The small, aborted gesture of comfort makes everything worse. We can't even console each other without risking my health.
I've never felt more isolated.
My gaze drifts toward the alcove where the children sleep. Do Jer and Sara understand what they've been saved from? Does little Bun, with her ever-shifting features, have any concept of the fate that might have awaited her?
How many others like them never made it out? How many were consumed by blood witches or syphoned for their energy until nothing remained?
"Thank you," I say out of nowhere, surprising myself.
Caine tilts his head, questioning.
"For destroying the Fiddleback Pack." The words feel strange in my mouth, but right. Just days ago, I'd seen him as nothing but a murderous monster. The Lycan King who slaughtered an entire pack without remorse. Now I understand.
Lyre had called it pack justice.
"Thank you for stopping them."
It's not justice when there's no one left to save. It's just blood for blood—but the price had to be paid.
Chapter forty-two
Lyre: Plausibility
LYRE
Blue-white fire dances across the walls, twisting in impossible patterns and defying all laws of physics. The flames consume nothing—not the blood-soaked concrete or the bodies scattered like broken dolls.
This isn't destruction.
It's preparation.
I stand at the center of it all, unmoved and untouched. Fire caresses my skin like an old lover, recognizing what I am andmaking way. My hair lifts in the heat, the rainbow strands floating as though underwater.
The inferno is beautiful in its terrible way.
I lift my hand, palm up, fingers splayed. My nails lengthen just a fraction, blackening at the tips.
"Come," I whisper, and the command reverberates through the chamber.
The effect is immediate. Pinpricks of light rise from the bodies—pale blue, silver-white, soft lavender. They drift upward like embers from a dying fire, hesitant at first, then eager. Soullight. Released from flesh which can no longer serve.
The Reapers haven't arrived, so it's the perfect time.
Wispy trails streak toward my outstretched palm, hovering inches above my skin. They pulse with awareness—terrified, melancholy, angry. So much anger. I can taste their fury, where it coalesces in my palm.
They deserve better than this forgotten death, better than becoming fuel for someone else's ambitions.
Deserve more than someone who never wanted to be their hero.
"Cleanse," I murmur, the single word ringing with the power of arcana.
The souls respond, stretching upward like plants seeking sunlight. They know what I am—what I represent. Neither Order, nor Chaos, nor Balance; something between all three, part of everything but belonging to none. Something else entirely.
These poor, forgotten souls spiral higher, streams of light crawling toward ceiling of this place, phasing through concrete and earth and whatever else is between them and the sky above.
My phone vibrates against my hip. Once. Twice. Then a continuous buzz, like it's an angry hornet trapped against my skin.
Divinity Connect, having an absolute meltdown over my presence here, over what I'm doing. Like I didn't know what was going to happen from the moment I took this step.
