38. Thayla #3
“Damn. This really sucks for you.” I laugh. “See, my angel already has him strung up in some chains. I don’t think he’s going to win anything today.”
“No,” she breathes.
“Uh…” I tilt my head to the side. “Yes.”
Derivius smirks at me as I squat in front of her, and her eyes bounce between mine.
Blue and burgundy.
Chaos and Harmony.
There’s no smile left on her lips now. Just understanding.
Acceptance.
The same pitiful kind all those feeders she forced me to use my powers on had in their eyes.
“Riven dear—”
Derivius’s power crawls up her neck and dives down her throat, cutting off any more nonsense before it can spew free. I hold her gaze.
“You’ve never personally experienced my Harmony, Sabelline,” I whisper. “I’d like to formally introduce you.”
I pull back every drop of Chaos coming from me. Derivius has that covered tenfold.
Chaos unravels. Harmony convinces.
My palm presses through his coils wrapped around her and settles against the center of her chest. She jerks beneath Derivius’s hold, her fingers clawing uselessly at the bands pinning her in place.
“Let’s fix what you’ve broken,” I say.
Harmony answers.
Blue threads spill from beneath my skin and sink into hers.
One. Then another. Then hundreds.
This feels nothing like when my power touched Obsidian’s.
His was cold. Resistant.
Hers is…pure corruption.
It reaches for me like it recognizes an old friend. I ignore it.
Derivius’s Chaos tears through every strand of Seduction flowing inside her, pulling it apart until it no longer remembers the shape it once held.
My Harmony follows. Not forcing. Simply…whispering the same truth into every fractured thread.
This is how you’re meant to be.
Her eyes snap impossibly wide. She feels it. Her own power beginning to agree with me.
Green light erupts beneath her skin, rushing toward me as if desperate to escape the body that’s held it for millennia. My Harmony catches every broken strand before it can flee, surrounding it in threads of blue.
One by one. Piece by piece.
Each fragment stops fighting. Each one accepts the truth.
The cocoon of blue tightens around her as Derivius continues tearing away every lie corruption ever convinced her power to become.
Her body convulses. A silent scream stretches her mouth wide.
The pressure inside my chest builds until every heartbeat feels like it might crack my ribs apart. Our cocoon grows brighter. Her power grows smaller.
Denser.
No more lies. No more illusion. No more escape.
The battlefield disappears.
All I hear is Harmony. All I feel is the impossible weight of setting something right that should never have been broken.
Then I see it.
Her recognition.
Understanding floods her face.
“You feel that, Sabelline?” My voice barely rises above a whisper. “That isn’t me empowering you.”
A tear slips down her cheek.
I smile.
“That’s your own power betraying you.”
She trembles.
Nods.
She finally—finally—understands exactly what she forced my Harmony to do for her.
“This is what happens,” I whisper, “when you Harmonize Chaos.”
The sphere of power collapses inward.
The cocoon shatters into thousands of brilliant fragments that streak across the battlefield like falling stars. Its explosion is forceful and bright enough that I have to shield my face.
When the light disappears…
So does the life in her eyes.
Her body crumbles to the side, red lips paralyzed in surprise, and mine…mine stretch into a relieved smile.
A hand appears in front of me, and I glance up at Derivius. Without hesitation, I grab it. He yanks me up and wraps me in his arms.
“It’s over,” he murmurs.
I close my eyes for the briefest heartbeat before pulling back with a crooked grin.
“Not yet.”
I glance toward the battlefield where my brothers are closing in.
“One down. One to go.”
Amick
The screams, the clash of steel, the roar of powers colliding; it all still exists around me.
Yet it seems distant. Like the realm itself knows where I am walking and what waits for me at the end of it. I’ve imagined this moment more times than I can count. A thousand different versions.
In some, I was angry. In others, I was afraid.
There were even moments when I wondered if I’d feel nothing at all.
I was wrong. I feel everything.
The emotions don’t cause me any hesitation, though. A calm sort of acceptance has overwhelmed me, and I use it as my motivation to keep going.
The beings foolish enough to step in my path fall quickly.
A blade. A step. A decision.
That is all it takes.
I’ve never had the luxury of my brothers’ powers. I cannot bend time. I cannot wrap someone in death. I cannot tear apart the realm around me. I’ve never needed those things truly, though.
I’ve always known exactly where to strike.
Now…I know exactly who I am striking.
The battlefield opens before me, and there he stands.
Our father.
He doesn’t look surprised, concerned, or anything other than his normal level of smugness. He’s always believed he knew how every story ended.
His gaze moves over me—assessing, judging—the same way it always has. While mine glances around the battlefield. At all the Defenders still fighting Dark Gods and Oblirians. Our friends who refuse to let us fail. My brothers who are destroying anyone in their path to reach this point with me.
And Mysenta.
She doesn’t make her presence known, but she can’t hide from me. Not behind a barrier. Or any power.
Silently, she’ll have our backs while we do what we’ve always needed to.
My strides carry me until there’s only ten or so feet between us.
“Amick.”
“Father.”
A familiar smile pulls at his mouth. It’s the same one he always offers me when he’s already decided what I’m worth in the moment.
“Still pretending you’re so clever.”
I tilt my head.
“I’ve never pretended.”
His eyes narrow.
“You were always the weakest. I still to this day cannot figure out how you became so much less than your brothers. Even Riven, with the curse Derivius put on him, is more useful than you.”
The words should hurt.
Once, they would have.
Now…they simply confirm what I already knew.
“I’ve never been weak. You’ve just never understood strength.”
A quiet laugh leaves him.
“And you, God of Knowledge, understand strength?”
“Yes.”
“And you think that somehow makes you powerful?”
“No.” My head shakes as I hold his gaze. “I think it makes me someone you’ve never learned how to break.”
His eyes harden as he steps toward me. The menacing glare he gives me would’ve had seven-year-old me shivering in my skin.
Now, I just see a pathetic man.
“Of the two of us, who has the ability to wave their hand through the air and end this all? End you?”
“You do,” I say, and his smile returns. “That doesn’t make you strong or truly powerful. You turn to utter destruction because you’re too weak to create anything else.”