Page 96 of The Vespertine Treaty

The door slammed. The lock clicked.

I slumped sideways, the adrenaline crashing out of my system so fast it left me dizzy.

I pulled my knees up to my chin, burying my face in the torn silk of my gown. My breath was coming in short, jagged gasps—shallow, panicked puffs of air that didn't seem to reach my lungs.

One, two, three.

I tried to count. I tried to ground myself.

But the room was spinning.

I could still feel his hand on my thigh. I could still smell his breath.

A memory flashed—sharp and bright. My mother, weeping at the kitchen table, holding a cloth to her eye. My father standing over her, his whip in his hand, telling her she should have known better than to speak back.

I am her,I thought, the panic constricting my throat.I am just like her. Helpless. Weak. Waiting for a male to decide if I bleed or not.

"No," I whimpered into the dark.

I dug my fingernails into my palms until the skin broke, using the sharp sting of pain to tether me to the present.

I am not her. Cain is coming.

The thought was a lifeline. A fragile, terrifying lifeline.

I focused on the faint, dull thrum of the bond with Poppy somewhere in the distance. I focused on the memory of Cain’s eyes—fierce, angry, and mine.

The darkness pressed against my skin like wet wool, triggering the old, jagged memory of the Academy greenhouse—the smell of damp earth, the weight of bodies pinning me down, the realisation that screaming only made them laugh harder. My brain, usually so sharp, so ready to bite back, had short-circuited into a terrifying, frozen silence.

I hated myself for it. I hated the trembling in my hands.

But God, I was so tired. I had spent my entire life wielding my spine like a weapon against my parents, against the world, against the loneliness. I had been the soldier, the shield, the unbreakable girl. But even steel snaps if you bend it enough. Tonight, huddled in the dark, the axe felt too heavy to lift. Tonight, I didn't want to be the hero of my own story. I just wanted to be safe.

I rocked back and forth in the cold dark, fighting the panic attack with every ounce of will I had left, praying that the monster I was beginning to crave would arrive before the monster I already hated returned to finish what he started.

CHAPTER 34

CAIN

The Cenite Deadlands lived up to their name.

Here, the wind didn't just blow; it screamed, tearing across the jagged black cliffs with the sound of a thousand dying souls. There was no vegetation, only twisted, petrified wood and stone that looked like broken teeth jutting from the earth.

I stood at the edge of the illusion, the wind whipping my coat around my legs like a banner of war.

In my left hand, Aemelia’s orb pulsed with a furious, blinding white light. It was a searing heat against my palm, struggling to tear through the veil Malathor had woven.

In my right hand, I held my sword.

The blade was not made of steel. It was forged from star-metal and quenched in the blood of the first Void-Beasts. It hummed in my grip, a low, thrumming vibration that matched the murderous cadence of my heart.

"Find them," I whispered.

Beside me, Rhana was a shadow made flesh. Her fur was bristling, her lips pulled back to reveal fangs the length of daggers. She let out a sound that was less of a growl and more of a tectonic rumble.

I raised the orb.

"Break."