Page 92 of She Who Holds My Wrath

I nod once. “It’s like he’s been touched by death in a way that’s changed him entirely.”

“It’s so raw,” Maelkar adds. “It’s like standing next to a thunderstorm that’s awaiting to destroy everything.”

“He’ll destroy the Six first,” I mutter.

Maelkar snorts. “Oh, absolutely. But after that? We’ll have to see.”

We continue walking onwards, but I can feel his shadows adjusting, coiling closer to him as if ready to defend him. Part of me wonders if he’s struggling with what happened in Aurora’s Veil. He’s seemed so different since we returned. Almost like he’s sheltering himself. Even his shadows have seemed more attached to him than usual.

It hits me then. Everyone’s breaking. Everyone’s bleeding. Everyone’s holding themselves together with fraying thread because of those celestial assholes. And Daisy… gods. She’s standing at the centre of every fracture.

“I need to speak to Sariya and Elyistria,” I murmur. “I need to know exactly what Velentha did. If she suffered. If there’s anything left of her I can feel or find.”

“I’ll come with you,” Maelkar responds with his usual easy smile back on his face.

We descend to the war room in comfortable silence, Maelkar keeping pace beside me like a shadow that has chosen not to leave. I already know they’ll still be there. None of them would have gone far after what happened. Not tonight, anyway. Not when the world shifted on its axis and all of us are trying to find our footing again.

The heavy door groans softly as we step inside. Warmth hits me first. Not heat, but the unmistakable pulse of divine magic saturating the air, thick and golden and alive. It washes over my skin in waves, carrying with it the scent of old parchment, candlewax, and ozone. The table in the centre of the chamber is covered in maps of every realm, their edges pinned beneath crystal weights and daggers marking strategic points.

Sariya stands near the far edge, her amber eyes molten with concentration, one hand hovering above the maps as streams of golden light spill from her fingertips, illuminating borders and leyline fractures in glowing lines. Beside her, Elyistria’s pale radiance ripples softly over her skin as she turns the brittle pages of the ancient grimoire without touching it, her magic lifting each page like a sacred breath.

The moment Maelkar and I enter, both goddesses turn. Their magic vanishes almost instantly, causing the room to dim with it.

Sariya’s expression softens the second her gaze lands on me. “Aran.”

There’s something in the way she says my name that nearly undoes me on the spot. Elyistria looks at me next, and the sorrow in her face is so deep, so unbearably gentle, that I have to look away for a moment to breathe through it. Despite it only just happening, I do not think I will ever grow used to seeing grief reflected back at me like that.

“We felt her passing,” she says quietly.

The words strike harder than I expect. They slam into my chest like a physical blow, and for a moment, I can’t breathe at all. My throat tightens painfully as I force out the only question that truly matters.

“Did she suffer?”

Sariya crosses the room towards me without hesitation, her golden gown whispering softly over the stone floor. When she reaches me, her hands rise to cradle my jaw, her palms warm and steady against my skin.

“No,” she says gently. “She died with purpose, with peace.”

Elyistria steps closer too, her white light a dim soft halo around her body. “She burned bright enough to light the whole temple,” she says, her voice thick with emotion.

I don’t know how they know these things. The goddesses have their own kind of sight—different from mine, different from Velentha’s. Ours comes in visions, fractured and uncertain, glimpses of what may come or what once was. Theirs feels older than that, deeper, as though they can reach into the fabric of magic itself and pull truth from it. I have never understood exactly how it works. But now isn’t the time to ask.

“And her last thought…” Elyistria falters, eyes shimmering. “Was you.”

My knees nearly buckle at her words. If Sariya hadn’t already been there, I think I would have collapsed. Instead, she gathers me into her arms, her honey and citrus scent invading my senses. For centuries, I have held myself together. I have endured loss after loss without letting it hollow me out in front of others. I have stood tall because there was always no other choice. Always another battle. Another duty. Another reason not to fall apart. But this—this kindness, this warmth, this unbearable tenderness—it breaks something in me completely.

The sob that tears out of my chest is ragged and ugly, muffled against Sariya’s shoulder as the grief splits me wide open. My entire body shakes with it, the force of it violent enough to hurt.

Elyistria steps close behind me, her hand settling between my shoulder blades. Cool light seeps through the fabric of my shirt where she touches me, soothing and steadying, as though she is trying to keep my soul from splintering apart entirely.

“She loved you,” Sariya whispers into my hair. “Fiercely. Entirely. Do not ever doubt that.”

I nod against her shoulder. When I finally pull back, my entire being hurts so badly, it feels like I’m nothing more than a husk.

“She left me behind,” I choke out. The words taste bitter with betrayal. They’re childish and wounded.

“No,” Elyistria murmurs. “She left you alive. There is a difference.”

The words sit deep in my chest, painful, because I know it’s true. Painful because some part of me hates that it is. Sariya lifts her thumbs and gently wipes the tears from my cheeks, her touch impossibly tender.