Chapter 152
“Yes, Mother,” I whispered, tracing one of the sigils with my nail. “Let’s put out her stars,”
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Lucien watched me with something between awe and madness. I stepped back toward him, pulled him to me with bloodstained fingers, and kissed his mouth like a promise.
“We won’t just kill her,” I murmured. “We’ll erase her.”
Raelith Mortem POV
The Blood Goddess
The Crimson Sanctum, Beyond Mortal Realms
I awoke to the taste of blood on the wind. It was not fresh, nor sweet, it was divine and cold. Like moonlight soaked in panic, and starfire flecked with fear. The scent of Elowen’s fury clung to the threads of fate like a spoiled offering.
She breathed. She fought. She shone. I hated her for it.
I rose from my throne of bone and blackened gold, my bare feet leaving wet prints on obsidian that drank the shine. The sanctum pulsed around me. The walls were stitched from the flayed and the faithful, and the chandeliers wept still–warm vitae. My daughters knelt in rows before me, blindfolded and bleeding, murmuring the hymns of ruin until their voices braided into a single, hungry chorus.
Vaela’s voice, sharp, gleeful, and dangerous, echoed in my mind, a promise of desecration. Good girl. But Elowen… she dared to inspire. She walked temples. She kindled worship. She strengthened the divine.
Unacceptable.
I lifted my hand. The blood the was pooled at my feet heaved, faces surfacing in its slow churn. There were priests, healers, mages, and wolves. Everyone foolish enough to believe sanctuary under Elowen’s light meant safety.
They were not.
“It’s time,” I whispered, my voice silk dragged across a blade. “Poison the roots.”
My daughters whimpered with rapture.
“Blight their water. Spoil their harvest. Infect their shrines. For every prayer they whisper, I want a scream beneath it,” I said, and the words tasted like iron and delight.
I turned to the altar, a collage of shattered halos and broken reliquaries, and drew my claws across the offering bowl. Blood rose like smoke and obeyed, curling to the rhythm of my breath.
I spoke to Vaela through the bond, close and precise. “Begin the hollowing. Burn the Earth Temple first. Make the land mourn.”
To Varek, my loyal devourer, I sent a darker hymn. “Find the divine born infants. Feed on their light.”
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Chapter 152
To Lucien I threaded venom and theater. “Let her see what worship costs. Let her see what I do to gods.”
The sanctum dimmed as I raised my arms, and one by one, the candles guttered into black flame. The room contracted around that shadow until every corner drank the dark. “I do not conquer. I do not plead. I do not forgive,” I told the hollow air, and the echoes came back sharpened.
I consumed. I tasted their prayers and turned them into knives. I braided despair into promises and fed it to those who knelt.
Let Elowen rise with her temples and hope. Let her blaze like a star.
Stars still died, and I intended to make certain she learned how.
Verenya The Earth Goddess POV
The Verdant Veil
Realm of Earth and Root
I felt her hunger before she spoke it. The rot slithered across the ley lines, thick and black, leaving a trail of decay in the veins of the world. My roots recoiled. My rivers thickened. The soil itself hissed.
Raelith is stirring.
And that bitch never wakes without thirst. I opened my eyes from within the Hollow Tree…my sacred seat, ancient and patient. The winds outside stilled. The birds held their breath. Even the worms below froze.
The Blood Goddess was moving. Elowen’s temples had strengthened me, yes. Her people knelt in prayer, yes. But Raelith didn’t come with armies. She came in the silence.
In spoiled wells. In crumbling fields. In children coughing blood before anyone knew why. No. Not this time. I placed my palm on the bark beside me and spoke through every root, every stone, and every tendril of moss from here to the mortal realm.
“My seers. My sentinels. Hear me now.”
I sent my power like a shockwave underground. It tore through sacred groves. It cracked the soil beneath old altars.
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