In this lifetime alone, I spent centuries chipping away at myself to better fit the hells—to meet its demands. When it wasn’t Netharis or Kassil leaving me broken and battered, it wasme. Because it was all I knew. A few short months among the living have shown I don’t have to break myself to find where I belong.
“You are tainted,” she says, her tone meant to belittle. “Touched by darkness. You will never reach the full extent of what I am—whatAethershould be.”
I laugh. “I don’t want to.”
Her brows crease as if I’d spoken in a language she doesn’t understand.
“The realms have existed for eons without you,” I say as I approach. “And they’ll continue for eons still.”
“I should have ended you the moment the tether snapped,” she snarls and she pulls herself forward, the vines sinking deeper into her flesh. Silver surges around her wounds.
I offer her a weak smile. “I know what that’s like—hating parts of yourself. Feeling ashamed. Wanting to keep them hidden, hoping they’ll fail, trying to smother them.”
A truth I’ve carried for centuries and have never spoken.
“You wicked, selfish—”
Her words hitch as I sink the blade into the center of her chest.
“All these centuries watching,” I say, holding her stare as silver blood pours over my tightening grip upon the hilt, “and you’ve learned nothing about demons.”
Her entire body slumps against the vines and her silver eyes dilate, growing unfocused. Hellfire blazes around her, throwing me backward onto the ground as I shield my eyes with an arm. Dragging myself away from the heat and threat of scorching flame, I watch myselfburn.
It’s somehow both cathartic and disturbing.
I’ve no idea what this means for my soul.
I may have just damned myself.
So be it.
Graying ashes rise, riding the heat and taking on a strange golden glow. As they fall in a slow drifting descent, I catch a piece and itabsorbsinto my palm. Glancing up expecting to find a sky filled with golden snow, I instead find a concentrated cloud hovering over me.
The ashes fall upon me and melt against my hands, my face, my hair. Each strike sends a soft, tingling vibration along my spine, and it echoes in my chest. With the last of her body rendered ash, the vines vanish and one by one the stars snuff themselves out. The color fades from the skies and the ground falls away.
As I sit in darkness, a violent rumble grows around my heart and a howling screams in my ears.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
All of this… it feels like a dream.
Hazy, fuzzy… not quite real.
And this darkness I linger in, it’s familiar. Comfortable.
But any minute now I’m going to wake. I’m going to wake and it’s going to be minutes before dawn. I’ll wake and find Cyran or Lilith or Eve waiting for me. They’ll be ready to take on the day, and I’ll follow because it’s what they expect.
I shake the darkening thoughts from my head.
No. That’s not right.
Want.It’s what I want.
If this is a dream, I need to open my eyes. But it’s so much easier to lie here and rest and sleep. All the weight of stress, the worry, theexpectation… it all melts away, grows weightless and drifts off.
A mournful gale of cries echoes through the dark. It’s a haunting chorus of voices singing the promise of comfort, mercy, and finality. The melody pierces through my essence, urging me tolet goandforget—to maybeone daystart again.
It settles into my bones, fogging my thoughts.
