Below us, the sludge creature finishes forming.
It rises from the earth in a violent surge, shadow congealing into mass, shape snapping into somethinghungry. Behind it, an army pours forward—writhing darkness flanked by enthralled soldiers, their bodies twisted into obedience, eyes hollow, movements unnaturally precise.
It lunges toward us with far more speed than I anticipated, drawn toward Ryder like a predator scenting blood—the missing piece pulsing in his grip.
“Be careful.” I meet Ryder’s eyes with discernment. “Please don’t die.”
He smirks, lifting an eyebrow. “And never see that pretty face again? Not a chance. Now go.”
I jump.
The wind whips past me as I tuck into a roll, hitting the ground hard but clean. Versivius spirals back into the air, looping away from the warehouse where the Siphon had everyone entranced. As he climbs, his form shimmers—
—and vanishes.
Invisible, he streaks across the clearing with Ryder still on his back, drawing the monster after him and away from me, away from the others.
And for a heartbeat, all I can do is run.
Then the ground begins toshake.
Ziek’s villagers fall into formation beside me, carried swiftly by the elions and Skypharoh. The elions thunder across the soil, their massive limbs sinking deep before ripping free again, tearing whole trees from their roots as if they were nothing more than reeds. They carve a path through the forest—raw, brutal, and efficient—clearing the way for the rest of us to advance.
The mindless students, teachers, and townspeople charge at us, moving with the same unnatural speed as the Siphon itself. Whatever fragment of its power it granted them has hardened their bodies, lending them its speed and its frightening durability.
We hold our formation, even though we’re vastly outnumbered—because breaking now would mean letting the darkness consume everything.
Craize runs beside me, his wing tilted just enough for me to scale his back. I haul myself up, gripping the thick fur at his shoulders, my power humming beneath my skin, ready to ignite.
“Remember—don’t kill them!” I shout, though the wind tears the words apart the moment they leave my mouth. Still, I hope he hears.
As we close in, the entranced opponents unleash their Gifts, flinging bursts of shadow and jagged beams of light toward us in a wild, mindless frenzy. I raise the tenari shield in one hand just as a sphere of shadow hurtles toward my chest. The impact reverberates through the shield, but it doesn’t break. It never breaks.
The tenari hide absorbs the hit like it was made for this—like it was born immune to their Gifts. The captured light whips back at its caster, ricocheting in a sharp arc.
A few attackers are struck by their own powers, knocked off their feet and snapped momentarily out of their trance, blinking in dazed confusion.
Their minds flicker. Their humanity surfaces.
And for a breath, hope cracks through the chaos.
“It’s working.” I exhale as Craize dips low again and brace my fall into the ground below.
A girl I vaguely recognise from the academy breaks from the swarm and comes straight for me.
Not charging blindly
—butHunting.
Her feet barely touch the ground as she moves, Gift flaring bright and unstable around her hands. Shadow coils through the light like veins of ink, sharpening it, refining it. The Siphon has done more than enthral her—it’senhancedher. Like she contains all the powers he has taken, a mixture of light and dark. Just as the Siphon is a part of Nyxos, she is a part of them both. And now it seems I am fighting one of my own. An engineered star. Once again.
“Asha!” she snarls, voice distorted, layered with something that isn’t her own. Shock shifts my features at the realisation that she can talk. “Hold still.”
A spear of compressed light tears toward my chest.
I throw the tenari shield up just in time. The impact detonates like thunder, hurling me backwards several steps. My arms scream with the force of it.
The shield holds—butbarely—and the ground cracks beneath my boots.
