27. Gotcha?
Chapter twenty-seven
Gotcha?
Ione
We weren't even halfway up the stairs when the mage met us halfway.
"Athanasius Necrothys, the Veil between world, The Withering, Harbinger of the Final Silence—"
"Just call him Athy," I wave dismissively. "No one has time to say all of that."
Caspian chuckles. "You know what we're here for nerd, just give it up already."
The mage sneers, but that does nothing to mar his beauty. "Ione, your Primordial and I are acquainted, isn't it tempting to think of what I can tell you about him? What he refuses to tell you, or what he's been hiding?"
Athanasius growls, and the tendrils of shadow begin to creep up the stairs.
"I'll be waiting." The mage disappears once more just as a door appears to the left and we watch as Chronomir and Rose step through.
She's still in her jaguar skin, there's blood dripping from her mouth. "He has human followers." Chronomir sighs. "This isn't the path I wanted this to take."
Moireth appears with the wolves, Delilah, and Luciara behind her. "Seldom does destiny give us the path that is well trodden, we must often forge our way through."
Luciara rolls her eyes as Delilah carries her up the stairs. "Let's be finished with this, Delilah and I need a vacation." The wolf makes a huffing sound as if she's laughing.
We reached the final floor.
My legs ached. My breath came ragged, and my clothes clung to me.
My jacket was long gone, and I was sweating in this long sleeve shirt.
No one else fared better, except for Moireth and Caspian who were catching each other up on how many they'd killed. The six werewolves fanned out like sentinels, two of them limping, favoring broken limbs that refused to heal fast enough. Chronomir was as still as marble, his eyes burning gold. Rose crouched beside him, still in her jaguar form, her coat streaked with blood and starlight. Moireth’s daggers dripped void-black ichor, and Caspian had a gash on his forehead, but he still grinned like this was all a game.
Athanasius stood at my side, silent. His hand hovered near mine, not quite touching.
And then, as the top floor opened before us, we saw him.
The mage stood with his back to us, his staff in one hand, the other hanging at his side, fingers relaxed. The air around him shimmered, reality bending gently, almost lovingly. As though it knew him. As though it belonged to him.
He turned neatly on the ball of his foot, his neat black boots shining. “Hello,” he said, like we’d just bumped into each other at a party. He winked at me.
Athanasius growled, low and primal. “You’re the last of your kind, mage. Give it up.”
The mage sighs and finally looks around, not even bothering to hide his boredom.
“Dramatic as always.” Then his eyes slide back to me, and he smiles again.
“I’m Ambrose Koschei, and you—well, I already know who you are, Ione Phaedra Davis.
I didn’t expect Athanasius to choose someone so beautiful. A surprising decision.”
“Choose?” I echo, confused. The word felt too heavy, too… final.
His grin sharpens. “Didn’t you feel it? The pull of the box? The ring? He was calling to you. Nudging. Pushing. A little whisper here and there.” He lifts a shoulder. “You were the one who opened it, of course. Free will and all that. Sort of.”
“That’s enough,” Moireth cuts in, voice like steel. “You’re telling half-truths again, Ambrose. It was her choice. No one forced her to open the box or wear the ring.”
Ambrose doesn't even look at them. “Was it a real choice, or just the illusion of one?” He takes a few steps forward, the staff clacking softly against the floor. “I get it. You want to be free. All of you. But look around—humanity is better off like this. Safe. Controlled. No more disasters every time one of you throws a tantrum. No more avatars sacrificed for the whim of a god who doesn’t like the weather.”
The world tilts. Literally.
The ground shudders, and the room folds. Walls twisting into impossible angles, and creatures spill out of jagged tears in the air—void-born things that defy reason.
One is all jagged ice from the waist down, dragging a tail of frost that hisses where it touches the ground, its torso made of charred stone and flickering flames, twisting out of a cracked ribcage like a living furnace.
Another had eyes scattered across its body like constellations, limbs made of spiraling obsidian tendrils, each burning with inner fire.
They shriek in voices like broken glass.
The room erupts. The werewolves lunge. Moireth dances into the fray. Rose roars and tears into one of the creatures with fang and fury.
Ambrose barely lifts his hand—and Athanasius is dragged toward a pinprick in space, a growing singularity that twists light and time around it like water down a drain.
“No!” I scream, but Ambrose’s attention is already back on me.
“You want the truth?” he asks, gentle now.
“The real reason we locked them away? It wasn’t just power.
It was pride. Arrogance. The way they looked down on humans.
” He paces toward me as the battle rages behind him.
“Not enough worship? Floods. A bad day? Plague. Death and destruction on a whim. How many realms have crumbled because of them?”
Moireth’s voice comes sharp behind me. “That’s not true anymore. Maybe once. Maybe when we were young. But we learned. Just like humans.”
Ambrose doesn't stop. “A toddler throwing a tantrum is an annoyance. A primordial doing it? That’s genocide. So they ‘settled.’ They ‘chose’ avatars. People who didn’t ask for it. Athanasius—death incarnate—he’s the worst of all. Who would choose to be enslaved to death?”
“I’m not enslaved,” I say, through clenched teeth.
His eyes sparkle. “Are you sure?” Why does doubt begin to eat away at me. Slowly, I push it away. No, everything I have done is because I wanted to. Because…I love him.
Ambrose extends his hand to me. “Let me show you. With power over the void, I can take you back. Let you see. The truth, Ione.”
Chronomir’s voice rings out. “He lies. Only I hold that power. And the past is never to be touched.”
I look down at Caspian’s dagger. Still sheathed at my hip.
My breath slows. I'm supposed to do one thing. One thing only.
I take Ambrose’s hand.
He smiles.
I stab.
But the pain that follows isn't his.
I look down—his smile never wavers—and the dagger is buried in my stomach.
Well, now you're probably wondering how I got here, right?
I found a box in my backyard, and kids, let me be the first to tell you.
Put. It. Back. I can guarantee, had I done that I would not be in this situation now.
No…I had to put on a ring, fall in love with a primordial.
I mean, don't get me wrong, it was fun along the way, and Athy is to die for in bed, but I've never been stabbed or shot before, and I would do things differently.
Not over no man! Stabbed over a man? He's not a man… but you get it.
I gasp.
“You—” I choke, falling to my knees.
Athanasius screams my name. Everything goes black.
The void creatures writhe and die, as if my pain is a command to the universe.
A scream echoes through every corner of the space.
My head is ringing like a gong, and still the only thing I can think about is, if Athanasius can get to me, I'll be fine.
He said I couldn't die right? He said nothing about pain, cause this shit hurts!
Ambrose holds me upright, one arm curled around my waist. “I didn’t want to do that,” he whispers against my ear.
Still, I had one job to do. I'm really good at following direction, I don't know if anyone knows that.
I mean they apppreciate it at my job. They give me a task and I execute that to the T and a little beyond it.
I might be a tad defiant in some ways, but I do what I am asked, most of the time.
This was one of those times. I suppose Ambrose thought that I would be weak, and I still wouldn't get the jump on him.
He's holding me close, he thinks he's won and he doesn't realize how close my hand is to his. The one with the staff.
I reach up, mind you, I got stabbed in the stomach.
My body is on fire and freezing at the same time, I can feel blood leaking into my pants.
I gather the very last of my strength to do this.
I deserve a medal. I better get a seafood boil for a week.
Champagne for breakfast. More than that, no one better say that I have never done anything in my life for anyone else.
Fingers shaking, I grab his staff.
“No,” he growls. “No—don’t—”
I slam that shit into the ground. We're on stone floor, I can hear the shatter as it connects. Instantaneous too. All of the air is sucked out of the room, and then rushes back in like a tsunami.
Ambrose screams, the void pulsing around him.
His grip is tight as hell though, he yanks the dagger out of my stomach, and tosses it to the ground.
He doesn't toss me though, and honestly, if he would have done that and Athy didn't catch me?
I would have been pissed off. As my vision starts to go black, I see Athanasius reaching for me.
He looks different though, they all do. I wonder why.
Ambrose yanks me against him, and we fall. Backwards. Into a swirling rift of black stars and firelight.
The last thing I see is Athanasius’s face.
Pure horror.
And then—
Nothing.