Blessed By A Yandere Goddess

"What is this? Am I under an illusion...?"

The assassin turned to see Sarael walking slowly toward him across the void. Her disguise was completely gone, replaced by her true appearance.

Violet hair and violet eyes flickered wildly in the void.

Her face was a mess; for the first time, Sarael felt as if her life had flashed before her eyes.

Ronan had never been in complete danger before. They always acted at night, always when he was careful. The golem’s inheritance made him nigh-indestructible.

Sarael had never seen Ronan in real danger during the daytime.

And that terrified her.

"Illusion...!? You’d think I’d let you off with just pathetic illusions!?"

Sarael laughed, her voice piercing the assassin’s eardrums.

"Who sent you?"

The assassin’s training held. He’d been captured and interrogated before. There were techniques for this. He forced his breathing to steady and his heart rate to slow.

"I don’t answer to—"

The shadows moved.

One moment he was standing, and the next, something cold and invisible wrapped around his right arm and twisted. The snap of his radius echoed through the void before the pain even registered.

Then it registered.

He screamed.

"Wrong answer."

Sarael hadn’t moved. Her hands were still at her sides, her expression still that terrible mix of fury and fear. But the shadows around her writhed, and one of them was still coiled around his shattered arm.

"Let me explain something to you."

She took another step closer. The void rippled beneath her bare feet like the surface of a pond.

"I have been very, very patient. For weeks, I have held back. I have let my husband handle things. I have smiled, acted passive, and pretended to be normal."

Another step.

"But you tried to kill him. You pointed a weapon at my husband, and you pulled the trigger, and if I had been one second slower—"

Her voice cracked. The shadows around her shuddered with the break in her composure.

"One second. That’s how close you came. That’s how close I came to losing everything."

She stopped an arm’s length away. Up close, her beauty was the kind that hurt to look at, the kind that didn’t belong in a human face.

"So I am going to ask you one more time. And if you lie to me, if you hesitate, if you even think about deflecting, I will break every bone in your body. I will flay the skin from your muscles. I will keep you alive and conscious for every single second of it, and when you’re finally begging me for death, I’ll heal you and start over."

She smiled. It was the same smile she’d given Zero in the warehouse. The same smile she’d given the foxes when they snarled at Ronan.

"Who. Sent. You?"

The assassin looked into her eyes and saw his own reflection staring back. He’d killed seventeen people in his career. He’d thought himself hardened, immune to fear.

But now he found out he was dead wrong.

"The Second Prince!"

The words fell out of him before he could stop them.

"I don’t know the specifics, but I answered your question! So—"

CRACK!

"Aghhh!"

The shadows wrapped around his other arm and snapped it, just like the first. Sarael hadn’t calmed down, even with the newfound information.

"Good. You’re telling the truth."

Sarael said tonelessly, the darkness between the human body’s organs letting her know whether something was lying through its most microscopic twitch. Then she raised her hand, and with it, a huge spear.

"Are you really sure you know nothing else?"

"None, I swear it!"

The assassin answered, now in unbearable pain after having both arms broken, but he was still trying his best to stay sane. He knew that being useless and unresponsive would just get him killed sooner.

But unfortunately, that didn’t mean it would save his life.

"Then suffer."

Sarael giggled.

"W-What?"

"Did you really think I’d let you go? Or kill you mercifully just because you answered like an obedient dog? Of course not. You deserve to rot, to be tortured, to have your entire existence beg for death and be refused."

The void swallowed the assassin’s screams.

Sarael watched him writhe, her expression blank. The shadows worked methodically, breaking and healing and breaking again, an endless cycle that she monitored with detached focus.

But she didn’t enjoy this. Enjoyment would have required her to be present, to savor the moment, and she was too shaken for that.

The image kept replaying in her mind. The window shattering. The bullet streaking toward Ronan’s chest. The half-second where she’d thrown herself between them, not knowing if she’d be fast enough.

She’d been fast enough this time.

But what about next time?

What about the time after that?

Ronan was strong. Stronger than most hunters she’d ever observed. But he wasn’t invincible. The golem’s inheritance only worked in darkness. During the day, in the light, he was vulnerable.

And she couldn’t always be fast enough.

The thought made her shadows tremble.

"I need to protect him better."

She whispered to herself.

"I’ve been too relaxed, I’m losing my edge..."

The assassin’s screams had faded to whimpers. He wouldn’t last much longer, not with his mind intact. She’d decide what to do with him later. For now, she had more important things to focus on.

She left him hanging in the void and returned to the material world.

✧ ✦ ✧

Ronan was waiting for her in the ruined sitting room. The window had been boarded up with a temporary barrier of Anastasia’s ice, and the foxes were back to their normal size, though they still prowled the perimeter with unusual alertness.

Anastasia stood near the door, her rifle in her hands. She’d clearly been ready to follow, but Ronan had stopped her.

When Sarael materialized from the shadows, three sets of eyes turned toward her. The foxes, Anastasia, and Ronan.

"Well?"

Ronan asked, his voice carefully level.

"The Second Prince sent him. He didn’t know anything else. I made sure."

She said it without the manic edge from before. She was back under control, barely.

"And the assassin?"

"...Alive."

Ronan studied her face for a moment. Whatever he saw there made him cross the room and pull her into his arms.

She stiffened for half a second, then melted against him, her fingers gripping the back of his shirt.

"I’m fine."

She mumbled into his chest.

"I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine."

"Anastasia, keep watch. It seems the third prince’s plans have been leaked."

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