“Death to her. Death to all.” I utter it like a mantra, a witch’sspell, a curse. “Death to her. Death to all.”
I will not yield to these pitiful fools. I will slay them without a second thought.
They don’t deserve an apology or for me to be merciful. They deserve everything they have coming to them. They deserve the ruin of their damnation. The fall of their worlds.
No, they don’t.
I don’t want them to die.
“Her eyes are black,” a voice says to my left. “Do it now.”
The blade cuts through my gut, and I grit my teeth, welcoming the pain. I laugh without wanting to, but it doesn’t seem to sound the way it should. The noise coming from my throat is a loud rumble, a haunting echo around the cave as the knife cuts deeper.
The cave walls crack with the power I throw out, but the person wielding the blade doesn’t shift. He pushes it deeper, and the thunder gets louder, closer, and needier.
A snap goes off in my mind, and I fall from the cliff that I’ve been dangling from. I plummet for seconds, minutes, hours, maybe even years. I cry out for more. To end the suffering within me and my realms.
More.
I want more.
I need more.
Deeper.
Deadlier.
I want death. I need it. I need them to kill me before it gets worse—before it spreads to places within me that I can’t control. The Blade of the Gods needs to penetrate my cursed heart and destroy my soul.
Only in the living dead of Seraphine Winters can we be damned. All of us, to eternity. The wars are lost, but battles are won. But mine… As I fall into the abyss, I beg the gods above to keep my family safe from the rest of the darkness taking over the realms.
I mutter a mantra in my head and wait for the reaper to appear, to sweep me away from this carnage. I’m shoved aside by the grinning monster again as its claws plunge into my skin.
They don’t know what they’re doing by stopping me.
Their lives are in my hand, and I will clench my fist and drive it into their worlds. I’ll split the universe in two. I’ll alter timelines and destroy all the gods who try to stop me.
Realms will be no more.
Life as we know it will cease to exist.
He’ll try to stop me, but not even love can pin me down. He’s deluded to think the old me will break free. She’s trapped, falling into nothing, for as long as I allow.
Within the confines of my poisoned mind, I grab onto the talons of the monster and drive my fist into its face. The force pushes it back, and I take control.
I can’t hold on much longer. It’s much stronger than before, and soon, I will be gone, and she will take over. Soon, I will be nothing but someone who used to exist.
I grit my teeth and tug at the vines wrapping around each limb, pulling at the restraints with everything I have.
But I don’t want to be free. I want to die.
I need to.
I need them to plunge the Blade of the Gods deeper, through my muscle and flesh and drag it down—only then can I let the dark power exit my body. It thrashes within my bones, cracks them, and stretches my senses to a point of near no return.
But I need to finish what I started.
Green eyes appear before me, a soft hand on my cheek. “Fight it, my love. You have to fight it, or it will overcome you.”