Page 100 of Devoured
“Help me build it,”I said, taking his hand as the old realm crumbled. “My version. My rules.”
Varnar screamed as existence rewrote itself around us, but I was already shaping what came next. A hell that would be precise. Selective. Just.
Epilogue
The throne wasn’t made of bones anymore.
I’d drawn the design in ash on the chamber floor, showing Flame exactly what I wanted. Black metal twisted with silver, arms that curved like serpents, a back that rose twelve feet high. He’d spent three weeks in the forges below, hammering out my vision.
“Another delivery, my Queen.”
Flame stood as he always did, at my right side. The iron helmet hid his face, showing only those two red slits where eyes should be. I’d told him a hundred times he didn’t need the helmet anymore.
We’d had that fight last week, actually. Me straddling him in bed, trying to pull it off while he held my wrists.
“The fear works better when they can’t see me,” he’d insisted.
“Bullshit. You’re scared they’ll see how beautiful you are under there.”
He’d flipped me then, pinned me to the bed with one massive hand.“Beautiful? I’m a monster,my moth.”
“My monster,” I’d corrected, then bit his scarred shoulder hard enough to draw black blood.
But today he wore it, like always when we held court.
Eight months since I’d poisoned the Judge with my concentrated guilt and taken his place. Eight months spent learning to govern hell effectively. Not the screaming, writhing nightmare he’d built over millennia, but something that actually made sense.
The realm had changed with me. Gone were the walls made of human meat, floors that squirmed under your feet like tongues. The cathedral of bones had been the first thing to go. Now my domain looked like what it was—a massive prison carved from obsidian and steel. The walls still breathed, but slowly. Deep sleep breathing. The air didn’t stink of rot and sulfur anymore. Just copper and that electric smell you get before lightning strikes.
I smoothed my hands over my dress—shadow-silk that moved like liquid smoke. Flame had found it for me in some forgotten corner of the realm, folded in a chest that probably hadn’t been opened in centuries. It clung to my transformed body perfectly, shifting between deep purple and absolute black depending on the light. At times, stars seemed caught within its folds, like pieces of the night sky stitched together.
“How many today?” I asked, tracing patterns on my throne’s arm. The metal warmed under my touch.
“Six confirmed. Marion found a ring.”
I felt them through my connection to the shepherds above. Three souls I’d claimed, marked by their touch, ready to be pulled down when their time came. Marion’s fierce satisfaction blazed brightest—she’d been hunting for weeks, following whispers and rumors through Chicago’s underbelly.
In an unexpected twist, she discovered them through Emma’s school. Started with one creepy teacher who kept“special“ photos in a locked drawer. That led to others. A whole network hiding in plain sight.
During the day, Marion was the perfect PTA mom. Made Emma elaborate lunches with notes inside. Helped with homework at the kitchen table. She went to every school play and soccer game. But at night? At night she became something else. And Isaac hunted beside her.
They’d always been in love, even back in St. Dymphna when everything was insane and corrupted. That desperate connection between people who understood each other’s damage. Now they worked like a machine—him with his medical knowledge and steady hands, her with her unhinged determination. Emma had started calling Isaac“Dad“ last month.
Sela worked alone because Sela always worked alone. She ran a shelter in Prague now, a real one with real beds and real locks on the doors. She helped women escape from monsters. And when those monsters came looking, when they showed up drunk and angry demanding their property back... well. The resurrection had done something to her. Granting her strength beyond that of any ordinary forty-plus-year-old. Strong enough to put men twice her size on their knees, mark them with my touch, and send them tumbling down to me.
“Bring them in,” I commanded.
Reality rippled in the sorting room. Six figures materialized, stumbling and blinking in the strange light of my realm. They thought it was a nightmare at first. They always did.
“Welcome.” I stood from my throne, and the shadow-silk dress flowed around me like water.“You’re probably wondering where you are.”
One tried to run, a man in his forties with a face people trusted. He’d been touching his students for six years. He chose the quiet ones. The ones who wouldn’t tell.
“This is insane,” said another. The surgeon who’d been making“mistakes“ during operations. Only on women who looked like his ex-wife.
Then there were the others. Each one marked by my shepherds for good reason. Each one guilty of destroying lives while sleeping soundly.
“This is my domain,” I continued, walking down the steps. My feet were bare—always bare. The black glass was warm under my soles.“You’re here because you’ve hurt people without feeling bad about it.”
