“Five!”
Thew?ngeskroars behind us, its massive tentacles sweeping through Atlas’s units, but it cannot reach the center where Atlas holds Thesix.
“Six!”
I reach up and take Kya’s hand. Her fire dances up my arm, not burning but creating a steam that rises from my skin.
“Seven!”
A wind rises around us, not from the storm but from somewhere else. I turn to see someone forming beside me and I smile – Nuasis, her form rippling.
“Eight!”
“Sister,” she whispers, her voice like leaves rustling. “I’m here.” She reaches out, her fingers touching my other hand. I feel a rush of the wind she carries floating through me.
“Nine!”
The ground trembles. Cracks appear in the mud around my knees as I feel another presence. Wodthos. His earthen hands press against my back, and I feel the steady strength of mountains flow into me.
“Hello Sister.” He rumbles, his voice like thunder.
They answered my call. I don’t know how or why Tiyo let them, and possibly helped keep Khaysus from coming to Ashonera, but they are here. I have everything I need. Their elements surge through me, filling me with a power I’ve not felt since I first created Ashonera.
“Te–” Atlas starts, but my voice rises higher.
“ENOUGH!” My voice erupts from deep inside, shaking the very air around me. “You forgot who I am, Atlas!” I say, my voice full of the power my siblings and Kya bestow upon me as I take a step forward. The mud solidifies beneath my feet, forming a path of stone. The rain parts around me as I take another step.
“I am she who spoke the first word that birthed Ashonera,” Another step. “I am she who breathed life into the first soul.” Another step. “I am she who wove the elements together to create EVERYTHING you have ever known.”
Atlas’s voice trembles just the slightest, “Don’t come any closer Drahenå, I will kill him.”
The elements swirl around me – water spiraling, fire dancing, wind howling, earth rumbling. My gaze locks with Thesix’s. The love I see there gives me strength. He nods his head as if reading my thoughts, and maybe he does.
It’s for him I fight, for him I destroy those that I love. For him, I will do anything.
The flames from Atlas’s hand inch toward him, inching instead of swarming, because the betrayer wants me to suffer, to watch as my lover dies.
I reach my arm out, knowing it’s worthless because my powers can’t reach that far. The flames wrap around Thesix and he screams, the sound echoes all around me. It’s all I can hear, but I can’t look away, and I scream too. A sound of pure anguish that splits the sky.
Ice sprouts from the pain enveloping me, creating a coolness against the heat. Frost patterns spread across my skin, crackling as they meet the fire within me. Calling on the last of Thesix’s power into me as the other elements war inside my body, threatening to tear me apart.
“A læ t neni pe, o a læ pengæ pe wæ lomo popo ra læ,” I scream into the wind, reaching for the dagger at my side. It’s hopeless. I can’t win this. Not now, not today.
But I can give them one more gift.
The dagger, silver with a light blue larimar stone, comes free from its sheath. I look up to Thesix one last time, his body weathered in Atlas’s flames. His screams have stopped now, replaced by an awful silence that cuts deep. The golden ripple between us flickers weakly, like a candle in a storm.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, though I know he cannot hear me.
My fingers tighten around the hilt. The metal grows cold against my skin. I press the blade against my throat, feeling its edge bite into my flesh. A ribbon of warmth trickles down my neck, pooling in the hollow of my collarbone before streaming lower.
The elements within me surge forward, no longer warring inside of me but unifying just as when I whispered this world into existence – except now with a terrible purpose. My vision blurs, the edges of the world become soft. Through the haze, I see Atlas’s triumphant smile falter.
I drag the blade deeper, maintaining eye contact with him as I do. Not to end my life, but to release what lies within. More blood flows, but it's not to finish me … but to transform everything.
“Sister,” Nuasis appears beside me, her wind lifting my hair as if she can read my thoughts. “Are you certain?”
“Yes,” I say. “Death is not always the end.”
