A faint smile ghosted my lips as I pressed my finger to her tongue, streaking it with black. I stepped back, watching as she closed her lips around the taste, her eyes fluttering shut as she swallowed.
My Wrath surged to life, pulsing with energy as it bound itself to its first mortal bargain. The rush was electrifying and fierce, nearly stealing my breath and sending a shiver through me. The pact was sealed, the power awakened.
Now, it only needed to be used.
Raitheand I moved behind the woman like shadows in the night. Now bound to her, we shared her senses, felt her pain, and hungered for the Vengeance and Wrath she carried. There was nothing like it. The Wrath I drew from her was intoxicating, almost overpowering. It could bring me to my knees if I let it. Yet, it felt utterly right, as natural as the sun rising or setting.
I understood then why Raithe’s ossiraen was so vast. Even I knew this pact was far from ordinary. There was no question that bargains like these were rare and heavy with consequence. Gods might form divine contracts with mortals as easily as breathing, but for a pact this profound, it took a god of equal power to uphold it. Death was no trivial matter, even for the immortal. It could come for us all.
The price the mortal owed was her own life. A death for a death. Yet in her soul, there was no hesitation, no regret. Only anger, sorrow, grief, and violence.
The woman who had only moments before seemed so small and fragile now walked with steel. A cloak hung around her, hiding her form, and she stopped at the corner just across from a brothel. Raithe and I waited silently, watching as the mortal kept her eyes fixed on the entrance.
The night was growing late, and for a chime, we stood with her as she watched men, young and old, stumble in and out of the brothel’s doors. After what seemed to be the hundredth man, the woman straightened without warning. Her anger surged through me viscerally that it blurred my vision. But I was tethered to her now, and neither she nor Raithe made a move.
The man who stepped out next was older, with sallow skin and a stomach that pushed out over his belt. The hair on his head had thinned to a patchy ring near the base of his skull. His tunic hung crooked and loose, stained with dried ale. The lamplight caught the flush in his cheeks and the sag of his jaw as he passed. He stumbled on one of his boots, caught himself, and then kept walking, completely unaware.
The woman didn’t move. She stayed still, her body frozen. But as soon as the man wandered farther down the street, she began to follow. Wherever he went, she mirrored his steps. Always in the shadows, never too close, never too far. It was a careful dance. A slow and silent game of cat and mouse. But like all things, it came to an end.
The man staggered into another alley and drifted toward a forgotten corner. He belched loudly, then began mumbling a tune, words slurred and stumbling. Turning to face a stone wall, he clumsily pulled down his trousers and began to urinate on the cobblestones.
Then suddenly, something changed. I could feel the divinity rising through Raithe, powerful and almost chilling, as if the ground itself might crack beneath us. A transformation was taking place, subtle enough that I barely noticed it at first. It was a fusion of soul, mind, and body.
There was Raithe. There was me. And there was the mortal.
Slowly, we became one.
I saw the man in front of us through Raithe’s eyes. I felt the weight of retribution through the mortal’s body. I sensed my own Wrath from within, colored by my own perspective. At first, the blending of our emotions and souls felt strange. It felt unfamiliar. But the unease faded quickly, replaced by something steadfast and whole.
We moved together toward the man, our boots clicking loud against the cobblestones. The sound grew until he finally turned, irritation tightening his brow.
“Who’s there?” he demanded, yanking up his trousers, as if we had violated some unspoken code of decency. He turned fully now, unbalanced, raising a trembling hand to point. “Show yourself!”
The woman’s fury surged white-hot. She stepped out from the shadows, her figure emerging at last. The face she wore was expressionless, carved from stone, but there was revulsion that radiated from her like heat.
“You,” the man slurred, pushing off the wall and staggering toward her. His eyes narrowed. “Do I know you?”
The woman’s expression burned with rage. I felt it rise within her, ready to break free. Her anger stretched, growing and reaching beyond its limits. And it called to me then. It sought out the demigoddess of Wrath, begging for more. More power, more fury, more outrage.
For me, the sensation of it was heavenly.
My power answered, rising eagerly in response to her plea. I gave her a fragment of my divinity, a sliver of my Wrath. Her heart pounded with hate as she tilted her head and stared him down. It was the kind of look that promised ruin.
“Don’t you remember?” Her voice echoed down the alleyway.
“Huh?” The man squinted, his expression twisting in confusion. “What in the gods’ name are you spewing on about?”
She stepped forward slowly, just the way I would have, and her voice had a hollow edge to it. “You really don’t remember?”
“Say what you came to say,” he slurred. “Or piss off. I’ve no coin for beggars or the plague-ridden.”
“Look at me.” Her tone sharpened. “Look at me and tell me you remember.”
The man grunted, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. This is your last warning, get out of my sight.”
My Wrath surged as the woman took another step, closing the gap between them.
The man’s nostrils flared as he shouted, “I said get lost, you hear me?”
