That small movement—that instinctive recoil—knocked the breath from my lungs..
I aimed past her, targeting the structural support of the walkway above the cube and pushed my magic forward. A bolt of shadow sheared the metal. The walkway groaned and collapsed, crashingdown between Selene and us—a jagged wall of debris that severed the path.
“The discharge makes a clear strike impossible,” I said, my voice a cold, clinical mask. The lie was intended to buy her the seconds she needed.
Eamon looked at me one last time. His gaze held a quiet, devastating acceptance. He knew the part I had to play. His lips moved, shaping words lost to the screaming alarm and the roar of falling water. I couldn’t hear what he said. From the look on Selene’s face, she couldn’t either.
Inside the cube, the machine gave a final, high-pitched whine.
Beep.
Beep.
Beeeeeeep.
The monitor flatlined.
The flow of silver in the tubes stopped. Eamon arched his back—a final, silent spasm—and then slumped. The light in him went out.
With a pneumatic hiss, the door to the containment room slid open. Selene lowered the chair she was using and charged inside instantly, her boots skidding on the wet tiles as she reached the table. She seized the tubes connected to his arm—the clear lines still pulsing with the last of his essence—and ripped them free with a cry of pure desperation.
A spray of silver fluid hit the floor, glowing and useless. It changed nothing. The canister was full; he was empty.
She clutched his hand to her chest, trying to anchor him to the world by force of will alone. She was screaming his name—I could see the shape of it ripping her throat apart even if the sound was lost. She pressed her other hand to his chest, trying to force magic back into him, trying to jump-start the heart that had already surrendered.
There was nothing left to give.
I held my ground, letting the guilt carve me hollow. I wore the mask. I played the part. If I broke now, everything he had died for would be lost.
He was gone.
And then, the world broke.
Selene stopped moving. She stopped screaming.
She slowly lifted her head.
Her eyes were not brown anymore. They were golden. Molten, blinding gold, burning with a fire that had been suppressed for her entire life.
But there was something else.
The shadows in the corners of the room—my shadows—began to tremble.
She stood up. She turned her eyes towards us and screamed.
A shockwave of pure, raw magic displaced the sound. A blast of golden light erupted from her body, shattering the glass cube, vaporising the falling water into steam.
Inky veins of darkness lashed through the gold, joining the light. She reached through me, her touch bypassing skin and bone to seize something deeper. She pulled on a thread I didn’t know existed—a reservoir of dark magic buried deep within her own soul, a perfect mirror to my own. The bond was ancient—an old root suddenly yanking tight. With that single, violent tug, she dragged the power from my very marrow to fuel her rage.
The blast hit the walls. The iron buckled. The ceiling groaned, cracks forming in the concrete.
“What is that?” Varessia shrieked, throwing up a wall of ice that shattered instantly against the force of Selene’s power. “Look at those shadows! They are woven into the light!”
Varessia looked at Selene with a terrifying, hungry awe. She forgot the canister. She forgot the danger. She wanted her.
“Her magic,” Varessia yelled, starting forward. “It’s something else. Take her, Riven!”
I looked at the ceiling. The supports were snapping. The building was coming down.
