“Today, you’ll feel what it’s like to be stripped of everything.” I pat Diamond’s flank. “To be powerless. To be atthe mercy of someone who hates your existence.”
Diamond rears, pawing at the air, and surges forward. Visha is no match for his speed, and within seconds, he closes the distance.
I grab Visha by her throat, lifting her higher into the air. She thrashes like a wild animal, desperate for escape. She wants me to drop her, to give her the mercy of a quick death.
After everything… the broken bones, the blood, the children she burned alive, how naïve is she to think I would let her die so easily?
“Please…” Visha croaks, her voice raw, pathetic.
Diamond snorts, his muscles coiled tight with agitation at her stench. I stroke his neck to steady him, enjoying the sight of Visha trembling in my grip.
“Now you’re begging?” My laugh is sharp, humorless.
Visha digs her nails into my arm, but that pain is nothing compared to the wound she carved into my heart years ago. “I begged too, remember? I spent hours at your feet, pleading, screaming for mercy, hoping you’d stop. But you never did.” My voice drops into a growl. “We were kids.Kids. And younevershowed us mercy, so why should I?”
Visha only grunts, unbothered. That lack of remorse sends righteous rage roaring through my veins.
“You know something your precious visions never showed you, Visha?” I loosen my grip just enough so she can hear me clearly, feel the weight of every syllable. “I can take your Divine.”
Her whole body goes still. The color drains from her mangled face, and horror floods her eyes.
The battlefield freezes with her. A collective gasp echoes from friend and foe alike.
Only God or the King of Hell can strip a soul of its Divine. Even the Fates, with all their threads and journals, can only write magic, but never erase it.
Our Divine is a large part of our identity, and it’s the highest form of humiliation for a supernatural to be stripped of theirDivine. It takes away their right to our world.
And today, that’s the fate I gift her.
Visha, the once mighty queen, starts struggling again, her thick skull finally processing that a quick and easy death is not in her cards.
Her visions told her she would fall by my hand, but she thought she could twist that fate. She thought killing me and every other marked soul would change what was written.
But if I didn’t make it out of that dungeon, someone else would’ve. In every realm, in every universe, her future ends with a pathetic death.
“Wait—stop!” she gasps, clawing for words, for anything that will buy her another second. “If you k-kill me… how will you save your family fromhim?”
My grip tightens at her confidence. A coy smile curls on her lips when she sees me falter.
“From who?”
“A threat no m-man has faced before. A power beyond your knowledge. A future you can’t outrun.” Her voice shakes, but the words spill out as if they’re carved into her memory.
A power beyond my knowledge?
“I can help you destroy it,” she gasps. “Spare my life, and I’ll tell you e-everything that’s coming.”
I stare at her, my heart hammering. For a second, I’m scared that something worse than her is waiting in the dark. But then I see the smirk hiding in her cracked lips, the glint of manipulation in her eyes.
This is not the first time she’s tried to get under my skin. She has a knack for figuring out someone’s deepest fear and twisting it for her benefit.
But I know she’s fumbling to save her life. It’s not going to work.
Even if danger lurks around the corner, we can deal with it just like we dealt with her. Let’s see who has the power to stand against the literal causes of the ultimate apocalypse.
“Your games don’t work on me anymore,” I hiss. “You’vereached your end, and I’m here to collect.”
I close my eyes and inhale deeply, letting my Divine unfurl through me, spilling out like a tidal wave. It pushes past her flesh and into her core.
