Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Nina
The Demon of Misery paced the ballroom.
“Long ago, I was a mortal woman before I became a demon and ruler of this domain. I made a bargain. And I lost.” Her eyes flickered towards Dominik. “Some of us were made to suffer, and some were made to destroy. You should choose which one you will be.”
A familiar voice interrupted. “I’ve already made my choice.”
Ronan emerged from the shadows behind us, his face set in stone, his eyes dark with purpose. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t even acknowledge Dominik. His focus was entirely on the Demon of Misery.
“I’m not ready to die here,” he said. “I’m making a bargain.”
What the actual fuck?
I wondered what he had seen in the domain that made him change his mind so quickly.
Yvette smiled, her teeth matching the paleness of her skin. “You may leave.” She snapped her fingers, and Ronan vanished in a cloud of fog.
Ronan was the most vicious of us. Yet, he’d rather escape this domain and make a bargain with a demon than see The Cycle through to the end.
I had no doubt he was back in Torment, selling his soul to Madalena.
And, just like that, it was only Dominik and I who were left.
I stared over to my friend, my rival.
We were the last Champions of The Cycle.
Silence stretched.
Dominik shifted beside me. I glanced at him, noticing the sign of tension creeping into his shoulders.
I thought about the flask, the poison, and the many ways he’d tried to sabotage me. He had been my friend once. I maybe even felt an inkling of attraction to him.
But now? I was certain he was my enemy.
“Your survival is that way.” Yvette pointed to a dark hallway. “If you wish to finish this, you must find your source of misery.”
The ground beneath me trembled as if the domain itself was restless. Dominik slammed into me, and I crashed to the ground. Agony flared in my hip the moment I struck the ground.
Dominik sprinted across the ballroom, vanishing down the dark hallway.
Coward.
He had to sabotage me to win.
The betrayal stung more than it should have. I should have seen it coming from the beginning. Alexei’s game had confirmed it. But I had let myself believe that when push came to shove, he might stand beside me.
In the end, he didn’t just abandon me. He was the one who dragged me down.
Yvette laughed – it was a wild, unhinged sound, a cacophony of amusement and madness. She stood before me, her tattered robes hanging over her frail body. Her eyes shone, transforming from black to white to red in a dizzying display.
“Champion,” she croaked, her voice sliding down my skin like an infection. “Are you ready for my trial?”
“I thought your trial was that way?” I asked, glancing toward the hall Dominik had vanished down.
“No,” Yvette said softly. “That was a trick. The weaker soul fell for it.”
Her fingers brushed the top of my head once again, and darkness gripped me.
The vision came in pieces.
Stone walls loomed, glistening with candlelight. Golden lanterns swung above a long banquet table heavy with fruit and wine. The scent of incense calmed me, but it barely disguised the iron tang beneath it.
A version of Yvette stood at the centre of the hall, sorrow clinging to her.
Her features were the same – a pinched nose and large, hypnotic eyes – but she didn’t possess demonic traits.
She was cloaked in silks, her wrists heavy with chains of gold, her hands dripping red. A man lay sprawled at her feet, a knife buried in his throat, blood seeping into the cracks in the ground.
The man was her husband.
The hall erupted with shouting soldiers, boots pounding over stone. They called her name, not with loyalty but accusation.
Yvette was banished, cast into the barrens, stripped of crown and title, left beneath a sun that wanted her dead.
Through ash and hunger and loss, she carved herself anew. Found a king willing to listen to her vengeance. Whispered her rage into his ear until it bloomed into fire.
And she burned the world.
Cities fell. Rivers ran red. And when it was done, her own people turned on her. A blade across her throat.
She died smiling.
But Hell was watching.
It whispered to her beneath the soil, coaxing her soul from its ruin. Yvette was born again, the Demon of Misery.
I was panting as the vision evaporated.
Yvette’s hand slipped away from my hair.
I blinked, and I noticed that her features were still clouded with melancholy. “Now you see,” she murmured. “Hell doesn’t destroy us, Nina. It remakes us. And it’s almost ready to do so again.”
Yvette smiled as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. Then, with a flick of her wrist, something small appeared before me.
A relic.
It landed in the dirt at my feet. A gold bangle like the one I had seen her wearing in the vision. When my fingers brushed it, heat rushed through my veins.
I waited for the memory to come, but my mind was silent.
“That wasn’t quite what I expected,” I admitted.
“Neither are you.”
“So, that’s it,” I said. “You’ll let me walk out of here with your relic? You’ll let me finish this thing?”
She nodded, though she looked pained, her expression crumpling with grief.
I barely had time to exhale—
Pain exploded through my back.
I staggered forward, the relic slipping from my grip. A hand curled into my hair, yanking me back.
Dominik.
His face was mangled and bleeding, like he’d been attacked. Something wild and broken sat heavy behind his eyes.
I tried to push him off, but his blade pressed against my throat.
“You don’t get to win, Nina,” he growled, his voice shaking. “Not when I . . . when I—”
His breath was ragged. His fingers trembled against my skin.
Were we ever friends?
I saw it in the way he hesitated, the way his hands shook, the way he couldn’t quite end it.
But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. I struggled, trying to wrench away, but he was stronger, faster, fuelled by something dark and merciless.
Shadows fell over us as a whoosh of air blasted me in the face.
A gasp escaped my lips.
Salazar appeared in a swirling storm of black smoke, his golden eyes matching the hue of the infernal fires.
“You will end this,” he roared, his voice a vicious rasp.
My eyes caught on Yvette, who had dropped to her knees before Salazar, almost cowering away from him.
Dominik barely had time to react before Salazar seized him. Shadows wrapped around Dominik’s body, pulling, twisting, consuming. Salazar’s grip was unrelenting, a prison of thick, choking smoke.
“You have all you need, Nina,” he cried, as his form rippled over a screaming Dominik. “Leave this domain.”
He was right – The Cycle was almost over.
I turned away, rushing out of the castle, allowing Salazar to complete what I couldn't.
My heart clenched at the thought of Dominik facing his second death.
Did he really deserve it? He was no Tolliver.
I pushed the thought away, as I ran from the Domain of Misery and back towards the Heart.
Fear coiled in my stomach. I’d done the impossible – collected every relic. All that remained was to end this, crown a demon, and survive the aftermath.
Easy.