“Anything?” Raithe asked, tone curious.
“Anything,” she repeated.
Raithe looked at her for a moment. “There’s something more in you,” he noted. “Something deeper. Something bitter and burning.” He lifted a finger to his chin. “Yours wasn’t a cry for Vengeance alone. You called for Wrath as well.”
“I’m angry,” the woman stated, voice clear. “Angrier than I’ve ever been.”
“Good.” Raithe nodded approvingly, then turned to me. “Come, my light.”
I hesitated, then moved toward Raithe and the mortal woman.
With each step, Wrath stirred beneath my skin. Shadows gathered, flowing around me, wrapping me in a gown spun from the night itself.
The woman’s eyes met mine, and something in her wavered. Her breath caught, and she swallowed hard, taking in the sight of me. But her eyes did not turn away.
“She has heard your cries as well,” Raithe coaxed, leaning in toward the woman’s ear. “And for another price, she can grant you Wrath.”
“Tell me what I have to give,” the woman whispered.
“Ah,” Raithe murmured, almost tenderly. “I’ve seen what you want, hidden deep in the darkest corners of your soul. But for what you ask, there’s only one price worth taking.” Glancing at her, a flicker of pity lit in his eyes. “Death always demands the highest cost. It can be done. The question is, are you prepared to pay the price?”
Raithe produced a blade so thin it was no wider than a blade of grass, its steel and hilt the deepest black. He swiped it across his palm with such speed that I barely caught the motion. When he held it out, a single drop of his blood gleamed at the tip. A tiny silver bead. He offered it to the mortal, his meaning unmistakable.
The woman glanced first at Raithe, then at me.Finally, she gave a slow nod. Taking the blade, she closed her eyes and sliced into her palm, a thin line of blood tracing down her palm.
Raithe’s smile deepened. In that instant, something locked into place. A bond, a tether pulling tight. It thrummed with power, heavier than anything I’d felt as a demigod. A binding bargain between a god and mortal had formed.
“Then death shall be yours,” Raithe vowed with a wicked satisfaction.
44
Black tears streamedfrom my eyes, thick and heady. They flowed endlessly, as if pulled from something deep and storm-laden. The covenant between Raithe and the mortal had been sealed, bound to hold until their promise had run its course. But with it, came the truth of what she had bargained for.
She wanted a man dead.
The woman wasn’t much older than I had been when I was mortal, yet her suffering had taken a different shape. Life had worn her down, not with a single blow, but with years of unbroken cruelty.
Even so, I was now a god, and the virtues of humanity no longer belonged to me. That was the nature of divinity. There was no morality, no compass pointing to right or wrong. Justice and truth no longer held weight. Only Wrath mattered. Only the bargains struck between gods and mortals carried meaning. My ossiraen, and the power I commanded through it, were all that held significance.
To say channeling my Wrath was effortless would be untrue, to say it was instinctual would be closer. Raithe had already given the mortal ataste of his Vengeance, the bond forming between them coming to pass. I, however, had not yet fully offered her my Wrath.
Raithe had told me that every demigod’s power manifests differently. That each binding, each bargain, takes its own form. Some methods are common, others rare. His, he said, was traditional. A blood-pact, where god and mortal mix their blood. Only through that ritual could his Vengeance be shared and drawn from the one who made the promise. Only then could he take what was owed.
But mine, mine was different. I could feel it. I hadn’t yet seen how my Wrath would take shape with mortals or how it would be bound, but I could feel it pulsing inside me instinctively. Like the way a creature knows how to breathe or flee or strike without ever being taught. It wasn’t something I had to learn.
Once the tears began, I knew what had to follow. They slid down my cheeks in thick, inky trails. Dark as obsidian, and heavy with the weight of what was to come.
I approached the woman again, and I could see the tremor in her body before I met her face. Fear was written across it. In that moment, I understood what she saw. My reflection in the river did not withhold the truth: I looked exactly as I was meant to. Frightening, wrathful, divine. Yet the mortal was mistaken to fear me. There was no cruelty here, no malice behind my fury. Only Wrath to give, and a bargain that demanded it.
I stepped closer, closing the gap until only a pace separated us. Her breath caught. Though panic twisted her features, she sank to her knees, as if some part of her understood what awaited. Her bloodied hands trembled as they came together in a pleading clasp.
“Please,” she begged, caught between desperation and awe.
I looked down at her, obsidian tears still falling, dotting the earth like oil spilled from something hallowed. I wiped one from my cheek with the pad of my finger. There was no pity in me. No comfort to offer. Onlypower. Anticipation coiled beneath my skin. The woman’s eyes lifted, locking onto the finger I now held inches from her lips.
“I will grant you my Wrath,” I said quietly. “If I am given what is owed.”
Her eyes flicked to the tear-stained fingertip. Then, slowly, without hesitation, she parted her lips.
