I will make it right.
I will see her again.
Each thought hit like a drumbeat of a heart too broken to stop. And still, she held on, because Vengeance and Wrath was all she had left.
45
“How do you feel?”Raithe asked. His eyes searched mine for an honest answer.
We sat beneath the moonlight, surrounded by the thick, living green of Torhiel’s forest. Somehow, after the bargain was completed, we found ourselves back here. How that happened, I still couldn’t explain.
“I feel good,” I replied. It wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t the whole truth either. I felt incredible, riding the high of my first mortal bargain. It was something I was almost afraid to come down from.
“Do you understand now?” Raithe challenged. “That you are many things, but fragile isn’t one of them.”
I let his words pass without comment, instead asking, “I wanted to ask you something.”
Raithe tilted his head, brow arching. “What is it?”
“Why do you let people believe you’re a devil?” I questioned. “Back there, with the mortal, she accused you of being one, and you didn’t deny it. You even said the gods had ignored her prayers. But you truly are a god. So why pretend?”
Raithe fell silent, then said, “Because it’s easier.”
His eyes drifted away. “If I were tied to something bright, like Love, Hope, or Compassion, it would be easier to earn trust. Mortals welcome greater gods like that. They make room for them in their prayers, in their hearts. But Vengeance, Vengeance is different. It’s not a comfort. It’s not light. It doesn’t inspire temples or lullabies. It’s raw. It’s ruthless. It’s born from pain.
“When mortals cry out for Vengeance, it comes from the darkest places inside them. They don’t want redemption. They want retribution. And that doesn’t fit the picture they’ve painted of their gods. Gods are meant to be merciful. Forgiving. Holy. They expect gods to save, and they don’t know what to do with one who answers the call for blood.”
His eyes flicked to mine. “Mortals have fragile minds. They cling to hope, to the idea that the gods are benevolent, that their prayers are heard with kindness. But when those prayers go unanswered, when their pain deepens, they no longer believe it’s the gods who are listening. They start to think it must be something darker. They twist it into something monstrous. A demon. A spirit. A devil.”
He let out a slow breath. “So I let them believe the story they’re already telling themselves. If they see a devil, I become one. It makes the pact easier. Cleaner. And more importantly, it feeds my ossiraen. I need true bargains, steeped in the root of Vengeance. That’s what keeps me tethered to this world. Without them, I’ll fade.”
Raithe’s eyes found mine. “So yes, I bend the truth, Odessa. But if I let them believe the lie they’re already ready to hear, they listen. And they choose Vengeance. That’s all I need.”
Silence lingered as his words sank deep.
“I understand, Raithe,” I murmured at last as I met the steady burn of his golden eyes. “I would’ve done the same. Better to be called a devil than mistaken for a savior.”
I turned my face to the sky and closed my eyes, letting the silence settle.
“I won’t be seen as anyone’s salvation,” I pledged. “I’ll be their reckoning.”
Only the sounds of the night filled my ears. The voices of Wrath hadn’t come for me yet. I wondered if Raithe’s song was still keeping them at bay. Even his breathing, once steady beside me, had faded into nothing.
I was still leaning back on my forearms, face turned toward the stars when I cracked my eyes open to glance at him. That’s when I saw that look again. A look I knew it all too well. It only meant one thing.
“Odessa,” Raithe’s voice was barely audible, almost broken.
I sat up slowly and shook my head, whispering, “I can’t, Raithe.”
The moonlight washed over his face, and still, it was the most achingly beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Emotion swelled inside me, conflicting. There was so much unspoken, too much to name. I remembered the way he’d rested his forehead against my own earlier, the way his power had tangled with mine, how it had made me feel whole. I remembered wanting to fall to my knees beneath the sheer force of him. But my heart and my mind, they wouldn’t separate. I couldn’t tell one from the other anymore.
Raithe moved closer. His eyes locked on mine, searching, pleading for something I couldn’t give. He didn’t stop until he was right in front of me. Slowly, he reached up and cupped my cheek. His touch burned, but it sent a shiver through my spine.
“Odessa,” he breathed again.
His thumb brushed gently against my skin, and in his eyes, I saw a vulnerability so raw, so open, it was almost too much to bear.
I didn’t pull away, but I repeated barely louder than before, “I can’t, Raithe.”
