I press.
Hard enough to kill.
A small thread of shadow and light settles into his skin like ink into paper.
He stiffens, and then he collapses, dead at my feet.
Finnian grunts and struggles to get away. “What did you do?” he rasped.
I don’t bother with a reply. I end him as well.
For the greater good.
Then I step back.
We emerge into the church again. Tabitha follows last, smoothing her sleeves.
I look at the churchyard beyond the door.
Dastian throws an arm around my shoulders. “So what now, Your Majesty?”
I glance at him, then at Voren, then at Dreven.
“Now we go back,” I say. “I have a realm to rule. You have a realm to guard. And Rynna…” My chest tightens. “Rynna has a life to live without the Order strangling her.”
Dreven’s hand finds mine. “We’ll keep her safe.”
“I know,” I say, and mean it.
With one step, we are back in the Pantheon realm, and the Chaos Throne waits where I left it—patient, unneedy, certain of itself.
I sit again, and the realm settles around me like a cloak that finally fits.
I close my eyes and reach with dominion.
Earth answers faintly at the edge of my senses: rain, salt air, my cottage, my sister’s stubborn heartbeat.
I don’t pull. I don’t interfere. I watch, because loving someone isn’t the same as owning them, and I’ve learned, the hard way, that the difference matters.
Tabitha clears her throat. “There is one more thing.”
I open my eyes. “Spit it out.”
“The Order will regroup,” she says. “Someday, somewhere.”
I tilt my head. “You will feel it?”
Tabitha studies me for a long moment, then nods.
I breathe out, slow.
The realm breathes with me.
“I’m not worried. Who knows? Maybe they will actually do good.”
“But if they don’t?” Dreven asks.
“Then we are here to judge them.”
I rest my hands on the armrests of the Chaos Throne.
I haven’t felt this at peace in forever. I let out a soft sigh and smile at my gods, at the heat and the hush and the shadow wrapped close, and the Pantheon settles around us, steady as a promise: not a cage, not a battlefield, but a home we chose and kept.
Together.
