I see the golden threads that are tied to my heart.
And then I reach out and grab the crimson umbilical cord with both hands.
“My turn,” I snarl.
Then I pull.
Pull Janine towards me. Into me.
I swallow her whole.
The dark energy crashes into me like a tsunami, but my lumina is ready, giddy and swirling, chasing down every atom of Janine, smothering her smoke with my stars.
More. I’ve got to give more.
My skin starts to crack, golden light leaking out of the fissures as the dark and light battle inside my ribs. I’m screaming, but there’s no sound—only the vibration of a world being reset.
I feel my soul thinning, reaching the breaking point.
—Hold on, Tee-Tee—
—PULU—
—Sparkles—
—Nymph—
With one final, lung-bursting heave, I push.
The black of Janine, turns to gray, then to a brilliant, shimmering lilac. I thrust my hands upward, and the energy erupts from my chest in a pillar of pure, neutralized power.
It blasts through the roof of Janine’s mind, through the steel shutters of the manor, and out into the night sky, spreading across the world like a shimmering aura.
I fall backward, my vision fading to white, the last thing I feel being Wes catching me before I hit the ground.
???
The world doesn't return in pieces; it returns in a flash of absolute, blinding clarity.
I’m standing in the center of the shattered ballroom, but I don’t feel the cold wind rushing through the broken doors and windows. I hold up my hands and see my skin is shimmering—the Goddess Harmonia still inside me.
Swinging around, I study all the Elites who cower in the corners. They are diminished. Any power they’d derived from the dark energy is totally gone.
We did it.
WE.
Where are they?
I look towards the dais and the golden light in my chest falters. This is where the gray and gold dragons battled and fell. Tyrus is a slumped, broken shadow. But Alexis and Max kneel before a charred carcass, with blackened scales.
Cosmo.
Five golden threads remain in my chest.
And one scorched to a dead, black wick
"No." This cannot be.
