Chapter 19 #2
Ahead, through the swirling darkness, I saw it at last. It was a glow, silvery and ethereal, pulsing like a distant moon.
The Genesis Engine. My throat tightened.
After all the blood spilled, the friendships severed, the oaths broken—here it floated, beautiful and so fucking terrible.
I'd told myself the sacrifices were necessary, that the end justified every betrayal.
Now, face to face with my obsession, I hoped I wasn't wrong.
"There!" Vic shouted, pointing needlessly. We all saw it. How could we not? It was like a beacon in the endless night.
The Assembly had seen it too. Their barges were converging on the light, moving faster than we could run. We weren't going to make it in time.
"Tor!" I shouted. "Can you slow them down?"
The big man nodded, already gathering his terra magic. With a roar of effort, he hurled a massive chunk of debris that he physically tore from the ground toward the nearest barge. It struck with a satisfying crunch, sending the vessel listing to one side.
We ran harder, Juno growing heavier in my arms as we approached the light, as if the air itself were thickening around her. I refused to let her go, refused to slow down. We were so close now.
Finally, we broke through the last of the darkness and stood before it.
A massive floating crystal of silver and starlight, rotating slowly on its axis, with an intricate filigree of molten metal encasing its bottom half like roots.
It was beautiful, terrifying, and utterly ancient beyond any comprehension.
Juno suddenly arched in my arms, her head thrown back. When her eyes opened, they were no longer gray. They blazed with silver light, identical to the glow of the Engine before us.
Her glowing eyes found mine, but I couldn't tell if she recognized me. The silver light had consumed her irises completely, turning them into miniature replicas of the Engine crystal itself.
"It's speaking to me," she whispered, her voice somehow both her own and something older, deeper. "It knows me."
"What is it saying?" I asked, aware of the crew gathering around us, of the Assembly barges drawing ever closer.
"It says..." She paused, her face contorting with the effort of translation. "It says I must choose. Creation or destruction. Life or death. It says come to me, child of the starless."
The First Anchor at her throat flared with the same silver light as her eyes. I realized with sudden clarity that they'd been connecting, resonating with each other across the void.
"The Assembly ships are almost here," Jask warned, his fire sword drawn as he scanned the darkness above us. "Whatever she's going to do, she needs to do it now."
Juno's body went rigid in my arms, her back arching so severely I feared it might snap. Then she screamed. It was the sound of pure and utter agony. The silver light exploded outward from her eyes, from the First Anchor, engulfing us all in its brilliance.
Come to me, child of the starless…
For a moment, I thought I was blind. Her weight lifted from my embrace, and I reached for her blindly, my hands catching only empty air as I screamed her name over and over, but it was useless.
Then my vision cleared, and I saw Juno floating several dozen feet above the ground, suspended in a column of silver light that connected her to the Genesis Engine.
Her arms were outstretched, her hair whipping around her face as if caught in a storm.
"Juno!" I shouted again, reaching for her, but the light repelled me as I reached it.
I was thrown back by the light, tumbling across the ground until I collided with a broken hull fragment.
Pain shot through my shoulder, but I ignored it, scrambling to my feet as I watched Juno suspended in that column of impossible light.
My magic thrashed beneath my skin, responding to the raw power emanating from the Engine.
It recognized something primordial, something it had once been part of before corruption twisted it.
"Juno!"
The Assembly barges screeched to a halt overhead, their engines whining as they lowered to the ground around us.
Gangplanks extended with mechanical groans, and my heart sank as I counted the guards pouring out.
Dozens of them in their pristine black and gold uniforms, each armed with air batons and fire swords that glowed hot in the darkness.
"Form up!" I shouted to my crew, who were already drawing whatever weapons they had.
We backed toward each other, forming a defensive circle beneath Juno's floating form.
The guards encircled us, their weapons raised, but none attacked.
Their eyes were fixed upward, faces slack with horror and awe as they stared at Juno and the Engine.
Something was wrong. They should have been attacking, not standing in formation. A shiver of dread ran down my spine as I realized they were waiting for orders.
That's when I saw him. Cutting through their ranks was Gideon Pike, his expensive coat now replaced with finer garments that glinted with small anchor crystals sewn into the fabric. He walked beside a tall man in Council robes, both of them smirking as they approached our circle.
"Fuck," I breathed, the pieces clicking into place. He made a deal with the Assembly. Pike wasn't just a smuggler. He was a traitor, a puppet they'd been using all along. He led them here purposefully.
"Your Highness," Pike called out mockingly. "I believe you have something that belongs to the Assembly."
I spat on the ground between us. "You've made a mistake, Pike. Whatever they promised you, they're lying."
His smile widened. "Oh, I don't think so. They've been quite generous already."
He gestured behind him, and my blood froze in my veins. Two guards dragged a figure forward, her wrists bound in heavy chains. They forced her to her knees at the front of the circle, directly beneath Juno's suspended form.
"Auntie!" Kora's anguished cry cut through the air at the same moment Vic shouted, "Tessa!"
Juno's mother looked up, her face gaunt but her eyes fierce. Despite the chains, despite whatever they had done to her, she radiated defiance. The resemblance was undeniable. Her hair was the same pearly shade as her daughter's but her eyes were brown rather than the gray I knew so well.
I snarled, stepping forward only to be met with a dozen weapons pointing at my chest. "Tessa Farren has nothing to do with this."
"On the contrary," the Council member beside Pike said, sounding pleased. "She has everything to do with this. Don't you, Tessa? After all these years hiding what you are, what your daughter is."
Tessa's eyes flicked to me, then up to Juno.
Above us, Juno's scream transformed into something else entirely, a pure resonance that filled the air with sound so perfect it seemed to vibrate the very fabric of my soul.
My corrupted magic responded, writhing beneath my skin like a living thing trying to break free.
The silver light engulfing her intensified until she appeared to be made of pure crystal, translucent and utterly radiant.
Several more Council members approached, all wearing black hooded cloaks that marked them as the most powerful elementals in the realms. They formed a semi-circle around Tessa, their hands raised, ready to channel their magic.
Then, abruptly, Juno stopped screaming.
The silence that followed was so sudden and so thick I could hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears, the blood rushing through my veins and the echoes closing in on us from outside the circle of guards.
Everything went still—the guards, my crew, even the darkness itself began to hold its breath.
Juno's head turned slowly, her silver eyes fixing first on her mother, then on Gideon Pike, and finally on the assembled Council members.
I could have sworn I saw the hint of a smile touch her lips, but from this distance, with the light playing across her features, I couldn't be certain.
What I was certain of was the power gathering around her, condensing like a storm about to break.
When she spoke, her voice was layered with countless others. There were deep rumbling basses, keening sopranos, guttural growls, and whispers like wind through ancient ruins, all speaking in perfect unison. My blood turned to ice water in my veins.
"I choose destruction."
Her body flared with blinding white light. Not the warm gold of sunlight but the merciless silver-white of a dying star.
I threw my arm up to shield my eyes. The light penetrated everything, searing through closed eyelids, through flesh, bone, and through the stardust that made me.
She chose destruction as if it were mercy, and I smiled, because some worlds deserve to fall, and some queens were only born in the moment they decided to tear it down themselves.