On the other side, Jake and Lenna were alone, standing at the West petal on the four-petal mark under the dome.
The South Cardinal moved toward them. Lenna stiffened, hands rising as she saw the Queen move. Jake shifted to shield his wife.
“Don’t,” Hope whispered, but her words were too late.
The Queen struck.
Faster than a blink, black wings whipped forward. A single feather, sharpened like a blade, flew across the chamber. It cut through the South Cardinal’s throat before she even finished her first step.
She collapsed in silence, red wings crumpling, her life extinguished.
Lenna screamed, the sound shredding her voice raw.
The Queen laughed. “I once committed the mistake of not killing my sisters, and they cursed me into a void for two hundred fifty years. That time is over.”
Hope’s stomach turned as cold horror gripped her. If the Queen could slay her sisters like this, then what chance—
But then she saw it.
Not strength. Not true power. But rot. The Queen’s body shook as she pulled another feather from her wing, stained with weakness. Every kill cost her.
She was feeding on her own decay.
Still—she turned, eyes black fire, and with another flick of her black feathers, she cut the North Cardinal where she kneeled. The goddess fell across Ayla and Nina, lifeless red wings blanketing their bodies. The black feather turned deadly weapon struck the Cardinal’s forehead.
“No!” Lenna lurched forward, but Jake caught her by the waist, dragging her back. Her sob turned into a roar that shook the air.
Hope felt Ciaran’s grip tighten on her back every time she contained her gasp. His shadows hovered around Hope’s ankles, circling her limbs like smoke.
The Queen smirked and raised her arm again.
Before either of them could move, the West Cardinal choked as the black feather struck her heart. She fell into Ciaran’s arms, her red blood spilling across his shadows. His roar joined Lenna’s, shadows whipping the walls like storm waves.
Hope’s jaw clenched in anticipation and dread. The Queen and her weaponized feathers were too fast. Way too fast.
“Three sisters dead,” the Queen said, turning to Hope. “Only one left for you to watch fall before you bow.”
The Core Cardinal’s voice cut through the carnage. “You will not touch me. And the Daughter of Red will not bow to your blackness.”
The Queen snarled. “Allow me to sort you next, Core, before I deal with your chosen one and see her die.”
The crystal dome above them trembled, light cracking through its seams.
And then—broken glass rained down.
Llunal, god of whispers and night, tore through the dome in a blaze of darkness, shards of crystal falling like a broken sky. He landed beside the Core Cardinal, darkness blazing around him. His metallic, crescent-shaped weapon burned like the night itself, carved into shadows and starshine.
“You will not touch her,” Llunal thundered, covering the Core Cardinal with shadows thicker than stone.
The Queen hissed, feathers snapping as she created an invisible barrier surrounding where she stood. “Then, if you refuse to bow, Hope Nevada, step forward. If it’s the throne of Thyria you want, come and claim it.”
And it was then that the world broke.
The Core of Thyria shuddered.
Hope didn’t need to see it to know, to feel in her bones what her island suffered. After their goddesses’ deaths, the West, North, and South Petals were tearing free, breaking apart from the Core, drifting like islands into the powerful waves of the Radel Sea, where the East Petal already was.
The air howled as reality itself fractured.
