BLEEDING VELVET

"You don't walk away from a prophecy. You drag it behind you, bloody and screaming, until it kneels."—Almond

It wasn't the dress she wanted. It was the one they said she'd die in.

Blood silk. Bone-laced corset. A black veil soaked in ashes. Almond stood in the hollow crypt of what used to be a cathedral, and dressed like vengeance.

Velda zipped the back, hands trembling. "This is a bad idea."

"Most of my good ideas start in hell," Almond said.

Kairo leaned against the doorframe, eyes hollow. "This wedding isn't real."

"Oh, it's real," Almond said. "It just ends with a blade to the groom's throat."

Three hours earlier

They'd followed the blood candle's trail down beneath the church, into the Prophet's first altar—a crypt turned into a sanctuary of sin.

Sigils carved in bone. Pillars laced with teeth. A throne built from the backs of those who had worshipped him.

And there, sitting in the dark, a book.

Bound in skin. Locked with a kiss spell.

Kairo had touched it first. The burn mark was still on his palm.

"I think it's his gospel," he muttered.

Velda shook her head. "No. It's his diary. His plan. His spellbook."

Almond stared at the book. Something in her bones knew:

The wedding wasn't metaphorical.

The Prophet had written her name a hundred times in that book. Each time a different death.

Back in the present, Almond stared at her reflection. Her piercings glinted. Her tattoos curled like dark vines up her spine. She didn't look like a bride.

She looked like a reckoning.

Aren stirred behind her, bandaged and pale. He hadn't spoken since the kiss. Not really.

But when Almond turned, his eyes opened—and they were fully his.

"You're going to kill him," he said, voice rough.

She nodded. "I am."

"And if he kills you first?"

Almond leaned down, kissed his temple.

"Then I take him with me."

The ceremony wasn't a church.

It was a stage. Lit by fire. Filled with every soul the Prophet had ever damned.

They watched as she walked the aisle alone.

Velda and Kairo stood guard at the edge.

The Prophet waited at the end, dressed in nothing but a crown of flame and a smile that promised sin.

"You came," he whispered.

"I always do," Almond said.

They joined hands. His were cold. Hers burned.

A priest with no eyes read from the Book of Flesh.

"Do you take this monster—"

"I do," Almond said.

"Do you claim this girl—"

"I already have," said the Prophet.

But as he leaned in to kiss her—

She pulled the dagger from her garter.

And drove it through his chest.

He didn't die easy.

The floor cracked. The flames rose. Screams echoed as the souls tried to flee.

The Prophet grinned around the blade. "You think this ends me?"

"No," Almond whispered. "But it begins me."

She twisted.

And the crypt shattered.

The souls burned bright.

The Book of Flesh screamed.

And when the smoke cleared—

The Prophet was gone.

Not dead.

But banished.

Velda and Kairo pulled her from the wreck.

Aren met her at the steps.

And Almond—still wearing the blackened wedding dress, dagger dripping, eyes full of fire—finally smiled.

"Guess I said yes after all."