She was willing to sacrifice herself to save this world and everyone in it from my father. To save me.
I can only do the same for her.
Her eyes fill with tears. “Layden, I can’t watch you go into the dark!”
My father drags me closer to the hole. I can feel the cold radiating from it now. It’s far worse than any hunger I’ve ever experienced. Worse than being buried alive, or starving in the forest for two hundred years. Worse even than the agony of having my wings shorn off.
It’s worse than anything I can imagine.
This is the cold of absolutenothing. Of existing in hungry misery for eternity that never ends because there is nothing to consume in the void.
But I still can’t let Phoenix close it.
I summon more runes and wrap them around my father’s arm. Runes of breaking. Severing. Of letting go.
They glow so brightly they should burn and force his grip to loosen.
He holds on tighter still. His fingers are iron bands around my wrist. I can feel my bones grinding together.
“Let me go,” I tell him through gritted teeth.
“Never!” he screams, face twisted with rage and desperation. “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. From the moment I created you until the end of time! You’re only proving you’re exactly who I created you to be!”
I look at Phoenix. Her face is agonized. Torn between keeping the hole open and dooming everyone else to save me or sacrificing me to save the world.
And there—on her face, I see the answer.
Why my father is both right and so, so wrong.
Because yes, I am the son my Creator-Father made me to be. But I have been paying attention since I reunited with my brothers. There is one truth my father never wanted us to know when he gave us these great and terrible gifts. We contain truly apocalyptic powers, yes.
But we also contain their inverse multitudes.
And Famine’s opposite is not just food. It is fullness and satisfaction. The deep contentment that comes from having everything you need and being surrounded by abundance.
It’s the look on Phoenix’s face. It’s knowing that I’m loved and wanted and enough exactly as I am.
So I wrap myself in that fullness and warmth and the satiation and connection I’ve found with Phoenix. The opposite of everything Famine is supposed to represent. Every moment of happiness I’ve stolen or earned or stumbled into during my existence.
Because I am not Famine. Not really. That is what my father made me. But it is not all that I am.
I am the being who craves love. Who hungers for light and warmth and everything good in this world.
I am the creature who fell in love with Phoenix the moment I saw her. Even buried and half-mad with isolation. Even when she could offer me nothing but her presence.
I am Layden Eques. And I choose what I want to be.
The runes around me begin to glow brighter. They are anchors tying me to this world and to Phoenix.
To everything worth staying for.
To everything the darkness rejects because it only knows cold and hunger and emptiness.
My father feels it. His grip on me loosens. Just for a second as the cold realm pushes me back while still sucking him in. Because the darkness doesn’t want me anymore. It might wantto feed on me, but I’m too bright now, like a burning star that will eviscerate its very existence if it allows me much closer.
I yank my arm free with one final rune directed at my father. It’s a simple one. Just a symbol for letting go of what no longer serves you.
The students’ spirits surge forward and drag my father the last bit through the hole. He screams and reaches for me again with desperate fingers.
