”

I pull a folded piece of parchment from my pocket, Aran’s name delicately etched on the front, and place it gently on Korithax’s chest.

Aran,

Guide them. Live for them. Live for me. And when your time comes to pass, know I await you on the other side, aeshira. I shall watch you from afar, guiding you where I can. Just know, no amount of time would have ever been enough with you. You are my everything, but they need you more than I. Live for me, Aran. I await you in the next life.

Yours, V.

I step back, inhale deeply, and begin the ritual as I slice my palm across the altar’s sharp edge.

“To unlock the flame, one must burn.

To wake the wolf, the moon must turn.

To free the soul from death’s own thread,

A god must fall, and bleed, and beg.”

Ancient runes ignite beneath my bare feet, blazing to life in rings of molten gold as the temple stirs awake around me. The air thickens until every breath feels heavy with magic, dense and sacred, and my veins glow beneath my skin—golden light threading through me like liquid fire. The temple knows my blood. It knows my choice.

Power floods my limbs in a relentless wave, searing and immense as it consumes me from the inside out. It should hurt more than it does, but beneath the agony, there is something almost beautiful in it. Something holy, like being unmade by starlight.

I feel my life’s thread beginning to unspool. Images flash behind my eyes in fragments of light and ache⁠—

Aran laughing, his head thrown back with sunlight catching in his emerald eyes. Aran holding my hand, his thumb brushing circles against my palm as though he could soothe every sorrow I’ve ever carried. Aran whispering my name like a sweet seduction. Aran crying into my shoulder. Aran sleeping, holding me as tightly as possible. Each memory strikes like both blessing and wound.

And then—Daisy’s fierce determination, burning bright and unyielding. Korithax’s fire, his power, the force of him waiting to rise again. The fragile, impossible hope of what comes next.

My knees weaken and my vision dims. The light pouring from my skin fractures, scattering like falling stars across the cosmos.

But I smile. Because somehow—through all the pain, all the blood, all the centuries of being trapped inside a fate I was forced into—everything has led me here. To this moment. To this ending. And for the first time, in longer than I can remember, it feels like peace. Real peace.

Because now, at last, everything is finally worth it. Every horror I endured in silence. Every cruel command I obeyed while my soul screamed against it. Every moment I stood beside monsters and pretended not to bleed from what they made me witness. Every life I could not save. Every wrong I was forced to survive. I carried it all. And now, I lay it down.

I hope they understand. Gods, I really do hope they understand. That I stayed because I had to. I endured to make sure the future could be free of dictators, where the darkness finally cracked open. I was never loyal to the Six. I was loyal to what came after them. To the world that might exist when they are gone. To freedom. To love.

And now I’m giving everything I have left to make sure that true love beats all. I am not sad. I am not afraid of the other side. Because if I reach the other side—if there is mercy in the stars at all—then one day, I will find him again. One day I will return to the man who taught me what it meant to be seen. To be loved without fear. To be held as though I was something precious instead of something broken.

Aran. My aeshira. Even now, his name is the ache and salvation inside me. After centuries of pain and wandering and searching, I am finally doing something good. Something worthy. Something that truly matters.

Be free, Korithax. Rise. End them. Let the Six fall screaming beneath the wrath they earned. Let them choke on the ruin they built. Let them know terror before they die. And I will watch, from wherever I go next, with pride in my heart and his name on my soul.

The last thing I feel is warmth. It’s soft, bright, and all-consuming. It wraps around me like dawn breaking after an eternal night, and I let it take me. I let it carry me where I must go.

And as my pulse comes to a final stutter, with the last breath I will ever own, I send my whisper through the bond that bound me and Aran together—through love, through grief, through lifetimes:

“Live and love for me, aeshira. I’ll be waiting.”

Chapter 33

ARAN

The moment Daisy softens in Korithax’s arms—sobbing, shaking, and clinging to him like he’s the only thing now keeping her alive—something in my chest splinters.

A sound escapes me, a quiet, wounded crack of breath. It’s not jealousy. It’s deep, layered grief tangled so tightly, I can hardly separate one from the other. Relief for Daisy. Relief that he’s back. But beneath it? The raw, bleeding ache of everything it has cost to bring him back here.

Korithax closes his eyes as he holds her, his forehead resting against hers, one massive hand cradling the back of her head. Their flames flicker around them, white and black mixing together like ink in water, forming a cocoon that pushes everything else out of focus. All I can do is stand there and feel the weight of who is missing from it.