Chapter 39 #3
It rushes in like ice water. I’d wanted Calista to suffer like Peonica did. I’d pulled the magic back slowly, just enough to make her hurt, to weaken her. Not enough to destroy the vessel. Not enough to destroy Peonica. At least, that’s what I thought.
My eyes snap open, and the sight that greets me stills my breath. Calista—Peonica—is lying crumpled, motionless. Her limbs twisted, but her chest moves.
A numb horror seeps into my limbs, hollowing me out from the inside. I don’t feel triumphant. I feel sick. “What did I do?” I whisper, my voice a ghost of itself.
Kaelzar’s sudden growl cuts through the fog, snapping my focus back to the world, just in time to see the figure standing over Peonica’s body.
Seraphina. She looms above her like a shadow, her lips curled in a twisted, triumphant grin.
I’d forgotten she was even here. I let her come, let her sobriety return in this place and now, too late, I realize what that meant.
My breath stutters in my throat as Seraphina drags her hand over her chest with a slow, deliberate inhale. And I see it.
The ring. That damn ring.
“No,” I breathe, staggering back. No. No. No.
Seraphina rolls her eyes with lazy disdain, as though testing the contours of her new flesh. Her movements are sharper now, wrong in that subtle, skin-deep way that screams of possession. She tilts her head, as if listening to something far away, then shakes it off like it no longer matters.
“She was so ashamed,” Calista says, using Seraphina’s voice. “She offered her body freely. Just wanted to be rid of it.” Then her lips curl into a snarl. “At this stage, any body will do.”
And then it suddenly dawns upon me. She’s no longer in Peonica’s mortal frame. She’s taken the body of a Champion, a vessel built for divinity, forged to hold power, to wield it.
“Velskan won’t let you possess his Champion,” I say, clinging to the thought because the alternative is unthinkable. Gods are territorial. Even in defeat, he wouldn’t let someone like Calista take what was his. Would he?
Seraphina laughs. “That miserable god cut their Godbound thread the moment she served her purpose. Once she failed the Trial he abandoned her, but the alterations he made remained.” She gestures down at herself. “A perfectly crafted, perfectly discarded vessel.”
My gaze snaps to the dragon crouched at the edge of the chamber, Seraphina’s Godbeast. Its large frame is rigid, head lowered, as if trying to make itself small under Calista’s scrutiny.
“Say nothing about me.” The voice growls through my mind.
I don’t have time to decipher the dragon’s mystery.
Because right now it doesn’t matter. What matters is this: if Calista settles fully into that body, if she roots herself in a Champion’s frame designed to withstand the weight of a god, she’ll be unstoppable.
A goddess housed in a perfected shell. One built to hold limitless power. One that will never break.
A memory of the Sibyls’ words flashes through my mind.
Raylane Troubelle no longer belongs to this realm. But the choice is hers. She can denounce her Goddess and the Godbound thread, and forfeit the trials at any time.
In that instant, I know that if I let this go on much longer, I won’t be able to stop her from pulling all the magic from me back to her.
My heart clenches. My magic screams. I have one moment. One.
And in that breath, that heartbeat stretched thin by horror, a thought claws its way to the surface: Who am I if I’m not Godbound anymore? If I sever this… if I give up what I’ve become… What's left of me?
But there’s no time. I reach inward, deeper than I ever have before, past the blood, past the rot, down to the sacred bond that tethered me to Calista’s true form in Elysium. And I tear it out at the root.
The white-hot, soul-deep pain rips through me like an imploding star. The connection that defined me for so long crumbles in my hands.
Calista reels. Seraphina’s face twists in shock, then rage. Pure, incandescent rage.
“You—” she hisses. But then her eyes rake over Kaelzar at my side, and with a vicious snarl, she leaps around us and runs out through the door.
I stand there, rooted. Dumbstruck. My body feels wrong, weighted by the obscene amount of power I forced into myself, power that now has nowhere to go.
Kaelzar moves toward me slowly, as if unsure whether I’ll shatter or erupt.
His hand comes to rest on my shoulder carefully.
And when he speaks, his voice is low. “It’s gone.
The connection between you and her, between you and…
” He doesn’t finish, probably realizing that whatever remained between us was severed the moment I learned the truth.
I close my eyes. “I had to do it,” I whisper. “She was in a Champion’s body. If I didn’t end it right then—”
“I know,” he says quickly, cutting in. “You did the only thing you could.” Then he hesitates. “But without it… you can’t ascend.” His words settle over me like snow, soft and cold.
Ascension. The promise I clung to. The reason I endured the Trial, the torment. It was supposed to be the moment I proved I was more than cursed, that I was a savior. “You mean—” I swallow the rest of the words, unable to produce another sound.
“You can’t become Archpriestess,” he finishes, finally meeting my gaze.
His words reach me like a surge of blood returning to a numbed limb. Sudden and hot.
If I’ve lost the Trial…
Then Zyrel has won.
He will inherit the power. The prayers meant for me will be fed to him instead. All the people who believed in me, who placed their hope in my hands, will be led by him. And I realize then: I didn’t just sever Calista. My eyes find Kaelzar’s glistening, sorrowful gaze.
I severed everything.