Pain rose beyond comprehension, scorching away my consciousness.
My body disintegrated, flesh to ash, bones to dust. I tried to scream as every fiber vibrated with unholy agony, but I had no throat left. Not anymore.
Sy tried to scream too, but she was no longer inside me. Even without flesh, our pain was shared, doubled, feeding back on itself in an endless loop of torment.
We couldn’t escape. Not even into merciful death.
My essence alone sustained us. I wrapped all I had around Sy, now a single drop of blue liquid, shielding her with the lastounce of my goddess power. I wouldn’t let her dissolve in this inferno.
Doubts and regrets sliced through my scorched consciousness. Had I made another terrible mistake, risking Sy like this?
But we had no choice.
The final showdown against my father was inevitable, rushing toward us faster than lightning. I had to do this to save Sy. To save them all.
I roared without sound. My goddess power erupted as Sy’s primal magic surged into me, fueling what was left of us. We reformed even as we burned—caught in a brutal cycle of destruction and rebirth. Still, we pushed further, wading through molten rock that should have been impossible to navigate.
And there, at the bottom of the magma chamber, lay the obsidian arrow.
The oracle had called it golden, but she must have glimpsed it through layers of liquid fire in her vision. Now I saw its truth.
The arrow was breathtaking in the way only deadly things can be. Forged from the heart of a star, it thrummed with a power that made my teeth ache. Radiant runes glowed along the arrowhead in an ancient angelic language, and its fletching was woven from frozen flames.
My newly formed hand reached out, closing around the icy shaft. A shock of cold shot through me. The moment I gripped it, my body remade itself fully. Lava sheeted off my torso, no longer burning.
Daughter of Void,the celestial arrow chimed in my mind, its voice like a choir of angels clashing blades.You dare touch Heaven’s light with your unholy hands?
“Bite me,” I shot back. “Who gets to decide who’s worthy? It’s all just perspective, isn’t it?”
I tightened my grip, dark flame swirling around my hands as it met the holy power trying to burn through my darkness.
“Back off,” I growled. “My darkness belongs to me. I don’t need your self-righteous judgment.”
You seek to sever what was forged in the first fire. Do this, and you will always feel incomplete.
“I’ll lose more than that,” I said, my heart hollowing. “I’ll lose everything. But you have a purpose, too. I know you’ve been waiting for me.”
To pierce your heart,it replied, cold and certain.
Fuck off!Sy snarled at the arrow.
“You’ll know what to do when you find the Heavenly Arrow,” the oracle’s words echoed in my memory.
The arrow isn’t lying,I told Sy.It’s time we separate, and the only way to get it done is to drive this thing through my heart. Throughourhearts.
Sy sucked in a sharp breath. After meeting the love of her life, she’d craved her own identity more than anything, but she didn’t want to leave me, either.
You won’t leave me, Sy,I lied.We’ll always be together. Just…in a different pod.
She nodded and clung to me, a silent storm of love and fear.
“I love you, Sy. Forever,” I whispered.
And I love you to the sun and back, Barbie.
This was the end of Sy and me sharing one body, one soul. But nothing stays the same forever.
The oracle had warned of the soul-tearing pain this would bring, worse than burning in the heart of a star. I’d told myself I was ready, but deep in my bones, I knew I never would be.
