Hux
THIRTY-NINE
She felt it through him—the emptiness that had defined his existence contracting rapidly, collapsing, being consumed by the same energy that was destroying the Hollow King.
He staggered, shifting back to human form involuntarily, naked and bloody and overwhelmed by sensations he’d never experienced.
The curse broke. Across the battlefield, Isandro collapsed to his knees, tears streaming down his face, a lifetime of silenced grief finally released.
The void creatures were dissolving, their forms unraveling as their source lost coherence. The wolves howled triumph. The lions roared. The bears bellowed victory. The dragons soared through the sky, fire and lightning illuminating the dawn.
And the Hollow King—
NO—
It shrieked its final shriek, a sound that shook the foundations of reality. The void that had been its form collapsed inward, consuming itself, and where it had been, there was nothing. Not darkness—just absence. And then even that was gone.
The Convergence passed. The stars faded from the daylight sky, resuming their normal invisible positions. The barrier between realms solidified, thickening back to its proper strength.
The Hollow King was dead.
The fragment of Cornelius that had stalked the gardens dissolved with it—a shadow that had outlasted its master by six decades, finally done.
And in Lunaria’s chest, in Hux’s heart, their fragile bond blazed full strength.
For a moment, the gardens were utterly still.
The orrery flowers settled. The constellations slid back to their ordinary positions. The air, which had hummed with impossible tension for weeks, simply breathed.