Page 148 of She Who Devours the Stars

This time, I wasn’t waiting for Fern.

I was coming for her.

And if the world wanted to collapse around her, it would have to deal with me first.

Chapter 20: Into the Ruins

Thread Modulation: Fern Trivane

Axis Alignment: Fey Ruins???

I didn’t remember walking here. My brain, still overloaded, maybe fractured, was playing catch-up, rewinding the last few minutes like it didn’t trust what the eyes were sending up.

This wasn’t Eventide. This wasn’t even the ghost of Eventide.

It was a ruin, yes, but not a romantic one. Ruined stone towers, blasted to shit, littered the horizon in every direction, reaching for a sky so purple it almost looked fake. Between the towers, the land was a freeze-frame of apocalypse: petrified trees, twisted and dead, caught in poses that made it look like they were trying to warn you off. Everything was the same color, at first, but then you’d catch the quick flicker—red, then blue, then the soft, bone-yellow of decay. Someone had tried to terraform this place, once. The planet had said “no” and killed the concept out of spite.

The air was thick enough to chew. Every time I inhaled, it felt like the myth-pressure here had replaced the oxygen with powdered glass and old secrets.

That’s what I noticed first.

What I noticed second was Zevelune, standing next to me, as if she’d been there the entire time and had just been waiting for me to look around and realize I was out of my league.

She was smiling. Of course she was.

Not the “I’m about to kill you” smile, not even the “I’m going to fuck with your head until you beg me to stop” smile, but the one in between. The one she saved for special occasions, where she didn’t even need to open her mouth to say, “I already won, and I’m just here to see if you’ll figure it out before it hurts.”

Her dress was still in perfect order, which pissed me off. Not even the mythic wind could muss it, and her hair, now gone white to match the sun, wasn’t moving at all. The only thing that gave away her excitement was the line of her jaw, sharp and feral, and the way her fingers flexed at her sides, like she was resisting the urge to pet me or break my neck.

My mythprint was on the verge of giving up. I could feel it, coiling tight in my back, then leaking blue-white along my arms and out through the tips of my hair. Each pulse left a wet, cold numbness that crept up my skin, and when I looked down, the backs of my hands had started to redecorate themselves, flickering between ancient script and pure math based on symbology I’d never learned.

I shivered, hard, and caught Zevelune’s eyes on me, watching.

“What the hell is this place?” I said, because if I didn’t start the conversation, she’d win it by default.

Her voice came soft, but with that gravity that made you want to kneel before you realized you’d even bent. “Fey Ruins. Outer Layer. My favorite failed experiment.”

“Nice vacation spot.”

She looked up, admired the sky, then gave a slow, elegant shrug. “It’s better than most. And it’s convenient for fixing a Drift problem, if you’re capable.”

She let the last word hang in the air like a dare.

I wanted to punch her and kiss her at the same time, so instead, I flexed my hands until my bones cracked, and said, “Are we here to fix me, or fuck?”

She didn’t laugh. She just stepped forward, closed the distance until our bodies nearly touched, nipples to nipples, knee to knee, no preamble, and the mythic field between us went taut, as if the entire world had been wound up for this single, idiotic moment.

She was taller, but I didn’t tilt my head back. If she wanted my eyes, she’d have to earn them.

“You wouldn’t survive me in this state, darling,” she said, voice a little lower, a little more sincere. “I’d eat you whole and not even remember your name.”

“Then we’re even,” I replied, because it sounded cooler than admitting she was right.

Neither of us moved.

I could feel my mythprint reeling, trying to decide whether to spiral into violence or self-annihilate on the spot. Zevelune’s own resonance was ice-cold, needle-sharp, but there was something else, something familiar? No, that wasn’t it. It was like she’d mapped out every version of this conversation and was waiting to see if I’d surprise her.

She smiled again, wider now. “You remind me of him. The original. But with better taste in trauma.”