Why You Should Never Rescue Stray Demons Chapter 139

**KACIA**

When I wake up, it feels like I’ve been trampled by a herd of stampeding trolls. Every muscle, every bone, every inch of me aches in that dull, deep way that comes after an adrenaline crash. I guess that’s what happens when you spend an hour digging through rubble, your body running on panic and stubbornness alone. I have no idea what time it is. Honestly, I’m not even sure what day it is at this point. The room is still dim, curtains drawn tight. Oz is still asleep, wrapped around me, his arm heavy across my waist and his tail curled loosely over my legs like an extra blanket. Well. Guess I can’t move then. Waking him feels like it should be illegal, the same way it’s basically illegal to wake a sleeping cat. They both have tails. They both have claws. They both get grumpy if you poke them… I sigh and snuggle in closer, burying my face against his chest, just… Enjoying it while it lasts. I should get up. Do what exactly, though? Make a plan? March out and solve the un-solvable? Right now, I don’t have a plan. I don’t even know where to start. So what’s the point in leaving my warm, soft bed when I’m curled up with a stupidly hot guy I’m more than a little in love with? Isn’t it smarter to just, enjoy the good while I have it? I can brainstorm just as well here as I could sitting hunched up in the living room. And judging by how dead asleep Oz looks, his breathing deep and even, his face slack with exhaustion, he isn’t waking up anytime soon anyway. Which is fair. He probably worked even harder than I did last night. I saw how much rubble he dug through. It still doesn’t feel real. I can’t believe the library is gone. That building wasn’t just a place. It was the heart of this whole community. Most magical people in the area can’t use phones or tech reliably, the library was our message board, our bulletin board, our hearth. We just… Stopped by. We gathered. We stayed connected. Without it, I don’t even know how people are going to manage. I am REALLY worried about Clarence. The denial he’d been clinging to about that prophecy he was given, about the library being destroyed, was obviously wrong. And seeing him last night… Damn, he looked like a man who’d lost everything. I guess Izzy’s prophecy is starting to make sense too. And Vidar’s. Their riddles are starting to untwist. The only one I haven’t mostly figured out now is my own. I think about it. I asked to have it written down, but I’ve spent so much time thinking about it lately that I have it basically memorised now. I whisper it to myself under my breath.

“The ignoble lord must prune the tree to save the roots, but she is not a branch. She is the axe. She’ll learn too late that she never had a blade at her back. The weapon meant for her chest was buried in his heart instead. One day, the nightmare will become your lullaby. Hidden eyes will meet the monster's gaze, and not flinch. They will see what is buried beneath ash and claw, and smile anyway. The words that bound him were not hers but the ones that free him will be. Stone cracks. Shadows break. But vines and vows only ease for love, and for the one who kneels to it. Only then will the deal breaker become the vow keeper.”

The words hang in the quiet room, clinging to the edges of my thoughts, suffocating and inescapable. I press closer to Oz’s chest, listening to his slow, steady heartbeat under my palm. It should be comforting, and it is in a way, but it doesn’t silence the storm in my head. My mind keeps circling, restless, chewing on each line of the prophecy until it feels like it’s etched into me. I suppose the ignoble lord is my grandfather. That part’s easy. He wears the title like a crown, calling himself righteous, pure, above everyone else. And if he’s trying to prune and cut away, the thing he wants gone is almost definitely me. That much I can accept. And if that’s the case, according to the prophecy… I’m the axe. The one that cuts, the one that destroys. Which implies that I’m going to bring the whole thing down, whether I mean to or not. Well… That matches the prophecy my father told Fin.

The lord who calls himself pure will fall not to crown nor court, but to the one that is half his blood.

The son he scorned and bound to silence will trade power for his heart, his gift running to dust.

She will be a whisper kept from his lips, her life bought with his silence.

For if the half-blood claims her place, the roots of his empire will turn to ash, and he will watch his world burn, powerless to stop her.

Well… Yeah. Put together, both prophecies point to the same conclusion. I’m going to ruin my grandfather. Tear down everything he built, everything he clings to. I’ve spent this whole time saying all I wanted was for him to leave me alone. But after what he just did… After he nearly killed all my friends, after he destroyed the library, after he admitted to killing my father. I don’t think I can say that anymore. He made this war. He turned me into the axe, whether I wanted to be or not. And the worst part? I never ASKED for any of this. I’ve never done a damn thing to him in my life. I never would have if he had just left me alone. But that’s the thing about prophecies, isn’t it? They become self-fulfilling. If none of this had been written, if no one had whispered it, he probably never would have bothered with me. And I never would have stood in his way. But because he believed, he acted. And because he acted, he made me into the very threat he feared. I can’t keep waiting for him to come after me again. I can’t sit back and hope the storm passes. He isn’t just a danger to me anymore. He’s a danger to everyone I love. I can’t even let myself imagine how much worse I would feel if Vidar hadn’t made it. If Clarence had been lost in those flames. If Tracey had burned when the sun came up. If Oz… Nope. I can’t even finish that thought. So that’s it then. No more running. No more hoping for a quiet life. No more waiting around for him to decide when the next blow will fall. If my asshole of a grandfather was worried about me before, now he has a real reason to worry. Because I am done hiding. I am done letting him take pieces of my life away. I’m going to face him. I’m going to face this prophecy. And I’m going to win… Later. Once Oz wakes up. And once I figure out how the hell to make a plan out of the mess my life has turned into. For now, I press my cheek against Oz’s chest and let myself breathe, just for a little longer, before the fight begins.