I dipped my chin.“There’s nothing that will ever stop me from loving you. I’m here now. And I’m never leaving your side.”
Gray swallowed, guilt creeping into her eyes before she lowered her head in shame.“I don’t deserve you.
But I’ll forever love you, Chrome.”
I offered her a tight smile, glancing back at the fight ratcheting up behind us. Slate began to lag, his movements getting slower and heavier, barely missing Celanea’s onslaught. If I knew him as well as I thought I did, he was waiting for the perfect moment to strike the Tempest queen with a powerful blast of Angelic purification, but Celanea was too guarded. There was no way she would underestimate him since she could sense his Angelic powers.
“We need to go. Slate needs us,”I said, leaping to my feet and reaching down for her to take my hand. It was so strange to feel both of our movements. So bizarre to feel the rough skin of my palm against hers.
Gray accepted, and I helped pull her to her feet. Her rainbow eyes grew livelier and alert by the second, while I felt myself slowly growing weakened.“Gods, this is odd. But I’m glad you’re here with me. It’s like this is how we’re supposed to be.”
“I’ll be wherever you want me to be.”Squeezing her hand, I said aloud, “Let’s rage, little savage.”
I felt her vicious smile draw up one of her lips, and I made one of my own follow suit. She winked, then sprinted toward her Guardian.
I flanked behind her, wanting to protect her back while I let her feed from my energy. Gray tossed up an air shield. Now that myCelestial magic was fully awakened, it was more attuned to all forms of energy around me, allowing me to manipulate it into whatever I needed. I drew upon my electromagnetic energy, creating a shield of my own.
To my left, a turret towered above us, and I knew there was steel within the structural frame. I sought it out, exuberant to be connected to my element again as it soared through me with its familiar driving force, ready to bend at my command.
While Gray assisted Slate in his fight, Celanea taunted her the entire way through. “Your handsome little friend will make such a great source for my Endarkened pets. What’s his name?” she asked, then giggled. “Oh!” Her eyes sparked in exaggerated recognition. “Onyx! I can’t wait to see what songs he’ll sing for me. Just like his daddy did.”
My element locked onto the steel within the turret, and I yanked, the turret collapsing as the circular, stone structure folded in on itself. A deafening boom thundered throughout the courtyard, and the ground quaked beneath us. Celanea broke her focus on Slate and Gray to see the commotion, turning her attention toward me.
I ignored the curses she slung at me, letting my shield deflect her attempts. I directed three metal bars that held the turret together to spear downward at an angle, aiming straight for Celanea. During their rapid journey, I manipulated the ends to form piercing arrows on the ancient steel. My power waned, so I had to make this move count. Maybe if all three of us combined our abilities, we’d get out of here…
Gray took advantage of the moment of distraction, sending a wave of electrical currents to blanket Celanea in crackling blue volts. Slate saw the opening he’d been waiting for, launching a silver blast that he built from his chest, then threw with his hands.
Celanea screeched, her black hair frying, smoke rising from her body. The putrid odor of burnt skin and hair nearly gagged me, but before she could break free from their power, I infused the metal spears with every ounce of magic I had left, just as I had with theEMP strike on Devolution Day, and at the King’s Palace several months ago. I sucked every morsel of energy I could and compacted it into the sailing steel, treating it as a conductor.
Gray continued to siphon my energy to power her electrical currents, and I felt her gearing up for something else, something bigger, trusting that between the three of us, we could finally end Celanea now. No one could withstand that much power at once. Not even immortal beings.
Celanea’s back arched at an unnatural angle, her mouth gaped open with Slate’s silver light emitting from it. His Angelic power overpowered Gray’s electricity, seeming to dim her blue volts.
The first spear struck Celanea’s chest. Immediately, the second followed, sailing through her back to protrude from her diaphragm, while the third impaled her throat. I released the magic that the steel held within it, but no explosion came. At least, not as I had expected.
Celanea, through all the power assaulting her, managed to detach the steel spears from her body. Aiming a spear at the sky, she released my energetic pulse upward, firing off a powerful EMP.
I dropped to a knee, my energy and strength depleting as I watched in horror.
She removed a second spear, smiling victoriously as she pointed it at Slate. He was shielded, but it didn’t withstand the pulsing blast that barreled into it, sending him smashing into the castle’s stone wall fifty feet behind him.
My other knee gave way with the explosion, my body seemingly anchoring to the ground. I focused on the bit of my soul that inhabited Gray, and it desperately tried to detach on its own to return to my body. Gray needed me. Just a few more seconds…
“You cannot kill me,” Celanea said. “I’m hurt that you don’t remember our little quarrel all those years ago.” She levitated above the ground, then aimed the third spear at Gray, this time sending it flying at a vicious speed straight to her heart.
Gray held her palm out, then she closed her fist, directing her element to latch onto the spear. Unfurling herfist, she rotated her hand in a twisting motion, spinning the spear around to point at Celanea. Without a word, Gray summoned a massive lightning strike, not like the one from earlier, but a bolt large enough to throw Celanea off course. My Twin Soul then sent the spear piercing through the air, skewering straight through Celanea’s forehead.
“Gods, would you die already?” Gray muttered. The spear imploded from another pulse, ricocheting off Gray’s shield.
The amount of power she unleashed in that moment diminished the rest of my reserves. My soul ripped from her body, slamming back into my own as I collapsed on my chest on the cobblestones. The sensation jarred me like a rubber band snapping back into place. I’d expended too much power, and every ounce of my energy was drained. I shivered relentlessly, an icy sensation tensing my muscles to the point I thought they’d tear. My head felt like it was the size of a turret while my limbs were so leaden that it felt as if Goshen Castle was built on top of them.
Now that I didn’t run the risk of turning Endarkened, I understood what true Celestials would’ve felt before Celanea cast the curse to divide them into two separate beings while sentencing one half to suffer devolution if they diminished an aura too much. While this Celestial deprivation was a different agony than Elemental, it felt natural.
With my soul now absent from her body, Gray’s shield shattered. She staggered back a step from the exertion it took her to maintain it against my energetic pulse from the spear. I suspected that Celanea mixed her power into the blast as well, making it more potent.
I could barely move, but I managed to stretch my arm out, reaching for Gray as if I could help her. Summoning any form of magic that would respond, I tried to shield her, but nothing came.
“Gray!”Panic choked me. I’d been in positions where I felt out of control many times in my life, but that was when it pertained tomywell-being. But this…I couldn’t help her. Just like the public beatings, and just like her forced sterilization.
