I lift my chin into the wind.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Then we break you the way you were always meant to break.”
The crown screams—no sound, but a psychic pressure wave that hits my skull and makes stars burst behind my eyes.
I almost drop it.
Almost.
Then Dagan’s presence surges through the bond like bedrock rising beneath my feet.
Stone. Storm. Steady rage.
Oona.
The nickname hits me like a hand to my heart.
And I hold.
Jules’ bond flares—air crackling, wind wrapping around us like a shield.
Phoebe’s bond follows—cool water sliding through the pressure, soothing the burn.
Delia’s bond ignites—heat like a hearth, controlled fire, not destruction.
And mine—mine is earth.
A deep pulse from the Marches themselves, responding to Dagan, and responding to me.
We don’t just push magic into the crown.
We pour ourselves into it.
Our love.
Our fear.
Our refusal to lose them.
Our insistence that Nightfall will not be ruled by a single lonely burden again.
The crown’s resistance falters.
For one breathless second, it’s quiet.
Then—it happens all of a sudden.
CRACK.
A sound like stone splitting.
Like a fault line finally giving.
The crown fractures along those natural seams, opening like a geode breaking apart—revealing light inside.
Not white.
Elemental.
