Something dark and twisted danced in the king’s beady, ink-black eyes. ‘I would be most delighted to indulge your request,’ he said silkily. ‘But…’ He flicked his swollen fingers and, with a whisper of smoke, a black apple appeared upon the plate before her. ‘I shall tell you what you seek if you take a bite from this.’
‘I can’t,’ Mal replied, her voice low. ‘You’ll bind me to this place.’
Beelzebub’s grotesque laughter rattled from his chest, ending in a wet cough. ‘No, no, little god-killer. If you can manage just one bite, no more, and resist the rest, then I shall give you the name you crave and permit your departure. It is not the apple that damns you, Melinoe. It is your weakness.’
Across the obscene expanse of the table, Mal’s gaze met Thanatos’. His hands held tightly to Makaria’s, both enclosed in his grasp as though warding off the very temptation itself. His fingers tensed visibly, his dark eyes locked on hers, blazing a silent warning.
‘And if I refuse?’
The king gave a wheezing snort. ‘Then you may walk free. But I will speak no further of the soul you seek.’
Mal extended a hand. Her fingertip hovered a whisper away from the apple’s skin, so black it gleamed like obsidian under candlelight.
‘Don’t,’ Thanatos murmured, his voice wrapping around her like a phantom caress. Protective. Familiar. But Mal had never needed protecting.
She had been forged in fear, shaped by shadows. A creature of night, of fury and fire. No gluttonous king of Hell would unmake her now.
Her fingers closed around the apple. The moment her skin met its surface, the hunger struck. Like claws from within, it twisted through her gut, and she folded forward, clutching her stomach. Pain bloomed, white-hot and unbearable.
With a snarl, she sank her fangs into the fruit, just to silence the agony.
Juice, rich and spiced, exploded on her tongue and the hunger intensified, a maelstrom that devoured reason. Her limbs trembled. Her vision blurred. The craving was all-consuming.
Just one bite. Just a taste.
‘Melinoe,’ came a voice, distant yet unwavering, like a memory made flesh. ‘You can do this. Don’t give in. Don’t eat.’
Mal screamed as her fingers tightened around the apple, her hand trembling as though possessed. The hunger gnawed at her insides like a beast denied, and the pain was so sharp, so unrelenting, that tears spilt freely down her cheeks. Her scream fractured the air, a raw, wounded sound. Her teeth brushed the fruit’s skin. She bit down, barely, breaking the flesh.
She swallowed this time.
‘One more bite,’ the king crooned, his voice thick with indulgence, his eyes gleaming with glee. ‘Just one more, and you shall befree... forever.’
She knew Thanatos and Makaria were frozen in place by the spell of this wretched ring, held hostage in their chairs by forces neither muscle nor magic could undo. And still, she longed for the comfort of arms around her. For someone to cradle her, to brush the sweat-drenched hair from her brow the way Haven used to. Gentle, tender, humming lullabies with that ever-serene expression.
Haven, always graceful. Always poised. A sister like a crown: heavy, radiant, and good.
And taken. Torn from them by hands soaked in cruelty.
Mal would not rest. She would not falter. She would learn, and she would rise. She would unmake the wall, rally the forsaken, and march with fury against Hagan.
For Haven. For all of them.
Her jaw tensed. She bit into the apple again, then spat it with force, the chewed flesh flying across the table to land with a wetsplatter upon the king’s bloated face. He blinked, stunned, as she lifted the ruined fruit in her hand for him to see.
Then, with slow and deliberate menace, Mal crushed it, juice and pulp dripping between her fingers like blood before flinging it onto his plate.
‘Now,’ she said, her voice low and seething like a storm just beneath the surface. ‘Tell me where Allegra is.’
There is something quietly fascinating about the way valkyrians transform at the moment of rebirth. Their original features do not disappear entirely. They soften, as though memory itself were being gently smoothed. They often resemble who they once were, only gentler, almost dreamlike.
A Fae, for instance, is reborn with the same skin and eye colour, yet their antlers vanish, lost to the past. A child of the desert will no longer bear the striking white eyes of their homeland; instead, they awaken with something more natural, more common. In essence, it is the most defining feature of their former land that fades, erased in the transition. And yet, the rest remains.
If you look closely enough, you can still trace the echoes of their origin. A curve of bone, a shade of skin, a glint in the eye.
They always carry at least one mark from the life before.
Tabitha Wysteria
