The air in the ruined chapel still trembled with ash.
Lucien's hand trembled in Isadora's, but she held tight, even as the Devil watched them from the altar — robes curling like living flame, eyes molten gold, lips curved in a smile older than sin.
> "You make this difficult, little bride."
> "I offered you a throne in Hell. And you reach for a corpse."
Lucien's voice was hoarse.
> "Better a corpse than your puppet."
The Devil's smile didn't waver. Instead, he extended one clawed finger and gently traced a circle into the air. The ashes stirred. The world trembled.
And the chapel began to transform.
---
Stone peeled back like dead skin.
The roof groaned and split open, revealing a sky red as blood and full of withered stars.
Thorned vines sprouted from the floor, crawling along the pews like snakes.
They wrapped the altar.
They breathed.
The chapel had become a garden — but one made not of beauty, but of ruin.
Every flower bled.
Every vine whispered names Isadora had long buried.
Lucien stepped back, faltering.
> "What is this place?"
The Devil answered like a lullaby.
> "The garden where I planted her."
"The place where you first found her, bleeding and wild, wrapped in a funeral veil."
"You thought she was yours. But you only harvested what I grew."
---
Isadora stepped forward, pale and barefoot, eyes reflecting the strange blood-moon above.
Her voice cracked.
> "I remember this place..."
She touched one of the bleeding roses. It pulsed under her fingers.
> "This was where I died the first time."
The Devil's smile widened.
> "Yes. My sweet thorn. You gave me your soul. Lucien simply stitched the body back together."
> "You were mine before your first breath."
---
Lucien's voice shook.
> "Don't listen to him, Isadora. You are more than what he made."
But she was already walking forward, the garden swallowing her steps.
The Devil opened his hand, and in it, something withered but powerful appeared — a crown of thorns, blackened by fire, slick with blood.
> "Wear it," he said.
"Become what you were always meant to be. The Queen of Thorns. The Bride of the Abyss."
Isadora stared at it. Her hands trembled.
Behind her, Lucien dropped to one knee.
> "Don't let him decide your fate."
"If you have to burn… burn free."
---
A wind rose from nowhere. The vines hissed.
The Devil's eyes narrowed.
> "Then choose."
> "Wear the crown, and Lucien walks away unharmed."
"Refuse me… and I shall drag his soul through every gate of Hell until not even your memory remains."
---
Silence.
Isadora closed her eyes.
And remembered:
The way Lucien had wept the night she first woke up with blood on her hands.
The way he whispered her name like a prayer even after she shattered the mirrors.
The way he still reached for her, even when the Devil stood between them.
---
She opened her eyes.
Took the crown.
Held it over her head.
The Devil grinned. Lucien's mouth opened in shock.
But then—
she crushed it.
Thorns sliced into her palms. Blood poured down her wrists.
The garden screamed.
The Devil's smile snapped.
His voice no longer silken.
> "You DARE—?"
Isadora turned, holding the twisted thorns in her bleeding hands.
> "I am no one's bride."
> "Not yours. Not his. Not anyone's."
> "If I burn, it will be because I lit the match."
---
The ground cracked beneath her feet.
Thorns thrashed wildly, trying to snare her.
The sky broke open, revealing not stars but eyes, countless and watching.
And the Devil stepped down from the altar, fury etched into every movement.
Lucien rose, standing beside her, his chest glowing faintly — the heart he had once removed now pulsing with light.
> "Let's end this."
---
Together, they turned — Isadora holding broken thorns like daggers, Lucien with nothing but his cursed heart.
The Devil roared, and the garden answered.
From the vines came creatures, stitched from old sins and broken vows.
They surged forward.
---
But Isadora had learned fire.
She screamed — a sound not human, not holy — and flame erupted from the ground, engulfing the roses, the creatures, the chapel.
Lucien shielded her.
Isadora moved like storm and ash.
---
The Devil reached for her.
She stabbed him in the chest with a thorn of her own making.
> "You don't own me."
> "You never did."
He gasped — not in pain, but in shock.
And then he laughed.
Laughed.
> "Oh, my sweet thorn."
> "This was only the beginning."
---
The chapel collapsed.
The flames consumed the garden.
And as the Devil's body fell into the fire, he whispered one last promise:
> "I will rise again."
> "And next time… you'll wear the crown willingly."
---
When the fire faded, only two figures remained:
Isadora, bleeding but standing.
Lucien, burnt but alive.
They said nothing.
But above them, where the chapel once stood, the sky wept.
Not rain.
Not ash.
But something older.
End of Chapter Thirteen.