Page 55 of She Who Holds My Wrath

Chapter 23

ARAN

The moment they vanish, the room goes still.

The light of the leyline still pulses, thin and wavering, but their presence has gone, swallowed by the tear in reality as if they were never there at all. And the guards… are still standing there.

For a heartbeat, no one moves. No one even breathes. They were meant to follow. Meant to step through seconds behind Daisy and Maelkar. Instead, they remain frozen at the edge of the circle, weapons half-raised, expressions caught somewhere between readiness and utter confusion. One of them looks down at his own boots, as if expecting the floor to give way beneath him, belatedly. It doesn’t.

Velentha’s hand is still pressed to the stone flooring, her body visibly trembling as the last beads of blood drip into the cracks. “She’s through,” she whispers. “It worked.” But her voice wavers.

She notices them too. Her gaze lifts slowly from the circle to the unmoved formation of guards, disbelief washing over her features. “They… didn’t go,” she breathes.

I stare at the space where Daisy stood a breath ago, then at the guards, then back again. The ghost of her light fades from the air like smoke, leaving only cold emptiness behind. Something feels wrong.

Lucifer shifts where he’s leaning against the doorframe, eyes narrowing as he takes in the scene. “Well, that was anticlimactic. You’d think crossing three realms would make more noise or something.”

“Shut up,” I snap before I can stop myself. The words crack through the chamber, sharp with rising panic.

He lifts his hand in mock surrender, but the smirk on his face falters as the runes on the floor flicker. Velentha suddenly pitches forwards, digging her fingers into the etched circle to steady herself. Sweat beads along her temple, streaking through the faint dust on her skin, stands of onyx hair clinging damply to her cheek.

“No… no, no no. That’s not right.”

“What’s happening?” I move towards her instinctively, but she throws out a shaking arm to hold me back.

“The line isn’t closing properly on this side,” she mutters. “It’s fighting.”

The runes flare a deep, unnatural blue—jagged and unstable, like lightning trapped beneath ice. Cracks splinter between the symbols, spidering outwards across the stone floor.

Lucifer straightens fully, tension sharpening his posture. “That supposed to happen, V?”

“No.” Her eyes glow faintly as she presses her bleeding palm flat to the stone again. “Something’s interfered with the passage.” Her gaze flicks again to the guards, horror dawning. “They were meant to cross too,” she whispers. “The line rejected them.”

Corin shifts uneasily. “My lady… we stepped forwards. It was like hitting a wall. The air just—” He falters, clearly shaken. “—refused to let us pass.”

My stomach drops. “They went through without backup,” I murmur, the words tasting like ash.

A violent pulse shudders through the circle, rattling the floor beneath our feet. Dust trickles from the crumbling ceiling. Lucifer swears softly behind me. Panic coils tight in my chest as reality settles in deep. No escort. No protection. Just Daisy and Maelkar dropped into a realm under divine attack.

“Try bringing her back,” I practically shout, my heart pounding furiously.

Velentha looks up, silver eyes wild. “If I reopen the line without a full anchor, it could rip the entire tower apart. I’d be dragging the leyline through the walls of Hell itself.”

“Then use me,” I snap. “Use my blood, my magic. Whatever it takes.”

“You don’t understand,” she says, voice trembling. “If she’s already crossed, it won’t pull her back. It’ll pull us through. And if the other side is closed⁠—”

“—We’ll be stuck.”

“Or worse.”

The pulse of light flickers again, and I swear I hear it—an echo through the stone, faint and terrible. A heartbeat that isn’t Daisy’s.

Lucifer steps closer, eyes narrowing. “That’s not her frequency.”

Velentha nods stiffly. “No. That’s someone else.”

The pulse stutters, then goes still. The leyline seal burns out like a candle, leaving only smoke curling in the air. And then, there’s nothing. No hum of magic, no trace of her anywhere. Just the quiet hiss of extinguished power.