Nineteen #4
I ignore him, pressing my hands to the stone—not to move it, just to feel it.
It’s not solid. Not entirely. There are fractures running across the surface—hair-thin, branching.
I drag in a breath and let my light rise—not as a weapon, not even as a plan.
Just instinct. Just need.
It spills from my palms and seeps into the cracks. But it doesn’t behave. It spreads wrong. Not like illumination—like something searching. Like it’s feeling its way through the stone.
The light grows heavy, moving slowly, like dragging through mud.
Something in the stone answers.
“What are you—” Nyxen starts.
A deep groan cuts him off, shuddering through the slab.
The ground shifts.
Then the stone shifts—an inch, maybe less. But it’s enough.
“Move,” I gasp.
He does, dragging himself free before staggering to his feet. He tests his leg and manages to walk, though with a limp.
Nyxen looks at the stone. Then at me. Not confused, but calculating. Like he’s seen something he shouldn’t have.
For the first time, his neutrality cracks into something real and unguarded. Gratitude.
“Thank you,” he says.
I nod, too spent to reply.
We limp onward as water begins to lap at our feet. The tunnel slopes upwards, the water sloshing and rising, but not fast enough to submerge us fully.
It’s up to our knees when we finally emerge into open air.
We are in a clearing. The sky above is dark, but the silver moon washes everything in cold light. The clearing is circular—perfect and unnatural. In the centre, the Mother Shard rises, a towering crystal spire, pulsing pink at the edges. It looms over us, beautiful and indifferent.
The death counter is still at eleven.
Nyxen stands at my side, breathing hard.
I’m wet through, my boots filled with water, my skin slick with sweat and dust.
“There’s no going back,” he says.
I look at him, then at the arena waiting ahead.
“You’re right,” I say. “I need to find Marissa. I hope she’s with Kael.”
He nods, and together, we step into the clearing, the future closing around us like a fist.
The clearing is a stage, and I don’t know which part I’m meant to play.
Nyxen limps beside me, each step drawing a grunt of pain from him.
The air out here is colder than the cave, but cleaner somehow, even with the looming threat of what’s coming.
We cross the short grass, moonlight painting each blade.
Great stone pillars ring the clearing, breaking the sight lines among sparse trees and loose, snarling roots.
The Mother Shard looms ahead. I crane my neck, but the higher I look, the more she seems to bend, like a flower searching for the sun. The structure looks wrong—stretched too tall, pulled too thin. It hums in greeting.
We are halfway across the field when the shift happens.
The Mother Shard’s crystal tower spasms—then splits—fracturing into hollow rings that tear free from it. They rise, twisting and glowing, and lock into one another—until there is no tower left. Only a single, perfect ring in the sky.
The ring explodes, shattering and morphing into the crystalline crown we know so well. It floats there, held aloft by nothing at all.
Beneath the crown, numbers burn in the air, golden and merciless.
Two ones.
Eleven.
I don’t yet know who the eleventh was. I can’t bear to think about it.
Movement stirs on the opposite side of the clearing. Two shadows, upright and waiting.
Kael. And Vaelis.
I stop moving.
He is alive. He looks tired—gaunt, even. But he is standing, and his eyes find me across the arena. The pull between us is physical. Immediate. The moment our eyes meet, my lungs empty out like I’ve been punched in the gut. I want to run to him, to crash into him and never let go.
But I can’t.
Marissa is not here.
Nyxen stiffens, his lips thinning into a hard line.
Vaelis stands at Kael’s side, one hand resting on his back, while Kael’s arm is draped over Vaelis’ shoulder for support. They look like brothers—two men carved from nightmares, beautiful and deadly. Kael leans forward, as if ready to sprint the distance to me, but Vaelis holds him back.
I want to scream. To ask them where she is, if they’ve seen her. But all I can do is stand, hollowed out.
I drop to my knees. Not because I am weak, but because I can’t bear the weight of all the promises I’ve failed to keep.
The number beneath the crown pulses, counting my sins.
I whisper Marissa’s name—like a god I don’t believe in but pray to anyway.
Thunder cracks as lightning slams into the stone pillars jutting from the earth.
I barely register the chaos around me.
If Marissa isn’t here, who is she with? Is she already dead?
The questions burn in me as the world readies to bury me. Four people unaccounted for. One is already dead.
That leaves—
No.
Morwen wouldn’t kill Marissa. She couldn’t.
Which means one of the girls is already gone.
And selfishly, horrifically, I hope it is Morwen. At least then, I have a chance.
I have to get up. I have to find her.
It’s not fair. How can the Mother Shard be so cruel?
I’m not ready.
But the stage doesn’t care.
I have to play my part.