The guards rushed toward me in a stampede of fury. Throughout it all, my anxiety and fear had gotten out of hand, and they were causing the magic inside of me to tremble. The inferichite had weakened my body, but my demigod powers were longing to break free. The inferichite had rerouted so much magic back into my body that it was difficult holding on to it all. For the most part, my demigod powers always remained submerged, hiding within me in case I ever needed to pull from them. The inferichite had brought it all up to the surface, and I needed somewhere to put it. It was like trying to stop a spell that was already in mid-cast; you just couldn’t do it. The more I tried to push back against my magic and put it back where it belonged, the more it longed to ignite. I couldn’t seem to put it back where it’d come from. It wanted arelease. If I was going to constrain it at all, I had to perform a powerful spell, though I wasn’t sure what kind. The voices inside my head raged, giving me direction.
You can stop this, Ava.
Just let your powers be free.
Become unbound, and let them see what a demigod can do.
My gaze locked with Marcus. I remembered the security footage I’d watched weeks ago… when he’d lost control of his magic.
It was then that a desperate idea formulated in my head. My demigod powers, which were churning within me and warring against the inferichite, were desperate to be unleashed.
I had shattered the smaller inferichite crystals. With a bigger outburst of energy, I could overpower the crystal in the cuff so I could get my magic back. But if I did that, I wouldn’t have any control over it… and the force of magic that would have to swell out of me in order to do so would be cataclysmic.
My eyes caught a mysterious glow in the back of the room. A coyote prowled forward on all fours, remaining unseen by everyone but me. His eyes locked with my own as he waited for me to make an impossible choice.
I hadn’t seen him in nearly a year, but I’d recognize the Koigni god anywhere. Coyote Spirit stared me down with a look that told me everything I needed to do.
“Ava,” Charlie whimpered. Tears coursed down his face as he reached out for me.
My voice broke out in a whisper. “I love you, Charlie. I wish it didn’t have to end this way. Take care of Oberi— he’s all you’ve got now.”
As my back hit the wall, I looked at Marcus again. The blood had drained from his face.
“Ava, don’t do this,” Marcus begged. He knew exactly what I was planning.
A tear slipped out of my eye, and my lip trembled. “I’m sorry.”
My gaze caught Kallie’s. She nodded once, a sign that she understood. I hoped her timing was good. She’d only have seconds.
The guards approached me with outstretched hands. I couldn’t bear to look at Charlie, not even one last time, so my gaze locked on Jaymin’s instead. I gritted my teeth and snarled, “I’ll see you in hell.”
My arms trembled as I closed my eyes and let my powers erupt.
My magic blasted outward in a massive explosion. A shockwave bloomed outward first, and the sound shattered every piece of inferichite in the room, including those in the cuffs that my friends wore. I heard the crystals break, and metal clinked as the cuffs fell off. The moment that happened, Kallie’s shield went up, protecting everyone I loved as Fire bloomed out of my body in one giant inferno.
The explosion shook the walls and caused the ground underneath us to tremble. Jaymin herself was standing too close and was ripped apart by the blast. As the flames hit her, shock overcame her expression. Skin began melting off her flesh, and her muscles turned to liquid. She’d realized she’d lost. Her bones immediately disintegrated into dust at my Fire, until all that was left of her were the remnants of ashes being swept away by the blast.
Bodies slammed against the wall at the force of my power. The rest of the guards went up in flames with Jaymin, consumed immediately by the blast.
It was almost beautiful, you know? Watching all those people disintegrate into nothing but smoke at my fingers, their ashes suspended upon the air, was the most mystifying thing I’d ever seen.
And I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t satisfying as fuck. I tookjoyin what I did to Jaymin and her guards. In those few seconds, I felt better than victorious. I felt alive for the first time, and I gladly fed off their horrible deaths like it was the air I needed to breathe. I allowed myself to be evil, and I took pleasure in sending these shitheads straight to their maker.
Finally. I was done denying who I was. I was a villain, a monster, and I had accepted that without feeling the need to fight it anymore. I could go to my death in peace.
The explosion was so powerful that the ceiling crumbled inward. I heard the sound of petrified screams, then silence, as the Underground caved inward and buried everyone alive.
I lost control completely, and my magic rebounded. This wasn’t like what had happened with Marcus— he’d let his magic loose when he’d killed those people in the square. I was trying to hold some of my power back, so I wouldn’t break Kallie’s shield. I needed to give the people I loved a chance to survive.
Because of it, my own magic backfired on me.
As the explosion erupted out of me, I literally felt my spirit be blasted backward out of my body. When my spirit soared through the air, I watched my corpse hit the ground. I realized that I could no longer feel my body anymore. I was floating in mid-air, not really myself, but yet, moremethan I ever had been. My form felt ethereal… like a wisp of wind that could be blown away by the breeze, something stronger than I’d ever been when I was alive. I was suspended in the moment, unmoving, neither here nor there.
Coyote ran forward. When my spirit connected with his, I found myself bound to his form. I was attached to the Koigni god, my spirit riding upon his back as he ran through the caving tunnels. He darted up out of the collapsing Underground and into the sky, merging as one with the stars.
There was nothing else to do. I allowed myself to surrender as Coyote carried my half of my soul to the Ancestral Lands, leaving Charlie’s half behind.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
