Seris faced the dead god Vhal across the gray stillness of the Ashen Wastes.
The Ashen Wastes were just as awful as Seris remembered. The air tasted like ash and metal. Every breath scratched her throat. Gray dust drifted through a dead sky, and the land stretched on and on in cracked earth and blackened ruin.
Vhal sat at the center of it all on its ugly throne, all bones and green fire and ancient wrongness.
Green fire burned in the hollows of its eyes, and beneath it all lay a presence that had haunted the edges of her mind for as long as she could remember.
Seris was not afraid. Big Sis had foreseen this. Big Sis had prepared her.
"Listen, Seris," her Big Sister had said while helping her prepare for the ritual. "Mount Aurelis will protect you from magical interference, but that does not mean Vhal will remain passive. It may still try to overwhelm your mind through the connection it shares with you."
Seris had gone very still at that. Big Sis noticed immediately, of course. She always noticed. Before Seris could even gather the courage to ask what that meant, Big Sis had reached out and clasped her hand. Big Sis's hand had been warm and steady in hers.
"But you have nothing to fear," she had said.
Seris had looked up at her. Big Sis had smiled, and Seris had believed her immediately. She always did.
"That is the only thing Vhal can do to you," she had continued, "and you have already proven that your will is stronger than the dead god's."
"I have?" Seris had asked, blinking up at her with wide eyes.
"You have." Big Sis had said it with such gentle confidence that Seris had believed her immediately.
"You proved it in the Ashen Wastes when you seized control of the Death Knight. You prove it every single day by remaining kind, by remaining yourself, despite everything it has whispered into your heart."
Her thumb had stroked once across the back of Seris's hand.
"You can do this, Seris. I believe in you."
And that had been that. Because if Big Sis believed in her, then Seris could believe too.
"So if the scenery shifts around you," Big Sis had warned, growing more serious, "and you suddenly find yourself confronting Vhal, do not panic. It will all be happening inside your mind."
Seris had nodded very hard so she would remember every word.
"The battlefield will most likely become a place you both know," Big Sis had said. "A place where the dead god believes itself strongest. A place where you have suffered. A place where you once felt helpless."
Her expression had darkened, just slightly.
"The Ashen Wastes are the most likely choice."
She had squeezed Seris's hand once more.
"But remember this above all else. If it is inside your mind, then reality there will answer to imagination and will. As long as you remember that, you will be fine."
Then, after a tiny pause, she had added in a softer voice: "You will be more than fine."
And she had been right. Of course she had been right. Everything was unfolding exactly as Big Sis had predicted. She really was a Goddess.
As long as Seris followed Big Sis, everything would be fine.
So Seris stood tall in the dead silence of the Ashen Wastes, lifted her chin, and faced the ancient horror seated upon its throne of ruin.
"Dead god Vhal," she called across the distance between them, pitching her voice into her best approximation of Lord Aethon's deep, commanding authority. "I deny you!"
The green flames in Vhal's eyes shrank. Just for a moment, they became two tiny pinpricks of stunned green light. The thing stared at her. Then, in a tone of complete and utter disbelief, it said:
"What."
Something hot and happy swelled inside Seris's chest. For the first time in her life, she had stood up to it. She was done cowering. Done shrinking. Done letting its presence poison every corner of her existence.
She was the Saintess of Light. Ugly skeletons and monsters and everything awful should tremble before her.
"Lingering soul of a defeated Outsider God," Seris declared, pointing at it as dramatically as possible, "you do not belong in this world. Be gone, monster! I deny you!"
For several long seconds, Vhal did not move. Then its entire frame began to tremble.
A dry, clicking rattle spread through its bones. The sound was faint at first, then louder, until it became a hideous clattering that echoed across the wastes like a thousand loose teeth chattering in a grave.
Seris stared. Was it… was it shaking with anger?
The answer came quickly. When Vhal exploded, it did so all at once.
"YOU DARE."
Its scream ripped through the Ashen Wastes with such force that the sky itself seemed to shudder. The sound hurt. It made her teeth ache and her head throb, like too many voices were all trying to scream at once.
"How dare you define me for your own convenience!" Vhal roared, rising partway from its throne. "How dare you define me without understanding!"
The ground cracked beneath it. Green fire poured from its eye sockets in ragged streams as it spread its arms wide, skeletal fingers clawing at the dead sky as if it meant to tear reality open.
"I am no pathetic broken remnant of a slain deity! I am the triumph of the mortal over the divine! I am the answer to human weakness and hypocrisy! I am you!"
Its voice shook the world. Ash jumped at Seris's feet, and the world around her wavered like it couldn't decide if it wanted to stay solid.
"I! AM! SERIVHAL!"
"Shut up, ugly skeleton! You're lying! I don't believe you!" Seris shouted back immediately.
She didn't understand half of what it was talking about. Triumph? Weakness? Hypocrisy? What did any of that even mean?
But the one part she did understand, the one part she could never, ever accept, was that thing trying to claim it was her. Absolutely not.
That hideous thing was not her. It would never be her. She would never accept that.
Then reach for it. Reach for the ideal you… I believe in you, Seris.
The memory of Big Sis's voice echoed through her mind, and with it came clarity.
Seris became suddenly aware of the turning thing within her chest again, the heavy, impossible coin of her existence rotating slowly through the center of her being.
The Ritual of Inversion was still ongoing. That was what mattered. This was only a distraction. A loud, ugly, deeply annoying distraction.
So Seris reached once more for the self she wished to become. For her ideal. For the pure and perfect Saintess.
Her mental world shifted in response to her will.
She felt it happen all at once. Warmth poured through her. The dead air no longer felt so cold. Light gathered around her, bright and golden, and the Saintess's robes settled over her in soft, shining layers. Their weight felt important. Holy. Right. Golden hair fluttered at the edge of her vision.
She lifted her chin with saintly composure.
"Evil one," she said, and her voice rang across the Wastes, clear and beautiful and full of divine authority. "Return to the Void where you belong. I, the Saintess of Light, banish you in the name of the Three Goddesses."
To Seris's delight, her voice sounded almost as good as Big Sister's. Was she doing this right? Was she acting like a proper Saintess?
Across from her, Vhal became very still. So still that for one heartbeat it looked less like a dead god and more like a statue carved from hatred and disbelief. Then a tremor passed through its frame. It started at the crown of its skull and worked its way down, all the way to the soles of its feet.
Seris blinked.
She wasn't sure how a skeleton could make faces, but somehow Vhal looked deeply, personally upset.
"What…" it rasped at last. Its voice had gone thin. "What madness is this?"
The green flames in its eyes flickered violently.
"How can you possibly be the Saintess of Light?" it demanded. "Make some sense, boy."
Seris tilted her head. What was the ugly thing even trying to say now?
Another shudder ran through it.
"How dare you make me engage in this…" Vhal hissed, as if the words themselves physically pained it. "…this inane drivel."
It straightened and pointed a bony finger at her like it had just caught her doing something incredibly stupid.
Then, with exaggerated slowness, it said, "You cannot be the Saintess of Light, boy. You are the wrong gender."
Seris stared at it. Then she frowned. Then she pointed right back.
"Shut up, ugly skeleton! You're lying! I don't believe you!"
Vhal went silent. For one frozen second, it looked genuinely at a loss.
Seris knew what gender was. Probably.
People talked about it sometimes. Books mentioned it too. She had simply never cared very much.
Whenever anyone had ever looked at her long enough to speak, they usually shouted things like Abomination! or Demon! And then Seris ran away. Before that, she had mostly been alone.
So no, she had never found a practical reason to care all that much.
What did matter was that Big Sis had said Seris was the Saintess of Light, and Big Sis was never wrong. Therefore, the ugly skeleton was lying. That was just basic logic.
"What," Vhal said.
Then, after a pause:
"How."
Another pause.
"Why."
The green flames in its eyes pulsed erratically. Its skull turned slightly to one side as though reality itself had become too incomprehensible to process directly. Then the dead god snapped.
"What has that harlot done to you!?" it roared.
Its fury hit the world like a shockwave. The Ashen Wastes convulsed. Cracks split the dead earth in every direction. A storm of ash spiraled upward into the sky, and the throne behind it groaned under the pressure of its wrath.
Seris saw red. Actually red. The entire sky seemed to flush crimson for half a heartbeat as raw, blinding anger surged through her.
"SHUT UP, UGLY SKELETON!" she screamed, her voice cracking with outrage. "DON'T INSULT BIG SISTER!"
Her hands balled into fists so tightly her nails bit into her palms.
That thing.
That thing.
It had haunted her mind. Poisoned her life. Filled her days with fear and confusion and whispers that crawled where they did not belong.
It was responsible for all of it. For the fear. For the loneliness. For every terrible thing that had ever gone wrong. And now it had insulted Big Sis.
Something inside Seris broke open.
All the anger she had tried so hard not to feel came rushing up at once. Every time she had been afraid. Every time she had been hurt. Every time she had been helpless. All of it came rushing up at once, sharp and blazing.
It must die.
Seris had never been more sure of anything in her life. And in this place, she could do it. Here, she was not powerless. Here, she was not prey.
Big Sis had said this place answered to will. Big Sis had said Seris was Vhal's equal here. So Seris was going to make the ugly skeleton regret ever opening its horrible mouth.
She drew in a steadying breath. This time, she reached for something more than robes and golden hair. She reached for what a Saintess was supposed to be.
Words rose inside her mind, old and resonant and heavy with sacred weight.
Psalm 19: …the Saintess said, "Let there be light." And there was light.
The world answered. The gray heavens above the Ashen Wastes split apart with a sound like reality tearing down the middle. Radiance poured through the crack in the sky. It was more than light. It felt like heaven itself had decided Vhal needed to die.
Heat crashed over Seris in a roaring wave. The air ignited. Ash turned to incandescent sparks. Vhal vanished inside the pillar of holy light as if the heavens themselves had singled it out for annihilation.
For one impossible instant, Seris could see its silhouette within the blaze, skeletal and twisted and writhing as the light consumed it.
Then came the sound, a roar so hideous and furious that it seemed to claw at the inside of her skull. And Seris smiled. A small, vicious, deeply satisfied smile.
Because for once, it was hurting instead of her.