She presses her spine harder against the books, but she lifts her chin. "I am Leora."
"Names are for things that have a future," I say dismissively. "You have a purpose. There is a difference."
I circle her, my movements fluid. I can smell her fear. It has a scent—acrid, like nature before a storm, mixed with the damp, earthy smell of the rain clinging to her. But beneath the fear, there is something else. A strange, quiet static that prickles against my mental shields. It feels… dense.
Most humans are open books, their minds leaking simple, loud emotions like a sieve. Hunger. Pain. Lust. Fear. But this girl is a fortress. She is holding something back, clamping down on her terror with a will that should not exist in a species so short-lived and frail.
Perfect.
"My patron is The Serpent," I tell her, my voice dropping to a murmur. "He is the God of Pain. Of Misery. He does not feast on the body, Leora. He feasts on the mind. He drinks the scream that dies in the throat."
I raise my right hand. The obsidian ring on my index finger flares with a sudden, violet light. The frigid air in the room drops ten degrees in a heartbeat. Frost patterns bloom on the windowpanes.
"Let us see what you are hiding behind those sapphire eyes."
I do not touch her. Don’t need to. I reach into the well of Chaos within me, pulling on the dark threads of the Aether. Usually, this requires effort, a mental flexing of muscle. Today, with the girl so close, the magic leaps from me, eager and violent.
I cast a phantasm.
The shadows in the corners of the room detach themselves from the walls. They elongate, twisting and writhing, taking on substance. They slither across the floorboards, silent as death, transforming into heavy, coiling vipers the size of tree trunks. Their scales are black oil, their eyes burning with the same violet light as my ring.
They circle her. One rears up, its hood expanding, jaws opening to reveal fangs dripping with liquid shadow.
I wait for the scream. I wait for the dam to break. I need her to shatter. I need that explosion of pure, unadulterated terror to flood the room so I can channel it into the ring, so I can feed the hunger that has been gnawing at my bones for weeks.
Leora gasps. Her hands fly up to cover her mouth. Her body trembles so violently I can hear the rustle of her rags.
"Look at them," I command, my voice echoing with magical amplification. "Look at your death."
She squeezes her eyes shut.
"Open them!" I roar, pushing a pulse of will into her mind.
Her eyes snap open. But she does not look at the snakes.
She looks at me.
Her pupils dilate. The sapphire blue is swallowed by a tide of black, until her eyes are void-dark mirrors.
I expect a plea. I expect hatred.
Instead, something slams into my mind.
It is not a word. It’s not a sound. It is a sensation so foreign, so violently abrupt, that my breath hitches in my chest.
It feels like swallowing a mouthful of warm syrup laced with arsenic. It is a cloying, suffocating heat that rushes through my veins, scalding the cold, structured darkness of my soul. It tastes of salt water and soft skin. It feels like… sorrow.
But not her sorrow.
Mine.
She is looking at me, and she is not seeing a monster. She is seeing a man standing alone in a cold room, desperate for power he cannot hold. She ispityingme.
The sensation hits my stomach like a punch. Bile rises in my throat, hot and acidic. Pity is the antithesis of The Serpent. It is a weakness. It is a corruption. To feel it—to have it forced intome by a creature beneath my notice—is a violation so profound it makes my vision blur.
"Stop," I choke out.
The warmth intensifies. It wraps around my heart, squeezing, softening the edges of my rage, dulling the sharp, beautiful blade of my cruelty. It feels like drowning in feathers. It feels like being smothered by light.
