I growl under my breath at the memory and shake it off with a slow exhale, forcing my focus back to the present.
It takes five breaths. Just five. And then it’s done.
The lifeforce of Blood magic rushes inside. It floods me, beautiful and heavy, and I immediately shove it outward.
First to the closest survivors. Then the less injured with broken bones and burns. I feel each wound mend, each scream go silent. I heal over two hundred people. And when it’s done, dark silence swallows the world.
I stand trembling, the magic still humming in my veins like a second, feverish pulse. But there’s no pride in the power, only the echo of the ones I chose to end. I count them again in my mind, to honor them by remembering each one.
Ninety-eight.
I breathe in smoke and the scent of ash and think this is the price, this is what mercy costs. And then I collapse. I fall to my knees and sob. Into my hands. Into the dirt. Into what’s left of myself.
I did this. Not just with my magic, but by giving them hope. By making them believe. If it weren’t for me, they’d all have agreed to serve. I feel shame for being angry with those women in Mael’s estate. They chose to live. How could I blame them?
But what kind of life will it be?A voice rises in my mind furious and roaring— mine.
I lift my head. Kaelzar kneels beside me, his shadow wraps around us like a shield, blotting out the dying fires behind.
He says nothing, and in that silence, something inside me hardens. I did what had to be done, and I will carry it. But I won’t let its weight stop me, no matter how impossibly heavy it settles on my shoulders, or how long it stays.
“I want to see those men,” I say.
If I hadn’t just takenthe lives of nearly a hundred people, I might have broken in revulsion at what Kaelzar has done to the men responsible for all of it.
Only they’re not men anymore. Just a pile of torn limbs and twistedbodies. Arms ripped from torsos. Hands that hurt, that chained, that burned all those women. And then, cold horror tightens in my chest.
When my Blood magic swept through the burning settlement, healing every body still clinging to life, it didn’t know to choose. It mended some of them too, the ones Kaelzar left to bleed out in this monstrous heap.
Their wounds closed, but it couldn’t reattach limbs. So now they writhe on the ground, crying, shaking, reliving every moment of his retribution.
Maybe I should feel remorse. But all I feel is sick, dizzying pleasure that disgusts me more than the pile of ruined bodies ever could. Let them survive. Let them suffer.
They’ll live the rest of their lives without arms. The same arms that beat and burned and restrained innocent girls. And for what?
I say the question aloud without realizing it.
One of them lifts his head. His face is gaunt, filthy, eyes wild with pain. “You’re an abomination,” he spits. “You and your disciples. You’ll all burn!”
I recognize him from Micheline’s inn, the man with a milky eye Kaelzar pointed out watching me. Had they been planning it for that long?
The man pushes himself to his feet with a howl, stumbling when he forgets he no longer has arms to steady himself.
Disciples.
“You did this,” I say slowly, “because they were praying to Calista? Because they were praying for me?”
He stands now, shaking with rage. The others begin to stir, crawling or scrambling away when they spot Kaelzar. I see the fear return to their eyes.
But the mind of a man who spoke seems to be fractured, just like his body. He starts laughing through his tears.
“Mael will make you pay,” he chokes out, voice breaking. “I served him well. He’ll reward me. A whole harem of red harlots for what we did today. For showing them what happens to those who won’t obey. Who won’t serve. All I have to do is put their hands into the gauntletsand they’ll be mine to play with.” He hurls these last words at me like venom.
A sharp crack sounds behind me, like ice splintering, and I turn. Kaelzar is standing still as stone. Two jagged, shadow-forged swords have formed in his hands, long, curved, and deadly.
“You still have two limbs left,” he says in a low voice. “If you want to keep them, I suggest you use them to march in the opposite direction from my Champion. Because for every word you speak after this, I’ll take a piece of shadow from your wretched body.”
His calm is terrifying. The man stumbles backward, then turns and runs, chasing after the others disappearing between the ruins. A group of armless men, fleeing.
