Chapter 28: Chapter 28: ON DEATH’S DOOR

VALORIA WILDEROSE

Ivana stares back at me, wide-eyed, before bursting into mocking laughter. She lets me go just to hold onto her aching belly.

My face slams into the floor in the process while she laughs to her fill, mocking me.

I feel the burn of her mockery deeper than anything else, but I fight through it, crawling away while she’s distracted.

But I don’t get too far before she notices.

“Where do you think you’re going?” She grabs me by my legs, pulling me back and turning me around to face her again. “I have never seen anything so ugly before. Too bad His Majesty can’t see it for himself.”

She drives her foot into my gut—twice—before taking the time to breathe.

“Beg me, Valoria… beg me, and maybe I will let all of this go and pretend you didn’t refuse my offer.” She presses down, choking me with her foot.

I wheeze and cough, trembling in fear and holding back from pissing myself.

“Beg me and all of this will end.”

“N-o…” I wheeze through the pressure on my neck. “I’ve— h-heard those wo-words too ma-ny times t-to kn-ow a lie.”

She responds with cold silence for a few seconds, the pressure on my neck increasing by the moment. Then, suddenly, she speaks again.

“You disgust me.”

And she lets me go.

I roll onto my back, catching my breath—breathing in rushed air that burns my lungs like needles and fire. But it’s air, and I’m grateful for it.

I thought I was really going to die. For a moment, I truly believed this was the end.

“Remember, when you find yourself in hell, I gave you a choice.” She calls out to me, standing by the pillar that holds the entire crumbling structure together.

Her eyes are void of life and emotions—cold and dead. Something about the odd way they look at me has my senses tingling and every hair on my body standing.

A chill runs down my spine. She’s about to do something terrible.

Before I can figure her out, she clenches her fist and punches right into it with all of her mustered might, allowing the many small cracks in it to become one.

“No!” I scream, reaching out, but it’s too late.

The small slits begin to spread and shake, falling apart under just the right amount of pressure needed to tear it down, and the walls begin to fall apart.

Chunks of it begin to fall along with the ceiling as the entire structure trembles. Dust and debris rain down around me, filling my lungs with each desperate breath.

Sensing the dangers of remaining here a second longer, Ivana rushes out without a single glance toward me, leaving me behind, knowing I’m too wounded to escape.

She doesn’t care if I die. She wants me to die.

Panic pulses in my blood. I struggle to get to my feet, fighting through every crushing pain in my body until I’m on my feet, practically running toward the only exit with one good leg.

Yet when I’m close enough, a huge chunk falls in front of me, and then another. The force pushes me back again, taking away every bit of progress I’ve made so far.

“F-fuck!” I swear under my breath, fighting my own tears and the fear of death that has me shaking.

There’s no way out… it’s over.

It was always over.

From the moment Azrael became my target, I’ve just been struggling in a game where I don’t have the slightest chance to win, waiting for my end.

And now the opportunity to meet it has come sooner rather than later—by someone less revolting than the king.

“I-I’m so-sorry.” I apologize to the goddess again, and a bit to myself, for not being strong enough.

I close my eyes, accepting my fate. Maybe death won’t be so bad this time. Maybe hell will be kinder than this wretched life.

I watch the building fall apart all around me from my view of the ceiling until the final cord holding the bell up cuts and it begins to fall.

Time slows down while it falls, as if giving me time to savor the air in my lungs and a moment without agonizing pain.

I treasure it and then brace for impact.

I hear the loud echoing thud, feel the earth beneath me quake as it crashes into the floor.

My ears burn and ring painfully from the sound that bounces off it an infinite number of times, partially numbing them before it comes to an end.

Yet the pain I expected to follow is vacant—there’s nothing aside from the freshly inflicted wounds. I don’t feel dead either.

Am I alive? How is that possible?

Except now I hear the soft thud of a racing heart, along with warmth being blown into my face, accompanying what sounds like rushed breathing; a gentle warmth that surrounds my body and a sweet scent vaguely familiar.

I open my eyes slowly, peeking into a blurry world that clears up in only seconds—revealing bright, brilliant blue eyes staring down at me, long luscious lashes above them too.

A face so beautiful, so perfect, that its mere existence feels sinful—more sinful than the fact of whom it belongs to.

I stare at him, speechless from the fact that out of everyone possible, he’s here, out of nowhere, and our faces are just inches away from each other.

Speechless from the fact that even after what’s just happened, I can’t help noticing details of his face I’d never bothered to notice before.

The sharp cut of his jaw. The way his dark hair falls across his forehead. The flecks of gold that shimmer in his blue eyes when the light catches them just right.

“There you are.” He whispers, hunched over me like a shield.

The side of his lips pulls up slightly with the same playful look in his eyes that seem more mesmerizing than ever, though there’s something more mixed in… confusion, like he’s trying to figure something out.

His gaze traces over my face slowly, lingering on each feature as if he’s seeing me for the first time.

“Have you ever been told? You have the most peculiar blue-green eyes.”

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