“I know,” she says softly, her voice carrying the weight of absolute comprehension. “I wouldn’t be you if you chose differently. We wouldn’t be us.”
She fades like morning mist touched by sunlight, taking Rynna and the phantom pub and the promise of normal days with her. The realm stops its dissolution as if someone has thrown a cosmic brake, the purple tide of the Devourer pulling back in recognition that this meal will not come easily.
“Noted,” the Judge’s voice says, echoing through the stabilising architecture around us. There’s something like approval threading through the clinical tone, the first hint of genuine emotion I’ve heard from her. “You have chosen duty over desire, the many over the few, principle over preference. This is more than adequate.”
The cracked obsidian beneath my feet glows with soft white light that feels warm and welcoming after the cold uncertainty of the trial.
“Final test,” the Judge announces as the light spreads upward, encompassing Tabitha and me in a column of radiance that makes my skin feel electric with possibility. “Authority. If you would rule, prove you can wield power without being consumed by it.”
The light flares, brilliant and overwhelming, and the world transforms again into something I don’t recognise at all.
Chapter 36
Nyssa
The light dims, and I suddenly find myself in a place that breaks every physics rule I thought I knew. We’re floating in what could be the centre of creation—or its opposite. All around us, reality moves like liquid starlight, constantly shifting into shapes my mind can barely handle.
There’s a swirl of golden-and-silver “possibilities,” and nearby a void that feels anything but empty—like it’s bursting with untapped potential. Rivers of raw energy run through the space: some bright with the spark of creation, others dark with the patient pull of endings. And winding through it all are faint geometric lines—just enough order to keep everything from tearing itself apart.
Tabitha’s next to me, finally speaking. Her coat flutters as if caught in an invisible breeze. I’ve never seen her this stunned. “It’s where the First Law began. Where cosmic authority comes from.”
The Judge’s voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere, making the shifting reality ripple like water. “Exactly. Here is where your final test happens. Authority isn’t handed over—it must be proven. Show you can wield absolute power without letting it destroy you.”
At her words, three shapes form out of the energy around us. They’re not fully solid, but more than illusions—ideas given just enough shape for human eyes.
First, a figure steps out of a stream of gold light. It’s Aethel, or at least what she was meant to be: focused, controlled, authority absolute in her realm. Her eyes shine like tiny suns, and when she speaks, it sounds like stars answering. “Light,” she says, and the space hums. “Creation. Order made real by illuminating truth. Will you claim the force that turns possibility into reality?”
Then a shape rises from pure shadow—not just the absence of light, but the darkness between thoughts, heartbeats, moments. It’s Shadow. His form shifts like smoke, and his voice resonates inside my head: “Shadow,” he intones, making everything tremble. “Potential. Power held in reserve until the moment it’s needed. Will you master the force that lives between what is and what could be?”
The third figure isn’t so much there as felt like an empty space in reality, shaped like a person, somehow more real than the other two. I just know this is my wraith side, the power I grabbed when I died and refused to stay dead. When it speaks, the words skip sound and hit my mind directly.
“Death,” it says, and that one word feels like both an ending and a fresh start. “Transformation. The power to end what is so, what should be can begin. Will you take the force that lives between being and nothingness?”
I look at the three—light, shadow, and death—and feel the weight of that ask. I’ve used these powers before, but never all at once, never at full blast, never in a place where one slip could tear reality apart.
“Together?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
“Together,” the Judge says. “True power needs all three. Light without shadow is blinding tyranny. Shadow without lightis endless darkness. And without death, both just stagnate. You must master all three at once, in perfect balance.”
I breathe in and step forward, reaching out to the light form first. The second I touch Aethel’s essence, power floods me like molten metal. It’s not painful, exactly, but it feels like my human limits are burning away. I understand light now—not just brightness, but ordering chaos, turning possibility into reality, saying “let there be” and making it so.
For a moment, I am pure light. Every photon, every star, every sunrise pulses through me. I see the universe as streams of radiance, reality as a conversation between potential and fact, spoken in bright truth.
The light wants to keep going—burn every shadow, reveal every secret until nothing’s left hidden. I can feel myself slipping into that certainty, losing who I am.
Then Tabitha’s voice cuts through. “Nyssa. Remember who you are. Remember why you’re here.”
Her words pull me back just enough to reach for shadow. Cool darkness flows in like water, easing the burn but bringing its own pull. Light wants to show everything; shadow wants to hide everything to keep mystery alive.
Now I’m light and shadow at once, and they should tear me apart. How can I be both clarity and possibility? They fight inside me, each demanding control.
Then I do something that feels impossible—I make them dance together. Light and shadow weave through my mind, forming patterns deeper than either alone. Not harsh clarity or total blackness, but a mix that gives shape and meaning.
Still, it’s a tightrope. Light whispers I could burn every shadow and eliminate uncertainty. Shadow murmurs, I could hide ugly truths and let people stay comfortable in ignorance. Both would be easier than this balance. Now I see why most cosmic beings pick one side.
Then I reach for the third form, and the power of death rolls in like a tide.
Death magic isn’t just about destruction, the way mortals see it. It’s about change. It’s that split second when one thing becomes another, the line between what was and what will be. It’s the force that turns a seed into a tree, a caterpillar into a butterfly, a person into something else entirely. And it’s the power that’s run through me since I died and chose to come back.
