The reservoir tank next to my ear—the one holding the fuel—had a hairline fracture in the reinforced glass. The pressure of the core working so hard to contain me was crushing the fuel supply.
The silver fluid inside paused in its swirling. It pressed against the glass. Seeking me.
I lifted a trembling hand. I reached out and touched the crack.
The barrier gave way.
The silver fluid surged out of the tank in a luminous wave that crashed directly into my chest.
It didn’t hurt. It felt like breathing after holding your breath for twenty years.
Eamon’s magic flooded my veins, filling the hollow spaces where my own Light had burned out. It was memory.
The roof vanished. The storm vanished.
I was five years old, sitting on a rug that smelled of dust. Sunlight streamed through a window, catching the dust motes. A hand, large and calloused, brushed my hair back.
“You are safe here, Little Sun. Always safe.”
The smell of cedar. The scratch of a wool jumper. The sound of a deep, rumbling laugh that vibrated against my ear as he held me.
I saw Liora. Not the photo in the frame, but alive. She was turning from a bookshelf, her eyes bright with a secret joke, smiling at Eamon in a way that made the air feel warm.
I felt the love between them—a solid, unshakeable foundation that had held up the sky for as long as they lived.
And I felt their love for me.
It grounded me with a crushing certainty—absolute, unconditional, and fierce. This was the joy of the beginning.
My Little Sun.
The memories swirled, becoming fuel. The silver magic knit itself to the embers of my golden fire, doubling and tripling in intensity. This was his final gift.
My eyes flew open, burning and streaming with tears, as a new heat radiated through my limbs. I grabbed the rim of the tank and hauled myself up. The combined power of two souls—the Light of the daughter and the Light of the father—surged through my veins, screaming for release.
I aimed for the heart. I raised my hands and drove them into the Extractor’s containment field.
“Go home, Dad,” I whispered.
The barrier buckled. It was built to hold one, and I was giving it two. The chrome spire turned white-hot. Glass shattered, raining down in jagged sheets. The beam shooting into the sky destabilised, twisting into a violent explosion of white fire that tore the Extractor apart from theinside.
Above, the violet tear in the sky convulsed. The darkness recoiled from the blinding light.
With a sound like the world cracking in half, the Rift snapped shut.
The feedback loop slammed into me. I was thrown backward, airborne for a second, before hitting the gravel with bone-jarring force. I rolled, coming to a stop near the edge of the roof.
The quiet that followed was total. The wind had died.
I lay on my back, staring up at the sky. The violet was fading, replaced by the leaden, natural grey of storm clouds.
My chest was still. My limbs were numb.
My vision began to tunnel, black creeping in from the sides.
It’s done, I thought. The thought was slow, drifting like a leaf.
Movement at the periphery.
