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August 19 - September 10, 2025
Quick and painless. But still unfair.
He is so foolish. He believes he is destroying a threat. But he is too arrogant to see that he is creating a greater one.
There was something in the Sentinel’s voice that seemed . . . oddly vulnerable then. Oddly human. I stared into my own reflection.
{Who are you?} an intrigued voice whispered. I lifted the axe and swung.
My fingertips brushed the mask. And then, with a rush of scalding heat, the forge burst into flames.
I knew it was coming. They were a divine warrior. They had nothing but their single task. But here and now, I was a fucking god.
Life and death surrounded me. It all seemed so damned easy now. A web to be scaled.
She didn’t walk, she simply ascended.
But when my knees hit the ground now, it wasn’t for the eye. It was for her.
{Srana does not yet fear you,} the eye whispered. {But she will.}
But there was nothing she could say to earn my forgiveness, let alone my mercy.
“I don’t care,” I replied. And I did not. I raised the blade again.
A beautiful woman approached me slowly, arm outstretched. She had eyes of amber and smelled of cinnamon. Smelled of cinnamon . . . and blood.
SHE HAS A SCENT AGAIN 😭
I couldn’t save her as a mortal. But a god was not confined to the bounds of time and space. A god could step between worlds.
I had seconds to decide, and when I arrived at our only answer, I knew she would hate me for it. But at least if she hated me, she would be alive. I gathered her up in my arms, Luce at my side, and jumped.
Let me tell you now about the night the prince learned he was a god.
Because your soul already belongs to the underworld. When you fulfill your oath to me, it will take it back.”
The kindest thing he could do, the only good he could offer, would be to ensure that it was his. He accepted this. A simple truth. And then he turned to the goddess, and he crafted a deal.
Oraya smiled. “Hello, Mische.” My eyes burned. “Hello.” But then Raihn’s expression darkened. “You have,” he said, “so much explaining to do. So. Much.”
“No,” Raihn snapped. “I get to ask questions now. Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea the things that we have been doing to find you? You couldn’t send us a letter? A few fucking sentences saying, Hello, Raihn. How’s the weather? I’m alive!”
“Against my professional recommendation,” she said drily, “you have been allowed to see Mische. I’m here to bring you to her chambers.” Allowed. Cute. But ever the grateful guest, I simply rose and followed.
You are the sacrifice I will not make, Mische. You. Don’t ask me to apologize for that.” Silence.
“I don’t care.” The easiest answer I’d ever spoken. Perhaps the only time I, a man obsessed with answers, had ever said it.
“I don’t regret it,” I said again. “Which part?” she murmured. “Any of it, Mische.” And then I kissed her.
“Can’t help what?” “Arguing with you so I can listen to you breathe.” She made a face. “You are such a sap, Warden. Such a sap.”
“Stop talking,” I whispered into her mouth, “and let me touch you.” A man only has so much self-control.
“You are not an offering. Not to Atroxus or any other god. Any of them would be lucky to kneel before you.” He pressed his mouth to my bare shoulder, tongue briefly tasting skin. “As am I.”
Sun take me. Was that a hint of relief on his face? That was almost sweet.
“So let me make sure I understand. You want us to create a magical god door to who-fucking-knows-where in our palace, wide open to who-fucking-knows-what, so that you can go through, grab the heart of the god of fucking death, and ascend to divinity.” He gave Asar a pointed look. “You. The Wraith Warden.”
“You had our help from the minute you got here,” he said. “It was never a question, Mische. Not for a Mother-damned second.”
Lilith, Vale’s wife, who had apparently built up some knowledge of such things in her previous life.
IM SCREAMING!! I KNOW HER :’)
“Why are you looking at me like that?” “You just sound . . . different.” “Different?” “Stronger.”
had been ready to die to help Raihn become what I knew he could be. To force him to become what I knew he could be. Now, this seemed so unforgivably cruel.
“You and me, right?” he murmured. “Two fucked-up people getting through the worst of our Mother-damned lives together. We were just trying to survive. And I wouldn’t have done it without you. That’s just the truth of it.”
“So. This Asar character.” I stiffened. “Mm-hmm?” I said, too casually. “Just how hard have you fallen?” “I don’t know what you’re—” “For fuck’s sake, Mish. That entire apartment reeked of sex.” My face heated. “Gods, Raihn,” I squeaked.
“I know that look. Like his entire world was ending. No wonder the man is about to go rip apart the fabric of the universe for you.”
“I know what it looks like when a man is gone. And he is so far gone for you.”
“He makes me want a happy ending.” When I finally forced myself to look at Raihn, he was giving me a quiet, serious stare. “Is that silly?” I said. He shook his head. “No. It’s not silly at all.”
“Raihn won’t say it, but it needs to be said, so I will.” She dug the tip of her blade into the table and leaned across it. “You’re welcome here as long as Mische says you should be. But let’s be clear. If you ever hurt her, in any sense, I will peel your skin off and make you eat it.”
“If I ever hurt her,” I said, “I’d hand you the blade myself.”
Mische introduced me to a woman named Lilith—the wife of their general who was retrieving the blood, and, apparently, the one responsible for most of their work distilling it. When she had pushed her wire glasses up her nose and stretched out her hand to grasp mine, she’d paused and cocked her head. “Have we met?” she asked. We hadn’t, though she did seem oddly familiar.
This is like the avengers
Vincent’s death was not going to make him the father he should have been for you in life. It just makes it easier to dream it could.”
He looked mortal. And I felt alive.
But I couldn’t help the sense that perhaps we were like two celestial bodies in the sky. Him arcing from mortality to divinity. Me, from death to life. The two of us colliding for only a few ephemeral moments, magnificent in their impermanence.
Vale smiled. It was such a smooth, smug expression. Different from any expression I had ever seen Vale wear before, but it looked like one I’d once seen on someone else. I just couldn’t place— And then, all at once, I saw it.
AHHH
The man before us wasn’t Vale at all.
It reminded me so vividly of the smile he had given me when he had first offered me the world in exchange for my soul.
I no longer cared to find Alarus’s heart. I cared only to find my own.
“Why do you think that the children I created with his power feast upon the blood of mortals? We were all born in suffering. What makes us powerful is to thrive upon the taste of it. You understand this. I have always seen it in you.”
Strange, that I could not remember her name.
Stop it
