IT STARTS AT THE ROOT, not the leaf,Baz had told her once, when helping her work out how to use Sower magic in Romie’s greenhouse.
Emory realized that this was where they’d gone wrong. They’d been trying to fix the problems that stemmed from the root of the issue, but not the root cause itself.
To restore the balance of the universe, they couldn’t just revive the wilted leaves—defeating Clover, returning power to the gods, healing the restless souls. They had to address the root, this darkness that had corrupted magic itself, that had set like rot in the source of all creation.
The fountain needed to flow freely with magic that was made pure again, with power that could reincarnate all the souls that found themselves there and flow back out into the worlds, feeding into the ley lines like blood vessels to revitalize them.
This most vital of cycles needed to be restarted. Death feedinginto life feeding into death, over and over, like the phases of the moon and the ebb and flow of the tides.
After darkness, light; again and again.
And Emory had practice drawing on such darkness. She reached for this corrupt source of power, felt it through the ley lines that spiraled through all worlds, which had become one thanks to what Clover had done. The ley lines were entwined in ways that should never have been possible, blocking the flow of even the trickles of power left there, and all it wanted was death and destruction and chaos.
Emory called on all the magics at her disposal to cleanse the rot. She had tried before to heal the ley lines and had failed miserably. But fueled as she was now by the original keys and Atheia’s own essence, failure wasn’t in the cards. And she understood what she hadn’t back then: that for this darkness to be purged, it needed somewhere to go. Someone to hold it.
Her veins glowed silver even as the darkness wove around her, thicker and thicker. She felt Sidraeus’s hand reach for hers, and suddenly the weight of the darkness wasn’t so heavy. It seeped into him, drawn away from her at his touch as he had done so often before. But the more corruption she drew away from the fountain, the heavier that burden became, and neither of them could hold it forever.
When Emory thought she might break, Sidraeus drew her into a tender embrace. She wished they would have had more time together. A chance to explore what was between them. To share more than that kiss, so fleeting in hindsight. A stolen moment that would never be enough.
There was only this now. Everything else fell away: the sea of ash, the death and chaos all around them. The shape of her name yelled in the chaos, a voice that told her towait. Andshe knew that voice. Had been in this very same predicament before. Only this time, she did not turn. She did not stop for one final goodbye with those she loved. It was already done.
All of it faded until there was only her name murmured on Sidraeus’s lips, brushing against her ear, her magic, her soul. A promise that they would find each other again, if such a thing were possible.
We are born of the moon and tides, and to them we return,Emory thought.
Except there was no returning for her. Not this time. She’d not only been born of the moon and tides, but of the darkness and stars, too. Caught somewhere in the space between them. That was where she was bound—the dark oblivion that was the void beyond stars.
Together, she and Sidraeus drew the last of the darkness inside them, all the ash and death that was destroying the universe. It amassed in a maelstrom of power around them. The more and more it gathered, the more the godsworld changed before their eyes, and as those pockets of the living and sleeping realms closed, Emory knew that the worlds had been unfused, and order had at last been restored.
With the final bit of rot swirling around them, Emory and Sidraeus took a step into the last pocket of darkness that was closing up.
And plummeted through the dark.
70ROMIE
AS ROMIE WATCHED EMORY TAKEall that darkness inside her, the sun came out. A singular ray of hope in all this chaos. Emory smiled at her, as if she too could see it. As if she too was daring to hope that this might not be the end. That she might survive this, and they might see each other again.
The sun shone brighter. It pierced through the clouds of ash and flooded the godsworld as all evil was chased away, seeping into Emory and Sidraeus.
In a burst of light, Emory and Sidraeus shot across the sea of ash and into the darkness of the sleepscape just before the rift closed behind them, swallowing them forever, like stars winking out of the universe.
And though the sun had never been brighter, the godsworld restored to a flowering garden, Romie fell to her knees and screamed, feeling a hole inside her she knew would never be filled.
PART VTHE VOIDBOUND
THROUGH DARKNESS THEY FELL, ANDfell, and fell. Past the bridge of stars that connected the four living realms like points on a spiral. Past the path between heaven and hell. Through the deep abyss where souls turned to stone were tortured for eternity.
They had seen it all, every facet of these realms. It was a comfort to know they would be restored with their unmaking. The two held on to each other as they plunged toward this inevitable end, hoping to remain forever bound like binary stars orbiting around the darkness held between them.
The void opened below, inviting them to drown in its infinite nothingness.
They dissolved in a whisper, a hush.
And here, at last, was the end.
But there was peace to be found in endings, beauty in imagining where they might lead next.
71BAZ
