The Threshold shuddered, reality bending as her emotion surged through the Gate. And in that moment, I saw her clearly despite the dimensional barrier.
The crack in the Dragon's Ember seal widened another fraction as we watched each other through the gate.
"She's acknowledging the connection," Elias said, wonder in his voice. "The patterns are solidifying. She's going to?—"
Alarms rang through the Citadel, their bronze voices carrying even into our prison. The Order of Khaos had made their move, attacking while the Keepers were distracted by the Gate's instability.
Through our connection, I felt Aria's fear transform into something harder, sharper. She was preparing to fight. To protect the Citadel despite knowing the truth about what it represented.
Because that's who she was. Someone who protected others, even when those others were complicit in maintaining a lie. Even when she herself was a victim of that lie.
"She needs help," Thane said, rising to his feet for the first time in decades. The Threshold groaned under his movement, reality itself protesting the shift of so much divine weight. "If the Order breaches the Sanctorum?—"
"They'll try to destroy the Gate entirely," I finished. "Which would kill us and probably her in the process."
"So we help her," Flynn said, his grin wild and hungry. "Through the connection. Feed her our power. Let her taste what she could become if she freed us completely."
It was dangerous. Every exchange of power would weaken the remaining seals, bring us closer to freedom but also closer to chaos. But as I felt her moving through the Citadel's corridors, preparing to face enemies she wasn't trained to fight, I knew we had no choice.
"Together," I said, and my brothers nodded.
We reached through the crack in the seal, through the golden connection her blood had built, and touched her mind just as the first chaos cultist rounded the corner ahead of her.
We're here,I whispered directly into her consciousness.Use us.
The sensation of her accepting our power, of opening herself to what we offered, hit like lightning. Dragon fire raced through her veins. Wolf's strength filled her muscles. Bear's endurance steadied her stance. Phoenix's clarity sharpened her perception.
For one perfect moment, she wasn't just a Keeper with divine blood.
She was divine herself.
And through her eyes, I saw the world I'd been denied for a thousand years. Stone corridors lit by guttering torches. Shadows dancing on walls older than memory. The surprised face of a cultist just before she drove her fist through his chest, dragon fire cauterizing the wound even as she made it.
She was magnificent. Terrible and beautiful and absolutely perfect in her violence.
"More," Flynn growled, pouring additional power through the connection. "Show them what the real monsters look like."
But even as she fought, even as she used our power to destroy those who would destroy her, I felt her conflict. She was protecting the Citadel, but she knew it was a prison. She was saving Keepers, but she knew they were complicit in our torture.
She was choosing duty even while her heart screamed for justice.
Let go,I whispered through our connection.Stop fighting yourself. Stop fighting us.
I can't,her mental voice came back, strained with effort and emotion.Not yet. Not like this.
She pulled back from our power, severing the connection with enough force to send us reeling. The Threshold spun around me, reality reasserting itself with violent insistence.
When it settled, I found myself on my knees, chains burning hotter than they had in centuries. The crack in the Dragon's Ember seal remained, but something had changed. The edges were crystallizing, hardening, as if her rejection had partially healed the wound.
"She chose them," Flynn snarled, his fury making the Threshold shake. "After everything, she still chose them."
"She chose not to choose," Elias corrected, his eyes seeing patterns the rest of us couldn't. "Which is still a choice. The patterns are shifting. The prophecy adapts."
"She'll be back," Thane said with quiet certainty. "She left part of herself here. Can't you feel it?"
He was right. Something of her lingered in the Threshold, a ghost of presence that hadn't been there before. She'd rejected our power but not our connection. The golden threads between us remained, weakened but unbroken.
I rose to my feet, testing the chains one more time. Still strong, still binding, but not invincible. Not anymore.
