Page 79 of Princess of Death

Raul’s eyes danced with flames. He didn’t look at the other members of the Covenant, who all stared at me with the same intensity. “Step forward, Wrath.”

They had already taken everything from me. I had nothing left to lose.

I moved through the crowd and broke the line, reaching the bottom of the steps that rose to the platform. I stood and looked ahead with stoicism.

Raul stared me down, a demon several feet taller than me, giving me his ire until I looked away.

I continued to hold his stare.

“Leave us,” he commanded.

The crowd started to part and head back to the castle. I turned with them, knowing my punishment would come later.

“Not you.”

I stilled, feeling his stare piercing my back like a sharp knife.

Everyone else continued to disperse until I stood alone, stepping into the darkness outside the line of torches. My back remained to them until I found the strength to turn around and face their cruelty.

“Rise.”

The other demons remained in their chairs and stared down at me with the same silent rage.

I resisted at first, hating my situation more than I ever had. All I had to do was mindlessly do what I was told, but this promotion would make me responsible for making deals, watching people make the greatest mistakes of their lives as I benefited from their foolishness. Not a single person came here without regret. It didn’t always happen right away—sometimes it took time, and then it hit hard when they least expected it.

“Rise.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, missing the time when my life was my own. When I made my own decisions and decisions for the good of my family. I rose up the steps and reached the dais where they were gathered, demons whose source of power was the souls they consumed.

Raul looked me over, his chin tilted down to regard me. My life had been spent being the tallest man in every room I stepped into, six and a half feet tall like one of the trees I cut down with my axe. But now, I was overshadowed by the demons that were tall like mountains. “It was not a request, Wrath.”

“I deny your request. There are others who are as capable for the position?—”

“Bahamut selected you to succeed him in the unlikely event of his demise. That unlikely event has come to pass, and now this task has been handed to you. You will carry this burden the way you’ve carried all your burdens.”

“The answer is no.”

A silence pierced the air around us. The flames in his eyes rose like a fresh log had been thrown into his hearth. “Become God of the Underworld—or an Eater.”

A rush of bile moved through me.

“Serve the underworld—or serve us.”

Once the disgust flooded my mouth, it was all I could taste. Demons were like minerals that formed in the earth, over centuries and under the right conditions of moisture and darkness and erosion. To become a demon required the ingestion of souls over a great length of time, until you became an entity of the underworld itself.

Raul smiled and showed his two rows of razor-sharp teeth. He knew what I would choose.

But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

His smile widened. “Wrath, God of the Underworld and King of the Dead.” He raised his palm to me, his talons sharp enough to cut skin with a single touch. Invisible power radiated from his open palm, and then I was transformed.

The unremarkable attire I wore morphed into a uniform of dark blue with the skull crest in the center. The blade across my back suddenly weighed down my spine. Spiked gloves made of petrified stone covered my hands. The shackles of responsibility were chained to my wrists and hands. The cape hung behind me, lifeless in a world without wind or sky.

Raul slowly lowered his palm, but the smile remained. “All hail King Wrath.”

I watched Lacey stand in the cemetery and look at the sea of tombstones. She placed a single flower on several graves, a white rose. There was one in particular that she stood in front of the longest, and then she placed all the flowers on that one grave.

Then she cried.

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