I tore free from the god’s arms and tried to crawl away, forcing every ounce of returned strength into my limbs. It still wasn’t enough.
“What–” Noctis’s words were cut when he realized who I was trying to reach.
Evelyn lay motionless on the marble ground.
Noctis’s power seized her and brought her forward, and I collapsed against her, folding into her abdomen.She was so broken. My younger sister went through the very trauma I had mangled myself trying to keep her from ever facing.
“I’m so sorry,” I cried. Tears mixed with the drenched dress that was barely wrapped in tethers around her.
A hand rested on my shoulder.
“It would be my honor,” Jun whispered.
He lowered to his knees before Evelyn. Healing power flowed from him into her body, moving in steady waves that traced through the damage and began to mend it. Where it passed, torn flesh melted back together, leaving behind raised scars.
“Do you trust me?” Jun asked over his shoulder as light poured from his hands, absorbing into my sister’s still body.
“Of course I do,” I responded between sobs.
“Then please go find Calvin and Zahara.”
I looked up at Noctis, and he moved like he understood me without words. His hands swept outward, glass cylinders shattered, and the mers were lowered by his powers gently to the floor.
“I have them all,” Jun assured. He shot his healing power toward me, just enough for me to stand without assistance, and Noctis and I tore out the door.
The corridors were chaotic, walls collapsing under the power Noctis threw out. Guards ran in the opposite direction, but he did not care that they fled. His magic found them all, throwing them with a sickening crunch into what was left of the stone walls and dropping them into piles on the floor.
They hurt me. They hurt others,I rehearsed over and over, but as the Royal Vanguard men and women began piling tallerthan myself, it became nearly unbearable to witness Noctis’s unwavering wrath.
“Duscharne. Laziel,” Noctis drawled, searching the hallways as we made our way deeper into the facility.
“Duscharne? Laziel? We are looking for Calvin and Zahara.”
“I am looking foreveryonethat played a part in hurting you. The crew's whereabouts are known. But the Varaxis and the traitor hide.”
The god faced his palms outward, and the walls blasted apart, leaving a gaping hole to the outdoors. He shifted and destroyed another face of the building.
He was going to tear the entire place down single-handedly.Damn, if only I could help.
We turned off toward the eastern end of the hallways and came face-to-face with Calvin and Zahara rounding the corner in a sprint, casting quick glances behind. Calvin nearly toppled over me, but he grabbed my arm instead and yanked me behind Noctis to hide with him.
“We’ve got company—and they’re ugly,” he whispered, peeking slightly around Noctis’s shoulder.
Zahara stood firm at Noctis’s side, even as a horde of guards’ metal clanking, heavy-footed steps ricocheted off the marble floors.
Buzzing flitted into my ears, a dull hum of energy calling my name gently like a song on the wind. I shook it off, certain it was the helm’s aftermath, but something kept pulling at me, steady and insistent, like it knew exactly where and who I was.
My feet betrayed me, dragging themselves toward the hum as if it had its own gravity. Calvin’s gaze locked on me as our bodies met, his brow tightening in confusion.
What am I doing?
I couldn’t focus on anything else, even as the guards fell into massive, lifeless piles by Noctis. In the distance, bonescracked and crunched under his power. A screech rose as they sensed him and turned to run—then came the heavy thumps as they dropped one after another.
“Caelyn…” Calvin said uneasily. He stepped backward as I pushed more into him. But I couldn’t stop myself from getting closer to him… and closer.
“Love?” Noctis asked, but his words were drowned out by the constant pull for my attention. And it came from Calvin.
My arms raised against my will, feeling along Calvin’s biceps. Then his chest.
