The Devil's Duchess-Chapter 60: The Flame’s rage

Berith didn’t remember what song had started next.

The music had become meaningless. Background noise to the sharp, narrowing focus settling behind his eyes.

He stood at the edge of the ballroom floor, hand still curled with phantom heat where he had last touched Marcella’s back. She had been wrapped in his cloak—guarded, silent, but whole.

His shoulders stiffened. Where is Marcella?

Berith scanned the crowd, expecting to catch a glimpse of her silver hair near the refreshments. Perhaps she had slipped away with Rachel and Anthony. But there—near the veranda?

Empty.

No trace of her, no hint of trailing velvet, no glint of silver.

It had been too long. If Marcella had gone to the washroom, she would have been back by now. Something is wrong.

Berith’s gaze narrowed. She was just here.

He pushed through the crowd, ignoring the polite greetings that brushed past him, nobles who dipped their heads and offered smiles they didn’t mean. He didn’t acknowledge a single one in search of any glimpse of silver curls.

The hair at his nape prickled, with his muscles tensed. A fleeting image of her lying on a floor somewhere, hurt and bleeding flashed through his mind. A foreign panic swelled, all hot and frantic overpowering his resistance and flooding his veins.

If anyone touched a goddamn hair on her head..

Berith entered a dimly lit hall off to the side of the terrace doors. Anthony was there, all alone with half-finished drink in his hand, facing the gardens below.

"Your Grace!" Anthony was halfway on greeting him when he interrupted him shortly.

"Where is she?"

"May I know whom are you talking about, Your Grace?’

"Marcella." His voice dropped. "Where did she go?"

A frown creased his brows. "Marcella was just with us. She said she needed air, I think or maybe she was going to find.." Anthony trailed off. "She walked off and Rachel thought she was going to the powder room."

Berith turned on his heels, his mind was already building possibilities.

Powder room—no way.

He was already walking away, checking the side corridors, the receiving hall, the music chamber just off the main floor. He passed the servants’ stair, the winter gallery, the alcove where guests retired for private talks.

Nothing, goddammit.

*****

The carriage halted.

The hum in Marcella’s bones faded into throb. Her hand twitched on her lap. Her eyes, unblinking, stared through the fog-frosted glass as the door creaked open by nobody.

Black Vale.

It was the same place where Black Vale Massacre had occurred ten years ago. This isolated village was known for its iron mines.

For decades, rumors swirled that this place was cursed as here the rift between realms grew thin. Local hunters spoke of the figures moving through the trees, and townsfolk rumored about strange voices heard in the wind.

But for the most part, these were considered superstitions, nothing more than tales to frighten children.

Until the disappearances began.

Grass did not grow here—only ash and the bones of things that had forgotten their names. At the center of it all, a broken gate. Tall. Wrought iron. Twisted by heat and magic long since burned out.

No one had crossed this boundary in over a decade, not even in dreams.

But Marcella stepped out of the carriage and entered inside like a girl stepping into a chapel on her wedding day. She was barely conscious. She didn’t feel the chill, though it clung to her bones.

The iron gate let out a groan as it opened on its own, old hinges screaming like they remembered every soul that had passed through them and never come back.

Beyond the gate, the path was no longer stone, but black soil riddled with veins of red, like magma frozen. The further Marcella stepped in, the darker it became.

Her pace didn’t falter, and her mind floated somewhere behind her eyes, as if dreaming, but too aware to wake.

"You are the vessel. You are the offering."

This was the same chant from her vision. It rose from the earth itself, from the bones buried beneath the soil, from the rot in the trees. It vibrated through her skin, her ribs, into the marrow of her bones.

Marcella gasped, stumbling forward one step before freezing again. Her hands snapped up to her ears, covering her ears. Her knees buckled, she fell to the center of the ritual circle.

"You are the vessel..."

"You are the offering..."

The voices pushed into her skull, the same chant repeated again and again, wearing her down, stripping her. It held her like a mother might hold a newborn, but without permission to leave.

"Stop," she breathed. "Stop..please.."

There was no letting go. The circle was already waiting for her.

Marcella crossed into the center, the runes beneath her feet etched deep into the black earth. It flared the moment her foot touched their edge.

The air hummed against her skin, a static vibration that filled her lungs with the taste of copper and bone dust. Then the demons stepped forward.

Ten of them, hooded, hunched, twisted into something beyond mortal shape. Their limbs were too long. Their eyes glowed the color of dying embers. Bones jutted from beneath their skin in unnatural angles, like their bodies had been reshaped to better fit something inside. Their chants never ceased.

"You are the vessel.

You are the offering.

You are the flame that bleeds divinity."

Marcella felt her breath shudder in and out, but her limbs would not move. She was standing on a ritual site, an ancient crucible where the boundary between realms was the thinnest. The Flame that sacred, infinite thing—it was stirring. It knew this place. It recognized the scent of demon-ink runes.

One of the demons stepped closer to her as if sniffing her, "You are a rare and strong vessel, that’s why His Grace is after you."

His Grace?

"You are not like the other Montclair brides who were offered to our Lord." The demon’s clawed fingers lifted, as though to gesture reverently toward her heart. "You were born with divinity in your bones. It sings through you. And now, you carry the Flame as well. A sealed flame."

Another demon answered, from the edge of the circle. "A perfect offering."

The ten demons encircled her like carrion priests around a dying deity. Their leader stepped forward, its presence colder than the others, older than the others. In its skeletal hands, it held a shard of obsidian, lifting it toward the storm-sick sky as it began the incantation.

"Through bone and shadow,

We beckon the Deep that sleeps beyond flame.

Bound not by will, but by blood worn thin,

The power turns inward—let the old pact begin."

Marcella’s body was yanked upright like a marionette; her feet being dragged across the runes. Her arms flared wide, dislocated, and she could feel the circle feeding upon her every breath, every resistance. Her tears sizzled as they traced her cheeks.

With a claw dipped into that viscous, steaming liquid, the leader began to draw runes upon her skin, chest, wrists, throat. "You were born to be chosen," the leader spat. "The sealed Flame within you predates the Montclair line. You are not merely the Montclair bride; you are the final vessel. His Lord has waited centuries for you."

A wind whipped across the ritual field, reeking of burnt marrow and desiccated death. Trees bowed backward, as if kneeling. Ash spiraled like corrupted snow.

The leader pressed the obsidian shard against her sternum. "The final veil thins. It is time."

Marcella’s eyes rolled back. Her spine arched, her back bending unnaturally as the light carved new paths through her flesh.

The ground split. The runes beneath her feet exploded in crimson fire. Her voice, no longer hers alone ripped from her throat in a sound that shattered the closest demon into smoke.

The Flame tore through her, burning the very air with its fury. From the core of her being, it surged.

Light—no, wrath in incandescent form exploded from Marcella’s chest. Golden fire, veined with crimson and black, lanced into the air like a divine spear. The circle shattered instantly. Runes turned to cinders.

The demons screamed in terror. "What is this..?"

"You dare! You scorned the flame and dared to offer this vessel." Her scream tore the sky, ancient, vengeful, and divine.

Her hair, once clinging in damp strands to her temples, now billowed around her like a corona of wildfire. Her eyes blazed gold, molten and unfocused—no longer Marcella’s alone.

The nearest demon who was still kneeling, disintegrated mid-word as if the Flame had reached into its truth and declared it unworthy of existence. Smoke erupted from its empty robe.

The others tried to flee. They howled guttural blasphemies and turned to disappear, but the Flame would not permit escape.

The leader staggered backward, clutching the obsidian shard with shaking hands. The artifact trembled in his grasp, vibrating with a fear it had never known. "This is wrong..she is not ready.."

The Flame heard and laughed.

It erupted from Marcella like wings, unfurling into the storm-black sky. The ritual ground now resembled a battlefield at the end of the world.

Marcella floated above the ground now, lifted by heat that did not scorch her. Her body, fragile moments ago, now burned with impossible strength. Her skin glowed with divinity.

"You shall be unmade by the truth you tried to bury.

Your names shall vanish from the echoes of time.

And your god, false and foul shall choke on your ashes."

With those words, the last of the circle shattered. The flame turned inward and devoured the ritual whole. The remaining demons burned in the Flame’s rage.