Screams echo across the Quad as I descend with predatory grace, water rising in a massive swell behind me like a tsunami born of nightmares. I crash it down like a divine hammer, crushing those on the path through Willow Woods beneath tons of liquid fury. Blood soaks into the ancient stone as bodies are swept away. I catch a boy mid-run, someone I recognize from Advanced Elemental Theory, and snap his neck with a casual flick of my fingers. Another tries to hide behind the founders’ statue, and I drown him in the Sanguine Lake without even lifting a hand, my magic coiling like a living serpent around my body, slick and vicious and hungry for more.
The power is euphoric. I need it. Relish it. This is what power feels like when it’s unleashed, when it’s free from conscience and consequence. My power. Mine alone.
The next vision is colder. Quieter. More horrifying in its restraint.
I sit on an obsidian throne in what looks like the Night Court’s great hall but transformed into something darker. Myfather’s throne, but he’s nowhere to be seen, perhaps dead, perhaps simply irrelevant. The hall stretches endlessly, filled with silence so thick it has weight.
Fae nobles kneel in perfect rows, eyes downcast, not daring to look upon me directly. My presence suffocates the room like smoke, and fear hangs in the air so thick I can taste it on my tongue, metallic and sweet. At my feet lies my mate, Sam in wolf form, a silver chain connecting his collar to my throne. His massive head rests on my boot in a gesture of complete submission, and I can see sorrow in every inch of his powerful frame. I stroke his fur like he’s nothing more than a pet, smiling with the cold satisfaction of absolute control. My crown gleams with black diamonds, my eyes are silver voids that reflect nothing. I am shadow incarnate. The most terrifying part? I love it.
I watch it all in horror, unable to look away from the terrifying scenes being played out before me like some twisted prophecy. My hands shake as I try to process what I’m seeing, not just the violence, but the satisfaction on my face, the way this other version of me revels in the fear and pain of others.
Then the laughter starts, not from the visions, but from beside me, behind me. No, from everywhere at once, surrounding me like a cage of sound. The voice is familiar, taunting, cruel. My own voice, but not mine at the same time.
This version is more confident, dripping with arrogance and cruelty. Sugar-sweet and poisonous.
“Oh, sweet girl,” it says, each word caressing my skin like ice. “Look at you. Always playing small. Always clinging to love like it’s going to save you from what you really are.”
I spin at the words, heart hammering, and there she is. Well, there I am. This darker reflection of myself, this twisted mirror image that makes my stomach revolt.
Her hair is pitch black instead of white, long and sleek like spilled ink, her skin glows. Her eyes, my eyes, burn silver-blue, but there’s no warmth, no humanity. Just cold calculation and endless hunger. She’s beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful, all sharp edges and deadly grace. She smiles like she knows every secret I’ve buried, like she enjoys watching me squirm under her knowing gaze.
“This is who we could be,” she says, circling me with predatory patience. “No more hiding behind others. No more begging for scraps of power from those who see us as less than. We could rule everything. We could reign over them all.”
She gestures with casual elegance, and the three visions appear again, hovering in the air like reflections on disturbed water, each one more vivid and terrible than before.
“You think they’d stop you?” she purrs, her voice like silk over steel. “Micah, the Nephilim? She’s no heroine. Sam with his protective instincts? Locke with his duty and honor? Please. They’re weights around our neck, chains holding us back from our true potential. You don’t need them. You never did.”
“You’re not real,” I whisper, but my voice cracks with uncertainty.
She throws back her head and laughs. “Of course, I am. I’m the part of you you’ve always tried to bury, the part you’re ashamed of. The power. The rage. The truth of what we are!” Her smile turns predatory. “I’m every moment you’ve wanted to strike back, every time you’ve swallowed your anger, every instance you’ve chosen to be weak when you could have been strong.”
I glance toward the edge of the bubble and my breath leaves me in a rush.
Sam and Locke appear before me through the curved wall. Both suspended in the lake’s depths, their bodies twisted in slow-motion agony, eyes wide with terror and desperatedetermination. Their mouths open and close frantically, but no sound reaches me through the magical barrier. They’re dying. Drowning. Because of me.
“They came for you,” my darker self says sweetly, moving to stand beside me to watch their struggle. “Romantic, really. Doomed, but romantic. If you choose me, embrace what we truly are, they die. The lake will claim them, and you’ll be free of their weakness, their limitations.” She pauses, tilting her head like she’s considering something amusing. “Choose them, well. . .honestly, it would be a travesty. All that power, wasted on sentiment.”
The pressure builds in my chest like a physical weight. “Why?” I choke out. “Why does it have to be this way?”
“Because that’s the cost,” she says, her voice gentle now, almost maternal. “Greatness always costs something precious. Love is weakness, Esme. It makes us vulnerable, makes us hesitate when we should strike. Give it up. Embrace who we really are underneath all that fear and doubt.”
She steps closer, and I see the truth buried beneath her confident smile. The hatred, yes, but also the hunger. The desperate, aching loneliness that drives every cruel word and violent act.
She’s not just a villain spawned from dark magic.
She’s a wound, and I’m the one who let her fester. All my deep, dark wishes given form, wanting to be seen, wanting to be feared instead of pitied, wanting to push past my fears and show everyone who dismissed me exactly what they lost. All the resentments I’ve carried like stones in my chest, the hatred for those who caused me harm or looked the other way during my mistreatment. The fury at being called a “dud” when I had oceans of power locked inside me. This is all my fault. She is the accumulation of every bitter thought, every moment of rage I’ve swallowed, every time I’ve chosen to suffer in silence.
But she’s also wrong.
“No,” I whisper, then louder, stronger: “No.”
Her expression shifts from confident to furious in an instant. “You little fool?—”
She lunges at me without warning, catching me off guard and giving me barely enough time to react. Her fist crashes into my ribs with supernatural force, sending me sprawling backward across the bubble’s floor, leaving me breathless and seeing stars.
I’m not a fighter by nature, but I didn’t spend my time in the Underworld doing nothing. I’ll have to thank Ty and Trys for those brutal sparring lessons if I survive this. She wants me to fight my way to freedom, then we’ll fight.
I strike back, putting all my weight behind the blow. My fist collides with her face, and I feel the satisfying crunch of cartilage, but she barely flinches. She’s wild, giving just as good as she’s getting, her movements fluid and vicious. Sharp nails scrape across my neck as she knocks me to the ground, drawing blood that stings in the magical water surrounding us.
