“Jupiter, no!” Multiple voices shouted both aloud and through the bond—Percy, Draco, Aiden, Eris—their fear hitting me in waves as they realized what I intended.
I ignored them, focused only on the rippling tear in reality ahead of me. When I reached the edge of the square, I pushed off with all my strength and leaped, my body arcing through the air toward the portal’s surface.
Time seemed to slow as I flew toward the breach, my spear of starlight extended before me like a lance. I could see individual bane emerging, could see the darkness beyond, the emptiness they came from. I could hear my shield screaming my name, feel their terror through the bond.
Then my spear struck the center of the portal.
For one breathless moment, nothing happened. Then the starlight exploded outward, a nova of silver energy that engulfed the entire breach. The portal didn’t just close, it shattered, fragments of reality knitting back together with such force that it created a shockwave that knocked everyone within fifty feet to the ground.
I fell to the pavement, my spear vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared. The remaining bane screamed, their forms dissolving without their connection to the dark dimension that sustained them. Within seconds, they were gone, leaving nothing but wisps of black mist that quickly dissipated in the air.
Silence fell over Rittenhouse Square.
I lay on my back, staring up at the blue sky, every muscle in my body trembling with exhaustion. I’d never channeled so much magic at once, had never even known I was capable of it.
SIXTEEN
Percy
I moved without thinking,my legs carrying me across the debris-littered square before my mind could process the pain searing through my shoulder. Blood soaked my combat suit, the wound throbbing with each heartbeat, but I barely felt it. All I could see was Jupiter lying motionless on the pavement, silver light still flickering beneath her skin.
“Jupiter!” I dropped to my knees beside her, my hands hovering uncertainly over her body. She wasn’t moving. Wasn’t responding. The portal was gone, shattered by whatever impossible power she’d channeled, but at what cost?
Then she convulsed, her back arching off the ground as silver light erupted from her skin. The scream that tore from her throat wasn’t human, or zodiac, or anything I’d ever heard. It was raw cosmic energy given voice, the sound of stars dying. Fissures of blinding starlight cracked across her limbs, spreading rapidly up her arms and across her torso, splitting her open from the inside out.
“No, no, no,” I hissed, gathering her into my arms despite Cassandra shouting at me to stay back. The wound in myshoulder screamed in protest, but I ignored it. “Jupiter, stay with me.”
Her eyes flew open, but they weren’t her eyes anymore. Twin suns burned where silver irises should be, so bright I could barely look at them. Her body jerked and twisted in my arms, the starlight pouring from the fissures in her skin.
“What’s happening to her?” Aiden demanded, dropping to his knees beside me.
Draco appeared on her other side, blood still streaming from the gash across his face. “It’s like before, in the Abyss. Magical burnout.”
“Only worse,” Eris added grimly, completing our circle around her.
Fear unlike anything I’d ever known gripped me, squeezing until I could barely breathe. Not the cold, familiar fear of battle or the calculated fear of failure I’d grown up with. This was a visceral fucking terror that she was slipping away right in front of me.
“Jupiter,” I whispered, cupping her face in my palm. Her skin burned against mine, but I didn’t pull away. “Come back to us. Come back to me.”
I reached for my magic, ignoring the searing pain as I called on the Aries power that flowed through my blood. Red energy gathered in my palm, and I pressed it against her chest, directly over her heart, just as I had that first time in the Abyss.
“What are you doing?” Someone demanded, trying to pull me away. “You’ll kill yourself!”
I shrugged them off, never taking my eyes from Jupiter’s face. “She’s our axis,” I growled. “Get the fuck back.”
Unlike that first time, the starlight didn’t burn where it touched me. Our bond had changed something fundamental between us, creating channels where our magics could flow intoeach other. I could feel her power raging out of control, too vast for her body to contain after what she’d done to the portal.
“Help me,” I ordered the others, my voice cracking. “Like before. Take some of it.”
They didn’t hesitate. Draco placed his hands on her legs, his purple Scorpio magic rising to meet her silver light. Aiden gripped her right arm, gold energy flowing from his palms. Eris took her left, his Gemini magic shifting through a rainbow of colors as it adapted to what she needed.
I could feel the moment our magics connected with hers, creating a circuit that allowed her excess power to flow into us instead of tearing her apart. The starlight was overwhelming, ancient and wild in a way that made even my experienced magic feel like a child’s sparkler in comparison. It flooded into me, filling spaces I hadn’t known existed, burning away darkness I hadn’t realized I carried.
“Take it,” I urged the others as Jupiter’s body continued to convulse. “Take as much as you can.”
The other shield teams had formed a perimeter around us, their faces a mixture of awe and terror as they watched starlight flow between the five of us in pulsing waves. I caught glimpses of Cassandra barking orders into her comm unit, of medical teams rushing toward us, but they all seemed distant and unimportant.
Nothing mattered except the woman in my arms, her life force flickering like a candle in a storm.
