Page 169 of Demon’s Snack

She presses both palms flat against my chest again, right over the infernal heat threatening to split me open from the inside.

“Look at me,” she says firmly.

My eyes drag downward to hers.

Rain runs over her face in silver lines. Ash smudges one cheek. Her expression remains fierce enough to cut through the devourer’s pressure like a blade.

“You are still Corin,” she says. “You are still choosing where that energy goes.”

The bond tightens sharply around the words.

I inhale slowly.

The devourer’s hunger claws at my core, but Isolde’s cadence threads through it, pulling the chaos into shape before it can spread outward. Her pulse beats against my chest through both palms, steady and mortal and alive.

Mine answers it.

Behind her, the courtyard continues burning in controlled lines. Black-gold fire races through Vaerith’s hidden conduits, exposing buried siphon marks beneath the broken paving stones. Several nobles stare openly now, horror turning toward comprehension as the scale of the fraud becomes visible beneath their feet.

Lady Othrel lifts her cane and points it directly at Vaerith.

“You fed public wards into forbidden summoning channels,” she says, voice carrying through the courtyard with startling strength. “You damned fool.”

Kairven’s nephew steps beside her, rain dripping from his hair. “The civic council will see those records.”

Vaerith’s face twists. “There will be no council if the veil collapses.”

“Funny thing about that,” Sable calls. “Seems your ritual is the part collapsing.”

The devourer slams both claws into the circle.

The impact blasts outward through the courtyard, throwing steam and burning debris high into the storm. Red sigils burst apart beneath its weight. The fractured veil behind it stretches wider for one terrible second, exposing a depthless darkness crowded with shifting shapes too large and distant to fully comprehend.

My hunger recoils hard enough to make me stagger.

That place beyond the breach feels ancient and endless and violently alive.

Rhazek steps forward instantly, infernal script blazing brighter along his arms. “Corin. The breach is destabilizing.”

“You say that like it’s new information.”

“It is becoming urgent information.”

“Wonderful.”

The devourer gathers itself for another strike.

This one will be worse.

I can feel the pressure building through the bond, through the air, through the screaming ward lines beneath the courtyard. The creature wants me specifically now. It tasted the hybrid structure inside me and found something compatible enough to consume or corrupt.

Isolde senses it too.

Her eyes widen slightly before hardening again. “If it hits your core directly⁠—”

“I know.”

“You cannot absorb another full wave cleanly.”