Where there had been emptiness, Pucker now stood. Not a ghost, but solid flesh and blood. He looked down at himself in wonder, raising his very real, very corporeal hands.
“I’m…” He pressed a hand against his chest, feeling the steady beat there. “I’m alive. Truly alive.”
His hazel eyes found mine, then Sy’s, understanding dawning. “I’m an immortal. In the flesh.”
“Of course you are,” I said, smiling at him. “You earned it, warlock.”
Life and death required balance. Even Sy’s magic could not truly resurrect the dead. But this was a special case. When I pulled Pucker from Ruin’s core, I had tapped into the vast reservoir of energy the void god had stolen, using a stream of that energy to fuel Pucker’s essence before Sy’s magic worked on him.
My former familiar stumbled toward me and sobbed against my shoulder. I let him have his bittersweet moment. “Being swallowed by the void god was the worst thing I’ve everexperienced,” he choked out. “The knowing, the waiting to be digested…Please don’t let him eat me again!”
“Never,” I promised. “Look at him. We have him. He’s done.”
“Thank you for this second chance, Barbie,” he whispered, the longing in his eyes obvious. The familiar bond had left echoes, and a part of him still yearned for that connection. But he needed to be his own person now.
“By the way, your murderer was the druid’s father,” I told him. “He was dead. And from what I pulled from my father’s memories”—I turned to Cade—“he ate the druid after his servant outlived his usefulness. I know you wanted revenge. He got worse than anything you could have done. He begged and screamed right until the end.”
Cade nodded grimly. “Sometimes I wonder how one person could cause so much harm.”
“Read a history book,” Silas chimed in, though we all knew he’d never cracked one open voluntarily. He’d positioned himself as far from the ancient deities as the space allowed. “It’s always some small group of powerful assholes ruining everything for everyone else.”
“Let’s not become them,” Louis said.
“This trivial affair has taken too long,” Nephthys hissed. “I want Ra, the abomination, out of my sight and on his way to the eternal dark fate that he deserves!”
“After I reclaim what he stole,” I said.
Isis and Nephthys exchanged a glance. “That will be massive,” Isis warned. “No vessel—not even two goddesses—can contain it all.”
“We’ll share the burden!” Silas stepped forward eagerly, his amber eyes bright with possibility. “Split the excess power between us.”
“I insist on equal distribution,” Louis added.
“It is tempting,” Rowan admitted.
“What would we do with that much power?” Cade mused.
The heirs were apex predators by nature, and predators always craved more power. They couldn’t help it.
“The power doesn’t belong to us,” I said firmly. “It goes back to the lands and cities I drained for him.”
I’d always left a backdoor when siphoning magic for my father, a tiny thread buried deep within the earth. Some part of me, even under his thumb, had hoped for this day.
I raised my hand, my darkest flame merging with the death shadow I borrowed from Killian, the stream lashing toward Ruin. He struggled uselessly against his bindings, panic and fury warring in his eyes. The sight clearly satisfied our hosts. I heard Nephthys chuckle, a sound like grinding sand. I bet he hadn’t laughed in an eon.
My siphoning power gripped Ruin. It was time to take back everything he had stolen.
The extraction was like drawing in a screaming tsunami. It was a hurricane and a supernova combined—the concentrated magics of thousands of dead worlds trying to escape at once. The sheer magnitude made breathing impossible. The air itself turned solid.
Everyone except Killian, Sy, and me dropped to their knees. Isis and Nephthys wavered. The sound was indescribable—like listening to the birth and death of universes on fast-forward. My ears rang. My nose bled. My bones vibrated. Every cell in my body threatened to burst from channeling forces never meant for mortal vessels.
But I was no mortal. I was a goddess, the daughter of the brightest star.
Killian’s arms wrapped around me from behind, my back pressed against his hard chest as he anchored me. His breath came in ragged gasps, his body shaking with the strain, yet hestood firm. Through our bond, I felt his dragon lending his strength, both of them determined to keep me upright.
“Sy!” I screamed over the cosmic roar.
Our hands found each other, clasping tight.
