A strange boom sounded through the sky, louder than anything I’d ever heard. Too loud to be the thunder that had been clapping above us. It sounded more like the sky had cracked in two. I couldn’t help but worry, and looked up to see what was going on. The unnaturally dark sky brightened to a deep blue, the pink clouds a beautiful contrast that only felt more surreal.
A giant burst of air exploded out in all directions from the sky itself, strong enough to throw everyone on the ground with its force. Some people flew into walls, and some into the other warriors around them. I flew backward, Calix beside me as we went about twenty feet before hitting the cobblestones. The pressure held us down for a moment before it rushed over us and away, and we were forced to pick ourselves up off the ground once it had lessened.
A strange, heavy feeling pressed on my soul, and I narrowed my eyes at the sky. It looked as if… something was getting closer. Something was falling. It looked almost like fire, but—I gasped, my heart in my throat as I realized what in the Otherworld was happening.
“Zhu!” I screamed in agony, watching my friend and guardian as he plummeted quickly through the sky, lighting up the world around him as he fell in a ball of fire. An agonized scream came from higher in the sky, and I knew Luna was awake and feeling the pain of what was happening.
My necklace hummed around my neck, and I knew with a sudden certainty exactly what was going on, even as the entire battlefield came to an abrupt pause, watching the sun fall from the sky in dramatic fashion that I was sure none of us could have ever imagined.
Cyrus had pushed it too far.
The balance had shifted.
Chaos was here.
And now, Celesterra would pay the price.
Starting with the loss of the sun.
As Zhu fell, the sky above him darkened further and further. His light falling with him and leaving the sky desolate from his bright, fiery light.
I watched in stunned horror, my hand going to my throat as helpless loss overtook me. The implications of everything that just happened were too much to contemplate.
We hadlost.
Looking down briefly, I realized that Cyrus had fled. His men were retreating, using the distraction above to disappear. But it didn’t matter. Nothing did.
Not when we failed to stop chaos from overtaking everything.
My necklace tingled once more, and a bit of hope filled my soul.
It wasn’t all lost, not quite. Cruach was yet to be freed, meaning we still had time, but…
As I watched Zhu crash to the ground in a flaming ball of death for anyone who might have been below, I didn’t know how we could fixthis.
The ground shook from the impact, but an agonized moan from behind me had me whipping around quickly, falling to my knees beside my mate as he crashed to the ground, too.
“Calix?” I asked frantically, my hands flapping uselessly around him, trying to see what was wrong with him.
“Asteria…” he whispered weakly, trying to reach a hand up to touch my cheek, but seemingly lost his strength halfway there, his hand crashing back down. “Love… you... réalta.”
His eyes fluttered closed, and I immediately grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. “Calix! Calix, please!”
The bond went silent. I could feel his presence at the other end, but it was muffled somehow, like he was very far away, and fading more by the moment. Agony ripped me apart as I felt his distance, leaving me cold and empty in the wake of it.
“Calix!” I sobbed, trying to hold my tears in, but it was no use. Panic and pain blended together into one. “Please, I—” I couldn’t help but get choked up. Everything I hadn’t said for fear of losing him crowded in my throat. What was the point of it all if I lost him to my own damn failure?
“I—I love you, my dorchadas,” I whispered, caressing his beautiful face, wishing those lilac eyes would open once more and show me a beautiful Aurora. I needed him to wake, to bewith me. I had no interest in living an immortal lifetime without him by my side.
But no amount of shaking him changed what was. He was slipping away. Chaos, I realized, sucked away magic. Magic he needed to fight the iron in his blood. My heart felt like it crumbled to pieces in that moment.
My failure could cost Calix his life.
It wasn’t someone else I had to worry about taking Calix from me; it was my own damn fault. And now, I could lose him before he ever heard the words, the ones he deserved to hear more than any other after the over four-hundred-year wait for me.
He had to know how much I loved him, more than I had ever loved another, more than there were stars in the sky. The force of it sometimes took my breath away. So new and precious, terrifying and exhilarating, peaceful and sensational. He was…everything.
I looked up from my ailing mate to the dark black sky. The light had gone out from the world, and my own light—my darkness who let me shine—was equally absent.
