Chapter 56: Fake It (Her POV)
We left Yara's realm just after dawn. The sky was bruised with gold, soft and silent, pretending to be beautiful. Malvor kissed her cheek like they were old lovers parting after a perfect night. She winked, smug and unbothered. I didn't look back. The portal swallowed me, salt and silk and secrets dissolving into Arbor's familiar warmth. Home. Kitchen. The scent of wood and coffee, not sea-spray and candle smoke.
I made the coffee. Chocolate, cream, coffee, always the same order. This time I poured too much coffee. Maybe by accident. Maybe not. I only stirred twice instead of three. My hand was steady. My chest wasn't. I carried the mugs in with a smile that nearly felt real.
"Morning, baby cakes," Malvor said, hair wild, eyes soft with sleep.
"Morning." I kissed his temple, handed him the mug, curled against him like I belonged there.
He sipped, grimaced. "Bitter. You angry with me, Annie Pie?"
I smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know." He laughed, kissed my cheek. Took it as a joke. Took it as love. He always did. To him, I was adorable in the morning. Wrapped in his shirt, hair damp, coffee in hand like we were normal. Like last night hadn't happened at all.
"What should we do today?" he asked. "Chaos? Cuddles? Catastrophe?"
"Snow," I said. Too quick. Too bright.
He hesitated just a fraction. Then grinned. "Snow it is."
Arbor obeyed, eager to play house with us. Flakes fell like powdered sugar. Trees glistened. A hill waited for laughter. I threw the first snowball. "You're going down," I told him, my voice too light.
He clutched his chest. "Treason!"
We built forts. We attacked, ambushed, toppled into snowdrifts with shrieks of laughter. For a while, the hollow inside me froze solid. For a while, I forgot. He kissed me with snow melting between our mouths. Warm hands on my back. I smiled into it. And he believed it. I almost did too. He crowned me Empress of Ice. Betrayed me mid-coronation. I chased him down the hill. He tumbled dramatically, begging mercy. I didn't give it. We rolled in the snow, tangled and breathless, joy spilling out of me like I had practiced it in a mirror. For a heartbeat, just one, I wasn't a vessel. Not a rune-etched relic. Not a weapon. Not this broken thing. Just a woman laughing with a man in the snow.
Later, the couch sagged beneath me. My clothes were damp. Arbor pressed a mug of cocoa into my hands like it could fix me. Malvor was asleep in the other room, snoring, smug, wrapped like a burrito in his blankets. The fire snapped. The house hummed. Watching. Always watching. I stared at the flames. Waiting for warmth to mean something. It didn't. Something had been misplaced. Left in a coral bed between a moan that wasn't mine and a smile that didn't fit my face. I'd find it eventually. I always did. Not tonight.
Tonight I sat in silence and let it name me whatever it wanted. Outside, snow kept falling. Soft. Steady. Unbothered. I touched the rune at my hip. Nothing. Not even a flicker.
"You're glowing," he'd said. But the light hadn't been mine. It never was. I closed my eyes. Didn't cry. Didn't move. Let the quiet eat me. It always did.
In the dark when I finally went to bed, I dreamed. I remembered the altar. The real one. Perfume. Silk. Rose petals. I remembered laying still. Quiet. Good. Maximus's priests had never needed to force me. They coaxed, temptation wrapped in velvet, their voices dripping honey. "Just like that," they whispered. "You're meant for this. You make it beautiful."
I always had. I made it beautiful so they wouldn't make it worse. So the smiles wouldn't twist into something sharp. That's where the memory ended. That's where the nightmare began.
The petals rotted first. The silk around my wrists tightened. Not rope, expectation. Not knots, praise turned prison. The altar pulsed beneath me, wet and greedy, like it wanted to devour me. Perfume thickened, sweet until it soured. It clogged my throat, crawled into my lungs like smoke from burning flowers. I tried to cough, but no sound came. My voice was already gone. Already tithed.
Then I saw him. Maximus, golden and gleaming, smug and smiling with the kind of pride that ruins little girls and calls it worship. "Show them how good you are," he crooned. "You love being watched, don't you?"
Malvor threw confetti into the air. The emcee of my suffering. The jester-king of my violation. "Give them what they want, Annie Bear!" he giggled, like my fear was the punchline. "Mine, Mine, Mine." He chanted manic.
The gods circled me. Twelve shadows. Eyes glowing. Hands waiting. Ravina stepped forward first. Her touch was soft, almost kind, like an apology I had never earned. She held a vial, glass shimmering, liquid glinting like betrayal. "To dull the pain," she whispered sweetly. Then her smile curved. "Or to deepen it." The vial tilted. My mouth was forced open. Roses and vinegar and venom burned down my throat. My stomach twisted. My veins sparked. "We are what we pretend to be," Ravina said. "And you pretend so well."
I tried to scream. To move. To beg. But then, Aerion. He appeared like wrath incarnate. His hand clamped over my mouth, the other grinding my arm into stone until I thought bone would crack. "You owed me," he growled. His breath reeked of iron and justice warped into vengeance. "Don't pretend this isn't fair."
His shadow smothered the world. "You embarrassed me," he hissed. "Made me look weak." His knee shoved between mine. I thrashed, he laughed. "Now you get to pay for it." His grip crushed tighter. "You're lucky I'm even giving you the rune this way," he spat. "You wanted this, remember?" His hand branded my thigh. Light seared my skin. Twisting. Carving. Claiming. "You said yes," he snapped. "The moment you stepped into my temple. Don't rewrite history just because you don't like the ending. You are not the victim."
The gods applauded. Tairochi stood frozen. Navir recorded. Leyla painted with her own blood. Yara clapped lazily, sipping wine. "What a performance," she drawled.
Vitaria passed out tissues. "We love a girl who suffers gracefully."
Maximus bit into a peach, juice running down his chin. "You've always been my favorite."
And Malvor? He laughed. Not cruel. Not kind. Detached. Amused. "She's perfect," he said. "She was made for this."
That's when I screamed. But it wasn't terror. Not raw. It was trained. Beautiful. Tuned like a violin across bone. The priests hummed my name. The altar sang back.
I jerked awake. Gasping. Drenched in sweat. Shaking so hard the mattress trembled. My hand flew to my thigh. The Aerion rune was cold.
But the pain still lived inside me. Not skin. Not surface. Deeper. His face. His breath. His hand. Burned into me. Malvor. How he hadn't asked. Hadn't seen. How he'd laughed. The nightmare wasn't real. But the silence was. The performance was. It never stopped.
I lay back down but didn't close my eyes. The sheets were soft. The room safe. Malvor breathed beside me, peaceful, oblivious. I reached for him. Just barely. My fingertips brushed his wrist. A question. A prayer. A plea. He didn't stir. Of course not.
I pulled my hand back. Held myself. Waited. For morning. For silence. For him to finally see me. Not the girl with the perfect scream, not the chaos darling, but the ruin underneath. Maybe then I would scream for real. Maybe then he'd hear it. Or maybe, I would just smile. Performance is survival. The sheets don't hold me. They never did.
I rose. Dressed. Quiet. Efficient. No note. No goodbye. I told myself I needed light. Even if it burned. Told myself it was just for the rune. Just another transaction. Just another altar. But the gods had always known better. Especially the ones made of light.