So in her mind, my blade had to be something unholy.

I raised the short sword, letting the light catch its edge. My voice was flat and cold. "Cursed? No demon is worthy of wielding this."

"But you'll find out what it is soon enough."

I crouched beside Edwin's body and used the blade to carve out his heart.

"Since our dear senior brother had no heart to speak of, his heart's blood might as well serve a better purpose. A blood offering for my sword."

"Lynara, you vicious monster!"

Rosalind's eyes went red with rage. She summoned her weapon and lunged at me.

But at the critical moment, a celestial soldier beside her seized her arm and hauled her back, his hand trembling as he pointed at the sword hovering above Edwin's corpse.

"Lady Rosalind, look. Your junior sister's sword... something's wrong with it. It's drinking the blood on its own."

Rosalind didn't care. She scoffed. "Cursed objects never play by the rules. What's so strange about that?"

The soldier shook his head frantically. "No, you don't understand. You've only just ascended."

"In all the millennia since creation, there has only ever been one sword that craves the heart's blood of immortals..."

Rosalind blinked, clueless. "What sword?"

The soldier's lips trembled around two words: "Soulreaper."

Rosalind's jaw dropped. The color drained from her face.

But before she could gather her wits, a voice split the air from the void above, heavy with authority that needed no anger to terrify.

"Silence!"

"I destroyed that demon goddess with my own hands. Soulreaper was shattered by my power. It no longer exists."

"You will not spread such baseless fear!"

I knew that voice. I knew it the way you know the sound of your own heartbeat. Aldric Voss. My enemy for as long as I had drawn breath.

And the one who had wounded me deepest of all.

He was right about one thing. I was the demon goddess he claimed to have destroyed.

I was also the only other true god who had escaped the Primordial Wastes alongside him, the only one who had survived the cataclysm.

The year the Wastes were annihilated, the two of us had nowhere left to go. We set aside our enmity out of necessity, clinging to each other to survive.

For thousands of years after that, Aldric treated me well.

Demon gods are born cold-blooded. He was the one who taught me how to cry and how to laugh.

Under his guidance, I slowly learned to live in the world beyond the Wastes.