“She’s weak,” he says, low and urgent. “She’s using experience, not strength. She’s working off the power she stole from you and a few desperate prayers, but you can stop her.”
Kaelzar leans closer, his breath warm against my temple. “The Godthread is still open. It links you, Peonica, and her real body in Elysium. You can both channel through it. But right now…” He presses his hand over my heart. “You’re stronger.” His voice catches, barely. “You always were. I just… didn’t see it soon enough.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t deserve to touch me. “You have to trust yourself enough to take it back.”
I close my eyes. The pain has spread everywhere—into bone, muscle, the sigil carved into my skin. It flares like a hot iron. But I push through it and I reach.
Pull it back, he said. So I try.
I summon the thread humming beneath my veins, the thread I’ve felt since the moment I bound myself to her name. It coils now, tense and slippery, tied to something ancient on the other end. Igrab hold and pull.
Calista laughs. The thread slides through my grip like water. “You think you can win against a god?” she mocks, her voice wearing Peonica’s mouth. “You’re too late. It’s already mine.”
I grit my teeth and pull again. Nothing.
The thread burns. Her pull is stronger. My heart hammers, but I don’t let go. My eyes lift to her face. Peonica’s face. Not Calista’s. My sister.
I make myself see her, really see her. Not the magic. Not the threat. Just her. And the sight knocks the breath out of me.
Peonica, who always smiled too brightly. Who fought for things I often dismissed—honor, mercy, loyalty. Who hid her truth behind laughter and easy affection. Who carried the weight of her origins every day.
And I never saw any of it.
If she’d told me, I would have seen only her father, the man who stole my mother. The shadow I never outran. Hating him would have been easier than forgiving her. Easier than wondering if my mother had loved him. Or, if leaving my father wasn’t a betrayal, but a form of survival for her.
Now I understand why Peonica always defended Calista’s husband, the God of Night and Stars, even after he betrayed his wife. Because Peonica had to believe his betrayal could still be rooted in love. That what came from it—what she came from—wasn’t wrong.
Because our mother did the same by betraying my father, and Peonica was the consequence. And still, knowing that I’d hate her if I knew the truth, my sister loved me. Enough to stand by me. To hide everything that hurt her, just to stay close. She didn’t want to lose me. And I was too blind. Too self-centered to see what it cost her.
Now I feel it all—her fear, her hope, the small, steady ache of wanting to be loved back. The way she tried to hold on to me in the only way she could, with that quiet, careful meal she’d made just for us. Her last attempt at closeness. Her last offering. And I dismissed it.
I dismissedher.Tears blur my vision, and I let them fall.
I reach for the thread again. Not with anger. Not with vengeance.
With love.
I pour into it everything I never said. My regret, my forgiveness, the truth I refused to face. I would break for her. I would bleed for her.
I will save her.
And I pull.
This time, the thread snaps tight and the power wavers. Calista snarls, and her grip on it tightens. Magic snaps through the air. My body convulses, spine bowing. A warm wetness leaks from my nose. Blood.
She’s fighting harder now. The backlash slams into me, tearing through skin and vision until everything goes white. I’m not strong enough, I realize as my palms scrape across the stone floor.
Then something brushes across the thread. Faint, almost nothing. A tremor. A ripple.
As if Peonica is reaching out from the other end. I freeze, trying to focus on it. It’s not the violent tug of Calista’s Decay magic. Not the hungry, writhing pull that threatens to rip me apart.
This thread is different, thinner than a hair, nearly invisible. But it’s there, I know I didn’t imagine it.
I follow it inward, closing my eyes. There it is: soft, thin, glowing faint red. Blood magic. Healing magic. The same thread I used when she lay dying in my arms. The connection never broke. And once I sense it, I feel the others—dozens—woven through me like a web. All the women I’ve healed. All the pain I carried for them. Threads of life I’ve given I didn’t know were still attached.
Each one beats on its own, untouched by Calista.
Peonica’s is the strongest. I isolate it and touch it with care. Her life—what I poured into her—still pulses against mine, still something I can pull back if I wish to.
