I can feel it pulling. Not at me. Not at my father.At Phoenix.
The hole widens, growing larger with each passing second, and Phoenix is being drawn toward it.
Her body leans forward. Her shoulders hunch. She is fighting against the pull but losing.
The dark realm recognizes her. It wants to reclaim what it lost twenty-nine years ago when she was born into this world.
“Phoenix!” I grab her shoulders, trying to pull her back. But my hands pass right through her arms. It’s like trying to grab smoke. “Phoenix, close it! You’re being pulled through!”
“Can’t,” she gasps. The word comes out strangled, but at least there’s still a little bit ofmyPhoenix left. “Need to... push him through first... or it closes... with him still here...”
I look at my father. He’s still fighting against the students’ spirits and my runes, but steadily, he’s also being dragged toward the hole. Toward the darkness.
The spirits tighten their net and begin dragging him closer to the portal Phoenix opened.
But Phoenix is being pulled faster. She’s going to go through before we can push him through. And then the portal will close. My father will stay here. Phoenix will be trapped in that frozen hell forever.
No. Absolutely not.
I willnotlet that happen.
I summon more runes. Every representation of starvation that I have carried inside me. I wrap them around myself first, letting them sink into my skin and fill me with their power.
Then I reach out to the hungry darkness pulling at Phoenix.
And I show it something even tastier.
With the dark power bursting through my veins, I direct it toward my father.
I show it his vast reserves of power. His angelic essence. His eternal life force that has burned for ages beyond counting.
I show the darkness that he is warm where Phoenix is now cold. She’s empty now, but he is full. He’s everything the darkness craves.
The pull shifts. Subtle at first and then more and more intense.
The darkness recognizes my father as a more substantial feast. It begins pulling at him instead, drawing him toward the hole with a force that makes the air crackle.
“What—” my father gasps. “What did youdo?”
“Gave the Hunger a different target,” I say. My voice is rough. Strained from the effort of redirecting that terrible pull. “You wanted me to be Famine? Let me show you what thatreally means. Hunger recognizes hunger. And that darkness isstarving.”
The students’ spirits surge forward. They understand what we are doing now. They wrap their net tighter around my father. Begin pulling him toward the hole with renewed purpose. Toward the darkness that is now focused entirely on consuming him.
Phoenix’s eyes clear. The black fades back to her normal color. She gasps and falls backwards to the floor away from the darkness at the center of the student’s body and the swirling darkness above him. She looks at me with shocked understanding even as my father continues fighting. Of course he does. He’s been fighting against his fate since the moment he was spawned. But the combined force of Sabra’s magic, my runes redirecting the Hunger, the students’ fury, and Phoenix’s connection to the dark realm is too much.
He is being dragged toward that darkness nevertheless. Inch by inch.
But then, right when we’ve almost got him to the hole, his hand shoots out like a striking snake. He catches my wrist in a grip that feels like it might shatter bone.
“If I’m going,” he snarls, “you’re coming with me, son.”
He yanks hard and I’m pulled off my feet, sent stumbling with him toward the darkness. I try to catch my footing but his grip on my hand is inextricable, and the forces we’ve put in place are driving him with a motion it’s too late to stop towards the hole.
I see Phoenix’s eyes widen. Panic floods her face. She’s still kneeling there beside the dead body and serving as the conduit.
She’s got both hands on the sacrificial body, and I can tell she’s fighting to close the hole. To save me even if it means my father stays here.
“Don’t!” I shout at her. My voice cracks with desperation. “Keep it open!”
