"Abomination," someone whispered, the word thick with horror and religious dread.
"Goddess," countered another, and I couldn't tell if it was guard or ally who spoke, couldn't parse the awe and terror in that single word.
Within moments that felt like hours, the guards lay unconscious or fleeing, their weapons destroyed, their certainty shattered along with their suppression blades. I stood in the center of the destruction, four different colors of divine fire dancing along my skin, gold and silver and bronze and crimson, creating patterns that made mortal eyes water and turn away.
Master Theron stared at me with something approaching religious awe, his scholarly composure completely shattered. "You're channeling all of them. Simultaneously. Drawing on four different divine sources at once. That should be impossible. Every text says attempting such a thing would tear a mortal apart from the inside."
"Nothing's impossible anymore," I said, but my voice came out layered, as if four other voices spoke with mine in perfect, impossible harmony. "The old rules are breaking. The patterns are reshaping themselves. We're writing new laws now, whether the Citadel approves or not."
Through our connection, I felt the princes' exhaustion like my own, their divine essence straining to maintain this level of manifestation through me. Even with three seals broken, even with our bond stronger than ever, this was pushing the limits of what the Gate could withstand.
We can't hold this much longer,Kaelen warned, his mental voice strained in a way I'd never heard before.You're burning through our power faster than we can replenish it. Another few minutes and we'll be useless to you.
Then we run,I replied, already moving toward the passage.Now, while we still can. While we still have the strength.
We fled through the shattered circle of guards, stepping over unconscious bodies and broken weapons, but I could already feel the power beginning to fade, the impossible state I'd achieved starting to unravel like a tapestry pulled thread by thread. My bones ached as they tried to return to normal density, protesting the transformation. My blood slowed from quicksilver to merely quick, time resuming its normal pace. The overlapping awareness collapsed back to singular perception, and suddenly I was just seeing through my own eyes again, not through the layered possibilities of phoenix sight.
By the time we reached another hidden passage, narrow and steep and leading upward, I was just Aria again. Changed, marked, the golden veins beneath my skin still glowing faintly, but mortal enough to stumble with exhaustion that made every step an effort of will.
"The meditation spire," Master Theron gasped out, supporting my weight as we climbed a narrow stair that seemed to go on forever, worn smooth by centuries of forgotten use. "It's been sealed for decades, condemned as structurally unsound though it's solid as the mountain itself. We can rest there, regroup, plan our next move without the immediate threat of discovery."
We emerged into dusty sunlight that streamed through broken shutters, the meditation spire's apex providing a panoramic view of the entire Citadel spread below us like a map. Smoke rose from several points where our escape had triggered conflicts between the Order of Truth and the Keepers, creating dark columns against the pale sky. The Gate's light pulsed irregularly, visible even from here, wounded and unstable.
I collapsed against the ancient stone, my legs finally giving out completely, utterly spent. The villagers from Oakhaven arranged themselves around me protectively, these people who'd been simple farmers and bakers and craftsmen just days ago now standing guard over something they barely understood, holding their improvised weapons with the determination of trained soldiers.
"The Unbound Queen," the pregnant woman said again, softer this time, reverent. She sank to her knees beside me, one hand still protectively cradling her belly. "We thought it was just a story the old women told, the kind of tale you dismiss as superstition and wishful thinking. But you're real. You're here. You're exactly what the prophecies promised."
"I'm not a queen," I managed, though the protest felt hollow even to my own ears, meaningless in the face of what I'd just done. "I'm just?—"
"You're hope," she interrupted, and tears tracked through the dust on her face. "The first real hope we've had that things could be different. That the world doesn't have to be built on lies and fear and sacrifice. That maybe, just maybe, our children can grow up free."
Through our bond, I felt the princes' presence, weaker now but constant, patient, waiting like shadows at the edge of consciousness. They were watching, listening, experiencing everything through my senses.
What happens now?I asked them, too tired to speak aloud, too overwhelmed to face the enormity of what came next.
Now,Elias replied, his prophetic voice carrying the certainty of ages,the real war begins. Not between us and them, though there will be battles enough. But between truth and lies. Between the old world built on deception and what comes next, whatever that might be.
And you,Kaelen added, warmth coloring his mental touch in a way that made my heart ache,you're the bridge between them. The key that opens every door, breaks every lock. The hand that shatters every chain, whether forged from iron or tradition.
If you're strong enough,Flynn warned, though his tone was practical rather than doubting, realistic rather than cruel.
Aria's strong enough,Thane said with quiet certainty that somehow meant more than all the others' assurances.She's already proven that. She chose truth over comfort. She chose love over duty. She chose us, even knowing it would destroy everything she'd been taught to believe.
I looked at the people around me, these unlikely allies who'd chosen to stand with me despite not fully understanding what I was becoming, what I represented, what terrible changes I mightbring to their world. Master Theron, who'd risked everything he'd spent a lifetime building to preserve truth. The villagers, who'd given up their imprisoned safety for uncertain freedom, who'd traded the devil they knew for the chaos they didn't.
"The Citadel will come for us," I said, stating the obvious because someone needed to voice it. "Natalia won't stop. She can't afford to. If she lets us escape, lets this truth spread, her entire world collapses."
"Let them come," Marcus's widow replied, steel in her voice, the same iron will that had carried her through grief and loss now channeled into defiance. "We're done hiding. Done accepting the lies they feed us. Done bowing to their authority just because they claim to speak for our protection. If the Unbound Queen stands with us, then we stand with her. Until the end, whatever that might be."
The sun climbed higher, painting the ancient stone gold and amber, creating long shadows that stretched across the chamber like reaching fingers. Below, I could feel the Citadel mobilizing, could sense it in my bones the way some can sense a coming storm. Natalia would be organizing search parties, preparing for war, marshaling every resource at her command. The machine of her authority grinding into motion, terrible and inexorable.
But for this moment, we were free. Changed, hunted, uncertain of the future, marked by choices that could never be unmade, but free in a way I'd never experienced before. Free to choose, to doubt, to question, to love.
And I was something new. Not fully human anymore, not fully divine, but something in between, something the old prophecies had tried to describe but couldn't quite capture. Something that belonged to no side and every side at once, that answered to no authority but my own conscience.
Something that could choose its own path, forge its own destiny, write its own ending.
The golden veins pulsed with warmth beneath my skin, and through them, four princes whispered variations of the same promise, each in their own voice but all carrying the same unshakeable conviction:
