Chapter 37
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
Barbie
Sy and I clasped hands, power building between us. Killian joined us, and then all the heirs laid their hands on our shoulders, their combined strength flowing into the working. A shimmer flared like a small sun, and everyone shielded their eyes.
A splash of golden light swept through the entire army, and then we all touched down in the Trailblaze Courtyard. We’d brought the demon army with us too, but they would return to the Underworld.
A new door materialized ahead, meant for us alone.
Wild magic from Underhill danced around its frame.
Then, the magic of each House joined the dance—shifter water, vampire wind, fae earth, chaos lightning, mage fire—all weaving together in impossible harmony.
At last, the magic of the Underworld emerged, circling me as its new queen.
I reached out and linked all the magics which had stood separate for millennia.
As one, we stepped through the second portal.
Killian’s hand gripped mine, as if he was terrified of losing me again.
Rowan and Sy held hands beside us. Silas, Louis, and Cade followed, dragging Ruin’s frozen form behind them to his judgment.
Rock and Cassius brought up the rear, their weapons still drawn.
I looked over my shoulder and caught General Baal’s eye. The archdemon straightened as I nodded to him, a flash of gratitude crossing his demonic features before he joined our group. Demons were part of Mist of Cinder now. The sixth house was here to stay, whether anyone liked it or not.
They’d chosen to fight my war, and that made them mine.
We stepped into the vast chamber of nothingness and mist.
The space defied all senses. Infinite didn’t cover it. This place was both of this world and not of it, all at once. Time didn’t move here. A mortal mind would shatter trying to process the truth of the Red Room.
Two godly presences pulsed in this pocket space, their magic broken yet still potent.
My mate and my friends stood close, watching each other’s backs even though direction had no meaning here.
Isis and Nephthys emerged from the mist, shattered remnants of their former glory. The edges of their forms constantly crumbled and reformed, like sand sculptures in a windstorm.
I stepped toward them, Killian matching my pace.
“We got Ra,” I said.
Rowan hauled the chained void god forward and dumped him at their feet. Ruin hit the non-ground with a thud.
The reaction was immediate. Both deities sucked in a breath they didn’t need, and power burst from them in a wave that made everyone stagger.
For one glorious second, they flickered into their true forms—Isis with blue eyes shining like twin moons and hair that flowed like water, and Nephthys bathed in lightning with wings of pure light. The chamber blazed with their radiance.
Everyone gasped in awe.
Then the deities unleashed every curse word invented since language began. They spoke in tongues that predated human speech, but the intent came through clearly. Ruin’s eyes darted between them, filled with rage, disdain, and fear. The best part? He couldn’t curse back.
The five elements binding him had sealed everything but his eye movement. All he could do was lie there and take it while his ancient enemies got extremely creative with their vocabulary.
The verbal assault went on long enough that Cade pulled out a pocket watch to check the time.
“All right,” Killian said, snapping his fingers. “You got that off your chests. Now let’s send this fucker back to the void.”
The deities collapsed back into their broken states, exhausted.
“Does the void lie beyond the fog, Goddess Isis and God Nephthys?” Rowan asked politely. Even facing broken gods, he maintained his court manners.
“It’s at the end, fae,” Nephthys rasped. “We’ve kept it open for eons, waiting for this day.”
“Let’s get it done then,” Silas said, all business.
“But how exactly do we proceed?” Louis asked.
“Sy and I will handle it,” I said, biting my lip. “But first, I need to get my familiar back.”
I strode toward Ruin’s frozen form. “When I first met Pucker, he was a two-bit conman running supernatural scams in the House of Chaos. Killian didn’t even care what happened to his House before he met me.
Today, Pucker stood between my father and me, knowing the void god would devour him.
He was terrified of Ruin, but he charged anyway to save me… ”
“This isn’t the time for a funeral eulogy, Barbie!” Sy interrupted. You could always count on her being rude.
I plunged my hand into Ruin’s chest. His eyes went wide with terror, his insides churning frantically as I rooted around in his essence. There—a tiny spark, drowning in the void. In another day or two, Pucker would have dissolved completely, becoming fuel for an endless hunger.
My fingers carefully wrapped around the fading orb, ensuring I had every last fragment of his essence before I yanked it free.
“Sy,” I called.
She needed no further instruction. Creation magic poured from her in a brilliant stream, flooding the rescued spark until it blazed with light. The orb exploded in a flash that left afterimages dancing behind our eyes.
Where there had been emptiness, Pucker now stood. Not a ghost, but solid flesh and blood. He looked down at himself in wonder, raising his very real, very corporeal hands.
“I’m…” He pressed a hand against his chest, feeling the steady beat there. “I’m alive. Truly alive.”
His hazel eyes found mine, then Sy’s, understanding dawning. “I’m an immortal. In the flesh.”
“Of course you are,” I said, smiling at him. “You earned it, warlock.”
Life and death required balance. Even Sy’s magic could not truly resurrect the dead.
But this was a special case. When I pulled Pucker from Ruin’s core, I had tapped into the vast reservoir of energy the void god had stolen, using a stream of that energy to fuel Pucker’s essence before Sy’s magic worked on him.
My former familiar stumbled toward me and sobbed against my shoulder. I let him have his bittersweet moment. “Being swallowed by the void god was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,” he choked out. “The knowing, the waiting to be digested…Please don’t let him eat me again!”
“Never,” I promised. “Look at him. We have him. He’s done.”
“Thank you for this second chance, Barbie,” he whispered, the longing in his eyes obvious. The familiar bond had left echoes, and a part of him still yearned for that connection. But he needed to be his own person now.
“By the way, your murderer was the druid’s father,” I told him.
“He was dead. And from what I pulled from my father’s memories”—I turned to Cade—“he ate the druid after his servant outlived his usefulness. I know you wanted revenge. He got worse than anything you could have done. He begged and screamed right until the end.”
Cade nodded grimly. “Sometimes I wonder how one person could cause so much harm.”
“Read a history book,” Silas chimed in, though we all knew he’d never cracked one open voluntarily. He’d positioned himself as far from the ancient deities as the space allowed. “It’s always some small group of powerful assholes ruining everything for everyone else.”
“Let’s not become them,” Louis said.
“This trivial affair has taken too long,” Nephthys hissed. “I want Ra, the abomination, out of my sight and on his way to the eternal dark fate that he deserves!”
“After I reclaim what he stole,” I said.
Isis and Nephthys exchanged a glance. “That will be massive,” Isis warned. “No vessel—not even two goddesses—can contain it all.”
“We’ll share the burden!” Silas stepped forward eagerly, his amber eyes bright with possibility. “Split the excess power between us.”
“I insist on equal distribution,” Louis added.
“It is tempting,” Rowan admitted.
“What would we do with that much power?” Cade mused.
The heirs were apex predators by nature, and predators always craved more power. They couldn’t help it.
“The power doesn’t belong to us,” I said firmly. “It goes back to the lands and cities I drained for him.”
I’d always left a backdoor when siphoning magic for my father, a tiny thread buried deep within the earth. Some part of me, even under his thumb, had hoped for this day.
I raised my hand, my darkest flame merging with the death shadow I borrowed from Killian, the stream lashing toward Ruin.
He struggled uselessly against his bindings, panic and fury warring in his eyes.
The sight clearly satisfied our hosts. I heard Nephthys chuckle, a sound like grinding sand. I bet he hadn’t laughed in an eon.
My siphoning power gripped Ruin. It was time to take back everything he had stolen.
The extraction was like drawing in a screaming tsunami. It was a hurricane and a supernova combined—the concentrated magics of thousands of dead worlds trying to escape at once. The sheer magnitude made breathing impossible. The air itself turned solid.
Everyone except Killian, Sy, and me dropped to their knees.
Isis and Nephthys wavered. The sound was indescribable—like listening to the birth and death of universes on fast-forward.
My ears rang. My nose bled. My bones vibrated.
Every cell in my body threatened to burst from channeling forces never meant for mortal vessels.
But I was no mortal. I was a goddess, the daughter of the brightest star.
Killian’s arms wrapped around me from behind, my back pressed against his hard chest as he anchored me. His breath came in ragged gasps, his body shaking with the strain, yet he stood firm. Through our bond, I felt his dragon lending his strength, both of them determined to keep me upright.
“Sy!” I screamed over the cosmic roar.
Our hands found each other, clasping tight.
“Now!” I roared, and every House magic answered. Wild magic from Underhill and the magics of the combined might of six houses joined our effort.
The stolen power channeled through us and erupted outward in every direction. My will guided each stream back to its source.
Through my mind’s eye, I watched the healing begin.
Dead earth sprouted the first green. Dry riverbeds flowed.
Cities where technology had failed as magic vanished flickered back to life.
They would never match Mist of Cinder’s raw magical density—the mortal world lived by different rules, technology over mysticism—but even a spark would help.
The transfer seemed to go on forever. Power flowed through us in torrents that should have torn us apart. My knees buckled. Black spots danced in my vision. But Killian held me up, and Rowan supported Sy. We endured and prevailed.
Then, finally, the flow stopped.
Silence fell like a hammer in the chamber of infinity.
Where the void god had been, something impossible lay on the not-ground.
A baby stared up at us with one crimson eye and one black eye, confusion, hunger, and rage written across its features.
“What the fuck?” Silas said, summing up everyone’s thoughts perfectly.