Page 58 of She Who Holds My Wrath

My chest constricts. “And if the Six are watching?” I shout, the words tearing free before I can temper them. “If this is a trap? If they’re waiting for exactly that?”

Her eyes go distant again, silver dimming as she reaches inward, searching the threads of possibility. Panic drives me to follow, instinctively calling on my own sight. The world fractures into shards of futures, images flashing too fast to grasp. Gateways yawning open. Darkness. Movement. Blood. I force the visions towards the Gates, towards Aurora’s Veil, towards anything that might show me what waits on the other side. But nothing stays long enough to understand. Just haze. Static. Absence.

When the room snaps back into place, my head is pounding and Velentha is watching me with wary concern, as if she knows exactly how hard I just pushed. Since Saevyn fractured my memories, my sight is harder to access, and even harder to control. Using it takes more energy than it should.

“I saw nothing,” she says quietly. “I just saw myself passing through the Gate, and then it goes hazy again.”

“I saw the same thing,” I admit hoarsely. “Just the crossing. Nothing beyond it.”

Lucifer shifts his weight against the wall, his wings splayed out against the old rock, his arms folding loosely, though the tension in his posture betrays how invested he actually is. His gaze flicks between us, impatience simmering beneath the surface.

“Well,” he says, voice edged with darkness, “either we act, or we wait here while they bleed out.”

My heart hammers hard enough to make my vision pulse, his words landing hard. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” I mutter, even as the argument sounds weaker to my own ears. Because doing nothing feels worse. Because every second we hesitate is another second Daisy is alone out there. And Maelker.

Velentha walks over to me and places a hand on each of my cheeks. “Aeshira, let me do this. If they’re in trouble, I’m their only way out. Lucifer has god blood in his lineage, so he can open the leyline on this side. Daisy and I will open it in Aurora’s Veil. We can’t leave her there.”

I sigh heavily, and nod once, dropping my forehead to hers. She’s right, I know she is. No matter what, whether Daisy and Maelkar are in trouble or not, they need help opening a new leyline connection. I know Velentha can do this; she has mastered going undetected for centuries. But I still can’t shift the uneasy feeling in my gut. Because I’m sending my wife, my Aeshira, into the wolves’ den, and I have no way of protecting her, or my queen.

Chapter 24

DAISY

Holy shit I’m freezing.

It’s cold. So, so cold. Not the kind that just prickles at the skin, but the kind that sinks into the bone and settles there and is all consuming. My body feels wrong too, like it’s too heavy. My arms ache, my head throbs, and every breath has a disgusting metallic taste to it.

I try to open my eyes, but they feel glued shut, as if the frost that’s formed along my lashes has turned into solid ice. When I finally manage to force them apart, the world swims in and out of focus. Blurred shapes, shifting shadows, and the quiet plink of dripping water somewhere in the dark.

I try to move my hand to rub the grit from my eyes, to rub at my head to try and clear the pounding fog, but something pulls me short. A metallic clang echoes around me, loud enough to make me flinch, the sound ringing inside my skull. That’s when I realise. My arms are stretched above my head, wrists bound in iron shackles bolted into the stone ceiling. The metal bites deep into skin that feels raw and frozen at the same time, the edges grinding against bone every time I move.

“What the—” The words spill out as thick and slurred, my tongue heavy and uncooperative. I pull again, but the chains don’t give. They just mockingly rattle into the space around me. My stomach drops.

Slowly, my vision sharpens. The room around me stretches into a yawning cavern. Rough stone walls carved straight out of the mountain itself, slick with moisture, barely touched by the faint, distant glow of torches set at the far side of the room. Their light flickers weakly, swallowed by shadow before it can even reach the floor. The air is damp and brutally cold, the kind that makes lungs burn.

I turn my head, wincing as the movement sends knives of pain through my temples. I’m in a dungeon. But this isn’t Hell’s dungeon. It’s colder, there’s no cells, and I swear I can smell bonfire smoke on the wind.

Aurora’s Veil. Kaelith. Maelkar.

The memories resurface all at once. The wine, walking through the passageways, that creeping dizziness. Kaelith’s voice curling around me, smooth and mocking, twisting uglier as everything began to spin. The Dream-root.

Panic courses through me, flooding my senses. I twist violently, pulling against the shackles that are holding my arms up until the metal bites deep enough, that I feel warm blood trickling down my wrists. I barely react to the sensation, because this isn’t just pain. This is helplessness. And my body remembers. Ethan’s face flashes behind my eyes once again. My pulse skyrockets. Not again. Not again. Not again.

Except this time, it’s worse. Because I’m not supposed to be vulnerable anymore. I’m immortal now. A queen. Something ancient and powerful reborn in flesh. I’ve burned enemies, shattered monsters, survived things that should have destroyed me. I should be untouchable. Invincible. So why does my body still betray me so easily? Why am I still just a girl hanging helpless from chains? Anger flares hot beneath the panic. At Kaelith. At Ethan. At my own useless, shaking limbs that refuse to summon even a spark of flame.

“Maelkar?” My voice comes out barely above a whisper, thin and broken. “Maelkar, are you here?”

Nothing. Just a small dripping echoing around the room, and the frantic sound of my rapid breathing. Oh gods, where is he? I hope he’s okay. My mind scrambles for explanations, any explanation that doesn’t end with me alone in Kaelith’s hands. Maybe he managed to escape into his shadows and he’s going to get help. Maybe he’s already halfway back to Hell, furious and planning something terrible.

Or maybe… Maybe he left. The thought lands like a blade straight to the heart. No. No, he wouldn’t do that. He’s my friend, not just an ally. He stayed when he didn’t have to before. He’s helped me. Joked around with me in the snow just before everything came crashing down. He wouldn’t abandon me here. Would he?

The creak of a door breaks through my panicked thoughts. My head snaps towards the sound—pain lancing through my skull hard enough to make my vision spark—just as a thin blade of light slices into the darkness from a narrow doorway to my left. A figure steps through, a flickering torch held high.

Firelight spills across the cavern in restless waves, licking along the walls and chasing shadows back into the corners. Rough stone gleams damply, veins of frost catching the glow and throwing it back in cold, fractured reflections. Stalactites crowd the ceiling above, their jagged tips glittering with ice, slow droplets falling to the floor where half-frozen puddles spread in uneven patches.

“Maelkar?” My voice trembles, laced with desperate hope. “Is that you?” I lean forwards, trying to see past the blur of firelight, but the chains snap taught. The iron bites into my already torn skin, sharp and merciless. I hiss, gritting my teeth as the movement causes a sting of pain to shoot through my shoulders.

The figure doesn’t answer. They just keep approaching. Slow and unhurried. It’s not the cautious steps of someone searching. Nope. This is the deliberate pace of someone who already knows exactly where I am. Each footfall echoes softly. There’s something too deliberate about their steps. They’re too controlled, as if every movement is choreographed at an attempt to build dread. A predator, closing the distance.