Chapter 26 Lyssa
LYSSA
We approach Kaerith and Elira's camp at dawn, and the first thing I see is her body hanging from the oak tree.
The woman we showed mercy to. The one who mourned her cursed mate, who we fed and released into the forest with whispered promises of safety. She hangs naked and skinned, her flesh peeled away in precise strips that speak of hours spent extracting maximum suffering before death finally claimed her.
My stomach lurches as recognition hits. Thorrin stops beside me, his breathing sharp and controlled as he stares at what remains of our failed kindness.
"Ah," Kaerith says pleasantly, noticing our attention. "You're admiring our recent guest. We had quite a bit of fun with that one."
His tone is casual, amused. Like discussing weather instead of systematic torture. Elira doesn't even look up from sharpening her claws, too focused on preparing for today's slaughter to waste attention on yesterday's entertainment.
"Found her wandering near the border," she adds absently. "Kept babbling about some dead waira, crying about love and loss. Perfect practice for what's coming."
They don't know. Don't realize we encountered her before, that our mercy led directly to this. The woman's empty eye sockets stare down at us, accusing us of the naive idealism that delivered her into hands that know how to make death last for days.
Thorrin and I say nothing. What could we say? Confessing would only raise questions we can't answer without revealing how much we've been hiding from creatures who've learned to extract truth through systematic application of agony.
"Today we finish this," Kaerith announces, rising from where he's been studying Thorrin's sketches of the bone cathedral. "Time to prove which approach creates superior predators."
We crash into the bone cathedral like death incarnate. No stealth, no careful planning—just explosive violence designed to catch them unprepared.
And we do.
Malakor is buried deep inside Beda when we burst through the entrance, his massive frame driving into her with savage rhythm while she writhes beneath him. Saulo cowers in the corner, watching his mistress take pleasure from another's flesh with the broken eyes of something that was once a person.
The sound of our entrance cuts through their coupling like blade through bone. Beda screams—not from ecstasy but from shock of realizing death has found them mid-fuck. Malakor roars, throwing her aside as he lunges for weapons that suddenly feel impossibly distant.
Too late.
Kaerith hits him before he can reach his claws, both of them crashing into the throne of bones with impact that shatters skulls and sends femur fragments flying like shrapnel. Ancient waira remains rain down on writhing bodies as two apex predators fight for the right to define what strength means.
Elira flows toward Beda with liquid grace, intercepting her desperate scramble for safety. The naked woman grabs a bone shard from the scattered throne, wielding it like dagger as she faces death wearing nothing but her lover's fluids.
"Should have stayed hidden," Elira purrs, advancing with claws extended.
Malakor fights like something possessed—centuries of rage given form, trauma channeled into killing machine that seeks to destroy everything threatening his philosophy. His claws rake across Kaerith's chest, opening wounds that spray blood across bone architecture.
But Kaerith doesn't match his fury. He flows around the assault like water, each movement calculated to inflict maximum damage while avoiding unnecessary risk. When his claws find flesh, they bite deep—not wild slashing but surgical precision designed to cripple and kill.
They crash through scattered bones, using femurs as clubs and ribcages as shields. Blood slicks the floor as they tear pieces from each other, neither giving ground in battle that will determine which corruption proves superior.
Across the chamber, Elira stalks Beda with predatory patience. The naked woman darts between bone pillars, using architecture as cover while Elira toys with her like cat with wounded mouse.
"Run faster, sister," Elira calls. "Make this interesting."
But there's nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Only death wearing familiar faces, closing distance with each heartbeat.
Beda breaks suddenly, abandoning stealth for desperate assault. She launches herself at me instead of Elira—bone shard aimed at my throat with wild accuracy born of nothing left to lose.
I should panic. Should fumble like amateur facing seasoned killer. But months of watching Elira work have prepared me for this moment. My body moves without conscious thought, blade intercepting her makeshift weapon with shower of sparks.
She's strong, this whore who learned to weaponize sex. Fast enough to draw blood from my arm, skilled enough to force me backward among scattered skulls. But she's fighting naked while I'm armored in lessons learned from monsters.
My blade finds the gap in her defense, sliding between ribs to pierce the heart that once loved something before corruption taught her different lessons. Her eyes widen with shock as steel bites deep, finding vital organs with precision that surprises us both.
Beda collapses in spreading pool of crimson, her death marking my graduation from observer to participant. No last words, no dramatic gestures—just meat that was once a person, growing cold on bone-strewn floor.
Across the chamber, Thorrin drives claws through Saulo's chest—quick mercy for creature who'd suffered enough. The castrated dark elf dies with something approaching gratitude, finally released from existence that served no purpose except demonstrating his mistress's cruelty.
Malakor and Kaerith continue their brutal dance until rage finally succumbs to calculated violence.
Kaerith's claws find the perfect angle, tearing through ribs to still the heart beneath.
Malakor drops to his knees, choking on blood, then falls forward onto skulls that once crowned other failed kings.
Dead. All three of them.
The throne room stinks of blood, sex and voided bowels. Kaerith settles into the bone seat, panting heavily as crimson drips from his wounds onto skulls below. He looks like demon crowned in hell, ruling over graveyard of everyone who chose differently.
I stare at the woman I killed, waiting for horror to hit me. For guilt or revulsion or any human response to taking life. But there's nothing. Just satisfaction at task completed, like cleaning blood from cave floor or disposing of bones in ravine.
That absence of feeling terrifies me more than any nightmare could.
Because looking at Beda's corpse, I don't see murder victim. I see proof that I've learned Elira's lessons about what love actually costs when the world offers no alternatives to becoming what survival requires.
The old Lyssa died in this throne room alongside creatures who chose inferior approaches to necessary evolution.
What remains is something new. Something that can kill efficiently while feeling nothing but professional satisfaction at work well done.
And the most frightening realization of all is understanding that this feels right.
Like coming home to who I was always meant to be.