Chapter 18: Chapter 18: TRUE MONSTER

VALORIA WILDEROSE

“P-p-plea-ase…” my voice cracks more than usual, heavy with desperation.

“What was that?” he taunts, laughter in his voice.

I swallow what little pride I had left.

“P-please, I’m s-sorr-ry.”

Pride doesn’t keep you alive.

“Where’s all that spunk from last night gone? I was looking forward to this lasting longer.” He sighs with sudden disappointment, amused with everything.

Fueling the resentment that sinks deep into my core with every mockery he offers me, I bite my tongue, refusing to say another word.

I’ve given him what he wants—the cowering and fear he so desires—so today’s game should be over.

“As much as I enjoy shattering you, it will be in your best interest not to break so soon,” he adds. “I still have so much more in store for you. Like your other present.”

“O-Other p-present?” I look at him, confused.

He passes a knowing look paired with a sinister grin.

“Didn’t you hear? Everyone’s saying the king has his eyes on a special new concubine,” he says, something abnormal in his tone, hinting at gossip he shouldn’t even know, calling it his “other present” to me.

I stare until I fix the pieces together, doubting it even after I’ve realized it.

“Y-You d-did that? W-Why?”

“I don’t know…” he shrugs casually, hands sliding into his pockets. “Much like archery, I enjoy painting a target red and watching which of my arrows is fast and sharp enough to cut right into it. You understand what I mean?”

At first, I don’t, staring into his eyes, trying to figure out how it ties together until the realization slowly settles like heavy weights.

I’m forced to recall a memory from many years ago, when I had found a small white bunny and made it my pet.

It used to follow me around until my sister found out and thought it was cute too. They all tried to feed it, but it ate nothing from them—only me.

Their desire for it turned into a weapon they used to torment me for weeks, starving me until they finally served it to me as dinner.

My confused gaze turns horrified. He chuckles out loud, recognizing my understanding.

And then I make the mistake of dropping my guard.

The arrow loaded in my hands is let go on accident, rippling through the air. It cuts right through one of the bagged men, striking where his heart should be.

He lets out a grunt of pain before falling backward.

A second of stone-cold silence passes between us before my hands drop down to my sides. I’m petrified and breathless, horrified.

“Oops,” he chuckles lowly from behind me. It starts out soft before turning into another manic outburst.

My ears ring loudly, drowning out all sound around me, until he’s merely an echo in the background, and all I can focus on is the bleeding man, wounded by the arrow I held.

Dying…

I killed him…

I killed a man.

With my heart pounding loudly in my ears, I rush forward, falling on my knees beside the body, shaking and too guilt-ridden to touch it.

A slight twitch of his body confirms that he’s still alive, and I let myself breathe again, crying harder than I ever have, shaking like a leaf in the wind.

I didn’t kill him.

Thank the goddess I didn’t.

The arrow must have missed his heart by some lucky miracle.

“I’m sorry,” I beg this barely conscious person.

“What are you sorry for?”

Azrael is behind me again, and I notice. My relieved body tenses up again, and I look up to meet him. He pulls me up, holding me roughly against himself.

I had almost killed a man because of him.

He was about to make me a murderer on purpose, knowing I’d never be able to live with myself, and it would eat me forever from the inside.

He toyed with me perfectly.

I’m more scared, finally understanding who this man in front of me is—nothing like what Calliope described; rather, he is everything he was rumored to be, and worse.

“That’s it… that’s the face I wanted to see.” He watches me with twisted delight.

I hold his eyes for the first time without a hint of fear—rather, hate, disgust, resentment, searing hotter than any feeling I’ve ever felt.

“You’re a m-m-monster,” I whisper lowly, my voice trembling with emotion.

Something on him cracks, only for a moment.

His smile fades slowly to dissatisfaction before he roughly lets me go, and I stagger away from him, displeased by my reaction.

In place of fear, he meets reinforced hatred and resolve.

He scoffs suddenly, evidently irritated.

“I haven’t even begun to unleash a quarter of what I have in store for you—not even the fate I reserve for spies bold enough to enter my wall,” he growls—a threat meant to terrify me back into fear.

But at this point, I’ve seen worse than he can throw.

“I’m n-not sc-cared of y-you.” There are worse things than his torturous games, like dying over and over again for millennia.

He reads me with his gaze. His left eye twitches; flashes of rage splatter across his face before tapering into something else entirely.

“You should be,” he spits suddenly, viciously.

And then, without time to register what he means, he raises his foot high, crushing down on the man’s neck right in front of me, letting out a sickening crack.

His struggle comes to a fatal end once his neck snaps, and he croaks, his movement halting as he breathes his last breath.

“NO!” I scream, forced to witness the gruesome end, moved so deeply by one man’s death even though I never knew him or his face.

“Heed my warning,” he speaks with venom in his voice, an anger I witness for the first time since meeting him that is truly terrifying. “You should, in fact, fear me more than your goddess, more than death itself.”

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