Curse Broken (Cursed Descent (MistHallow Academy) #3)

39. Matilda

39

MATILDA

I let go.

The Praxian force explodes outward from my core. It’s nothing like the controlled channelling I’ve practiced with Morrigan—this is raw, primal power coursing through every cell in my body. Rainbow light tinged with black erupts from my skin, cracking it like porcelain, revealing something elemental beneath. My hair, now pure black, rises around me, writhing like live wires, sparking with energy.

The forest responds immediately. Trees bend away from me, their ancient trunks groaning under the pressure. The ground beneath my feet blackens and smokes. Birds take flight in panicked waves, and I sense smaller creatures fleeing through the underbrush. Everything living recognises the threat I’ve become.

Gray’s expression shifts from smugness to uncertainty. This isn’t what he expected—he thought he could control the power, direct it, but I’m bypassing his channels, accessing the Praxian force directly.

“What are you doing?” he demands, backing away a step. “Stop resisting. This isn’t how it works!”

I can barely hear him over the roar of power in my veins. Words come from my mouth, but they don’t sound like me anymore. “You never understood what the Praxian force is. It doesn’t belong to anyone. It isn’t a tool to be controlled.”

Beyond the barrier, I see my guys’ reactions. Vex has stopped pounding against the dome, his eyes wide with recognition—this is the transformation he saw of me in his vision. Draven’s skeletal form has fully emerged, his entire body shifting toward his true form as he channels death energy against the barrier. Luc’s Demonic nature is surfacing, his eyes glowing red as Hellfire dances around his hands.

Gray recovers his composure, drawing more corrupted energy toward himself. “This changes nothing. I am still the controller. That is our purpose—my will, your power.” His skin darkens further, taking on an obsidian sheen. “You think because you’ve distributed the Praxian force through the stones that you’ve changed its nature? You’ve only made it easier for me to access.”

He gestures violently, and I feel him tugging at the magickal network I established, trying to corrupt it further. The classification stones respond—I can feel them from here, trembling under the assault .

“No,” I growl, my voice echoing strangely. “My power. My choice.”

I thrust my hands forward, sending a wave of pure, uncorrupted Praxian energy toward the network. It races along the pathways Gray opened, cleansing as it goes, strengthening what he tried to break. For a moment, our powers meet in the middle, balanced.

Gray snarls in frustration. “You’re just prolonging the inevitable. This is what we were created for—to finish what Anu started.”

“I don’t care what she wanted! I decide my purpose now.”

The battle shifts. Gray changes tactics, sending a bolt of corrupted energy directly at me instead of the network. It hits me in the chest, cold and vicious, seeking to subvert my control. Pain lances through me, but I push back, refusing to yield.

The clearing becomes a war zone of opposing energies—corruption against creation. Trees splinter and fall. The ground cracks beneath us. The air warps and bends with the force of our conflict.

Gray unleashes everything he has, his form now barely human. “You can’t win this, sister. The more power you access, the more control I gain. That’s how we were designed!”

He’s lying—I can sense it—but there’s a kernel of truth in his words. This level of power is dangerous. Already I feel myself slipping. The good part of me is being consumed by the force I’ve unleashed. Destruction isn’t just something I can wield—it’s becoming me .

The barrier is weakening as Gray focuses his power on me, and the guys are taking advantage, combining their abilities in ways I’ve never seen before. Vex’s dark magick intertwines with Luc’s Hellfire, creating burning sigils that eat away at the dome’s structure. Draven summons the dead in all its forms. And there is Chaos. He launches himself at the barrier and I scream.

“No!”

Lightning flares on impact, but somehow, he gets through the shield. He scampers over to me and bares his teeth as he stands in front of me, facing Gray, hissing and chittering in that manic way that is chilling, especially knowing what he can do.

Gray glares at my familiar and I smile. It feels wrong on my face as I draw more power to my hands. “You won’t win this,” I say as the Araxi lifts off the ground and in a split second is on Gray, ripping at his skin with this tiny lion’s teeth, like a piranha on dry land.

For a moment, I’m stunned. I watch in horrified fascination as Chaos tears into Gray, his tiny form a blur of fury and teeth. Gray howls, trying to swat him away, but Chaos is too quick, darting in and out with terrifying accuracy. Black ichor spurts from Gray’s wounds, hissing when it hits the ground and covering Chaos from head to toe.

“Get it off!” Gray screams, his voice distorted. He sends a wave of energy outward that catches Chaos mid-leap and sends him tumbling across the clearing.

“Chaos!” I cry out, my heart lurching as my familiar hits the ground, but he rolls and is up in the next second. He shakes himself, hisses, and circles back toward Gray, his eyes glowing with unearthly light.

Gray’s attention shifts momentarily to the wounded Araxi, and I seize the opportunity that Chaos has given me, which I should have taken moments ago. I reach deeper, drawing on reserves of power I’ve been afraid to touch. The atmosphere is charged with electric energy, and the earth under my feet shines with unfamiliar sigils—ancient symbols of power that appear to inscribe themselves into the ground.

“You want to see what I was made for?” I growl, my voice resonating with multiple tones. “Let me show you.”

Crouching as Chaos circles around me, I slam my palms toward the earth, and the sigils explode upward in pillars of light. Grinning, I glance at Vex and see that between him and Luc, he is etching these runes into the earth at my feet. They may not be able to break the barrier, but their magick is reaching me, through my power. Through the amulet Vex gave me that is burning my backside through my jeans.

The sigils blast upward as columns of pure, concentrated magick, trapping Gray in a lattice of rainbow-black energy. He screams as the power cuts into him, his corrupted form struggling against the ancient bindings Vex has managed to channel through me.

“This isn’t possible!” Gray howls, his voice fracturing. “You can’t use those runes! That knowledge was erased!”

Throwing Vex a wide-eyed stare, I grin. He shrugs and stops panicking. He can see I’ve got this. But I see the resignation in his eyes, his stance. He knows what I have to do, and he knows he can’t stop it.

He mouths, “I love you, wife.”

Tears prick my eyes, but not ones of sadness. Ones of pride. If this kills me, I can go, knowing that I had three amazing husbands who loved me for who I was, not what I could give them.

I rise to my feet, the power coursing through me like electricity. My skin reveals the primal energy bristling beneath. “Not erased,” I say, my voice echoing with multiple tones. “Just hidden. From you.”

Gray roars, his body expanding as he draws more corrupted energy to himself. The obsidian sheen covering his skin thickens, forming a carapace of dark crystalline armour. With a violent burst of power, he shatters several of the sigil-columns, sending shards of light raining across the clearing.

“You think a few forbidden runes will stop me?” He cackles. “I’ve had years to prepare for this moment, sister. Years of studying what you could become.”

He lunges forward with inhuman speed, his arm elongating into a blade of pure darkness. I raise my hand instinctively, and a shield of rainbow light manifests in front of me. His attack hits with enough force to crater the ground at my feet, pushing me back several metres. The shield holds, but I feel the impact reverberate through my bones.

Chaos darts between us, slashing at Gray’s legs with razor-sharp claws. Gray kicks out, catching the Araxi mid-leap and sending him flying into a nearby tree. The trunk splinters with the impact, but Chaos somehow lands on his feet, hissing with renewed fury as he launches himself back at Gray. He lands with an accuracy that I admire on the back of Gray’s neck and sinks his teeth into the magickal armour. I wince as I hear a sound like teeth cracking, but Chaos isn’t concerned. He is intent on his job to help me and that is all that matters to him.

“Your little pet can’t save you,” Gray taunts, though he tries to shake the Araxi off. “Nothing can.”

I track his movements, gathering power in my palms. “I don’t need saving.”

The earth beneath us trembles as I pull energy directly from it, channelling it through the runes Vex and Luc are projecting into our battlefield. The ground splits open between us, a chasm that glows with molten magick.

Gray leaps across it, both arms now elongated into obsidian blades. I meet his attack head-on, my hands transforming into curved claws of light. We clash in midair; the impact sending a shockwave that ripples out and bounces off the barrier that Gray has around us. Chaos leaps off Gray to me and I feel the energy boost instantly. He digs his claws into my skin and flattens himself around my neck, becoming part of me.

Gray and I trade blows at blinding speed, each hit generating bursts of opposing energy that tear at the fabric of reality around us. Where his darkness touches me, my skin burns cold; where my light strikes him, his exoskeleton cracks and hisses.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Gray says between strikes, his voice resonating on multiple frequencies. “The joy of destruction. The freedom of letting go.” He parries one of my attacks and counters with a sweeping arc that I barely duck under. “This is what we were born for!”

For a terrifying moment, I feel the truth in his words. There is a dark ecstasy in this unleashing, in becoming a creature of pure power unbound by mortal limitations. Part of me wants to surrender to it completely.

As if sensing my hesitation, Gray presses his advantage, driving me back toward the edge of the clearing. “Stop fighting what you are,” he urges. “Join me. Together, we could reshape reality itself.”

I feel the Praxian force raging within me, demanding more destruction, more chaos. The voice in my head that cautions restraint grows fainter with each passing second.

Then, the barrier drops with the force of our next clash and the guys are in our space, throwing everything they have at Gray. Draven’s undead army swarm around Gray and he bats them away as they shriek and howl their pain directly at him.

It’s horrifying in its chilling intensity.

“I know exactly what I am,” I shout out, planting my feet firmly. “And what I’m not.”

I slam my fist into the ground, shoving the Praxian force directly into the earth. The runes etched by Vex and Luc ignite with blinding light, creating a complex geometric pattern that spreads outward in all directions. Gray tries to leap away, but he is surrounded. The spirits herd him closer to the runes.

The pattern locks onto Gray like a living entity, tendrils of rainbow-black fire wrap around his limbs, his torso, his neck. He thrashes against the bindings, his form distorting as he tries to shift beyond their grasp.

“No!” he screams. “You don’t understand what you’re doing!”

I advance toward him, each step burning the ground beneath my feet. Chaos still clings to me, his small body vibrating with shared power.

“I understand perfectly,” I say, the words echoing with harmonics that shatter small stones around us. “You want to control me. To use me. Just like Stryker did. Just like our mother planned.”

Gray’s struggles intensify, his body rippling between forms. “She had a vision! A purpose for us! Without direction, your power will consume everything!”

The classification stones—I can feel them through the network I created, trembling under the strain of the corrupted energy Gray has introduced. If they shatter, the carefully balanced magickal ecosystem I’ve built will collapse. Creatures will lose their abilities, chaos will reign.

I look at Gray, at what he’s become—this twisted thing of obsidian and shadow, this creature who claims to be my brother, who justified years of abuse as ‘ conditioning’. The rage inside me builds, the Praxian force urging me to obliterate him, to unmake him atom by atom.

But that’s what he wants—for me to become the destroyer.

I turn to Vex, seeing the understanding in his eyes. He nods once, his face grave. Draven steps forward, death magick swirling around his hands. Luc’s eyes burn with Hellfire as he positions himself at my other side.

“You’re right about one thing,” I tell Gray, my voice steadier now. “I was made for power. But not destruction. These three, though? You picked a fight with the wrong guys.”

Luc growls as I let them off their leashes and I step back to try to regain some control over myself, my hair and, most importantly, the stones.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Blackthorn and Morrigan on the sidelines. They don’t interfere. This isn’t their fight. It’s mine. But it’s also the guys’ because they choose to defend me. Fixing my gaze on them, ripping into Gray, I lift my chin higher as Vex slams a torrent of dark magick into Gray’s chest, the runes on his skin blazing with power. The impact knocks Gray backwards, his armour cracking along invisible fault lines. Luc follows instantly, his Hellfire burning in concentrated arcs that slice through Gray’s defences like they’re made of paper.

“You think you can stop me?” Gray screams, his voice distorting further when Draven’s army of spirits converges on him from all sides, darting in and out of his body in what looks to be a painful experience for my brother. “I am the controller! I am?—”

Draven steps forward, death incarnate, his face skeletal, his eyes black voids as he raises his bony hands. The necromantic energy pours from him in torrents that are cold and final. “You are nothing,” he says, his voice hollow and echoing. “And soon, you will be nothing but a stain on the forest floor to be blotted out by the next rain.”

Gray deteriorates under their combined assault. The crystals on his skin sloughs off in chunks, revealing something underneath that doesn’t look human at all—a writhing mass of darkness shot through with a disgusting colour that has no words to describe it.

“This isn’t over,” Gray hisses, his voice now barely recognisable. “You don’t understand what you’ve done. What you’ve unleashed.”

Vex throws a hex at him that makes him cough up enough ichor to drown in. Gray’s eyes roll back as Luc’s hand, covered in Hellfire, clamps around his throat. He smashes him to the ground and Draven stands over his body, feet planted on either side.

I step forward again, the Praxian force still coursing through me but now focused, directed, settling the stones and the magickal network now that Gray isn’t interfering with it. “I understand perfectly. You wanted to use me to take over Hell. If you think my two Princes will ever allow that to happen, you are as deluded as you look. But more than that, if you think I will allow that to happen, it just proves that you never knew me at all.”

Drawing on the last reserves of my strength, I reach out and bind him with magickal black ropes made from lightning and darkness. He chokes as Luc’s hand tightens further, burning him. I make a twisting motion with my hand, and the binding tightens some more, cutting off his choking. The cage shrinks under Draven’s watchful stare until it’s just a sphere of light hovering above the ground. Gray’s form is visible inside, like an insect in amber.

I bend down and snatch the sphere from the air and hold it in my palm. Smiling, I close my fingers over it and close my eyes. “Annabelle.”

The heat of the flames of Hell burns my skin as the Devil arrives in the clearing and Draven’s spirits recoil from her, disappearing from sight.

“How…?” Luc asks.

“I was waiting,” Annabelle says. “Waiting for her to call me to come and check on the Hellcube. But it seems you have something else in mind?”

I open my eyes and stare into her curious green ones. “I apologise for summoning you. I can’t exactly get to Hell myself.”

“Not a problem,” she says, eyes now narrowed as she looks at the sphere.

I hold it up. “This is a prisoner who wanted to take over Hell with Anu. I’m not going to kill him if you can make him suffer for eternity for what he did to me.”

She meets my gaze again with a slow, sinister smile and the gorgeous facade drops as I see, maybe not her true face, but the one that makes people shit themselves, nonetheless. She reaches for the sphere, and I hand it over. “Oh, it will be my pleasure,” she murmurs and vanishes in a burst of pure Hellfire, which singes the ends of my hair.

I grab a handful of it and see that it is still black, but rainbow highlights are visible when I look closer. Maybe one day it will be back to normal.

“Nice choice,” Blackthorn’s voice echoes around the clearing.

“You don’t think I made a mistake?”

“You should have let us kill him,” Luc growls, still parading around in his Half-Devil persona, which makes me smile.

“Too easy and also room for him to come back. This way, we know he will never be set free.”

“Mum will make him wish he had never been born,” Draven says. “Every second of every day for eternity.”

“It’s nothing less than he deserves,” Vex grits out.

“Aren’t we worried about him being too close to the foundation stone, though?” Luc asks, shifting back to himself.

I shake my head. “No. I trust your mum and I trust my own magick.”

“So is it over?” Draven asks. “Is the magickal network intact?”

“Yes. Better than ever.”

“You had us worried there for a second,” Vex murmurs, pulling me into his arms. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

“Never. I choose family over destiny. I choose love over power. I choose my own path.”

I lean into Vex’s embrace, feeling the Praxian force slowly settling within me. The transformation recedes. My skin knits back together, the cracks of light fading, my hair gradually shifting from pure black back toward my normal blonde with rainbow highlights. Chaos still clings to my neck, purring with satisfaction, his tiny body vibrating against my skin. I sniff and then recoil. “Eww. You stink, Chaos. We need to give you a bath.”

He sits up suddenly, like a meerkat on my shoulder, and hisses at me. He is a split second away from darting off into the forest, when Vex grabs him by the scruff of his neck. “Sorry, mate. She’s right. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Chaos howls as we make our way back to MistHallow, with the guys leading the way.

Blackthorn falls into step beside me as Morrigan hurries her pace to catch up to the guys. He gives me a serious stare. “Can I trust your word that it is over?”

“Yes, completely.”

“And you are okay? No need to go through with our pact?”

“No need. But it stands, sir. If I ever?—”

“I get it. I won’t hesitate.”

We share an awkward smile. “Thanks.”

He stops, so I do too, and we face each other. He pulls me into a hug and pats my back before he lets me go and steps back. “I’m proud of you and I’m proud to call you my niece.”

My cheeks go warm as I blush, and I grin like a fool. “You have no idea how much that means to me, Uncle Luke.”

“Ahem,” he clears his throat and gives me his trademark stern stare. “Less of that until after you graduate with honours.”

“What happens after that?” I muse as we walk again, catching up to the guys and Morrigan who have stopped to wait for us.

“You should be asking them, not me,” he replies, and then with a swish of his billowing robes, he vanishes, taking Morrigan with him.

“Bath for Chaos first,” I decide. “Then, I guess we need to talk.”