Chapter 55
It’s so cold.
So dark.
I pull at the well Lumina inside me, trying to move some light out into this abyss. But the shadows push back, resisting my feeble attempts.
Come on, do this. I can do this.
Fuck. I don’t even know which way to turn. I’m in the inky blackness of Janine Hart’s what?
Her brain? Her soul?
Does she even have one of those?
Wherever I am, I hate it.
I know that somewhere there is a path to follow, but currently I feel like a small lost child trapped down a dank well. Holding my hands in front of me, I blindly channel a little light into my fingertips. It makes the snaking black tentacles retreat just a fraction.
Then I can see something up ahead.
What?
Like a burnished sheet acting as a mirror. It pushes forward a smoky image and my eyes cannot look away.
I’m hungry for what I’m seeing. A teenage girl. Her long dark hair plastered to her skull.
She hurries through a rain-soaked street, something clutched in her arms. I can feel her panic, her tension, her bitterness and anger.
“Not mine, not mine, not mine,” she whispers like a mantra.
The bundle in her arms starts to wail.
“No, you have to go,” the girl hisses.
My heart breaks for her as pushes through the doors of a busy bright building.
Her pace doesn’t slow until she reaches a restroom.
Pushing open the door, the stark lighting makes the girl seem impossibly pale.
She walks forward and lays the blanket, then the baby inside the ceramic sink.
Turning on a heel, she leaves without looking back.
“Never wanted” a voice sighs somewhere deep inside me. “Left alone…”
The vision changes. Gods. It’s my own mother and father. They’re leaning over a crib, looking down at a sleeping toddler. Me. “I can’t do this,” Mum sobs. “It’s too much.” My father agrees, hugging her close. “But what choice do we have?”
My whole body starts shaking. “Obligation,” sings the whisper in my head. “Duty not love.”
Something inside me crumbles. The connection between me and my parents turns to dust, and I fall to my knees.
Opal didn’t want me, nor did my parents.
“But I want you, Theo.”
I drag my gaze up and meet eyes with Janine.
“I won’t leave you alone, or push you away for being different. Let me embrace you.”
Her arms hold out, inviting me into an embrace. She pulses with mother’s love.
“I’ll nurture you, care for you, protect you.”
The maternal promise of safety and warmth tugs at my core. Tugging, tugging. I double over clutching my stomach. Something snakes between my fingers—a small, ruby-red thread.
It’s sprouting from my naval like an umbilical cord reaching for Janine. She starts to sing, a siren crooning a lullaby.
Hush now, lost girl, do not stray,
The world outside is cold and gray.
Follow this thread, the knot is tied,
It’s warm and safe here by my side.
Warm and safe. That’s what I want. I deserve it.
Something scratches at my back but I shake it off. I’m going to follow the thread. I trace a finger along the blood-red cord.
Again something pokes me, harder this time. Almost painful. It feels like a claw.
What is that?
Don’t I know someone with claws?
Scratch, scratch.
Don’t I love someone with claws?
“No, Theo, no. You’re alone with me. No one came to help you, to save you. The men who made you promises have left you in the dark…” Janine’s face smiles so sweetly that it chases away some of the chill in my bones. “I won’t leave you. I’ll never leave you.”
My men. Why aren’t they here? Don’t they care?
“They don’t.”
But they love me.
“Then why are you so alone?”
Why am I so alone? I collapse to my knees, and cold needles pierce my flesh.
“Crawl to me, Theo, away from the pain. Come into your future.”
Future.
There’s something about the future I need to remember and the loss of that memory makes me start to cry. Sobbing and sobbing, I’m mourning something but I don’t know what.
I try to grasp at the edges of the thought but as I do, a vision seers into my brain.
Soldiers marching.
Ragged, head-bowed humans.
Fire and smoke. I cringe as my gaze pans over rows of children being harvested, a production line of energy caches. The tableaux switches to a stage with heavy red curtains. A sea of hungry faces.
I try to understand, but it’s impossible. More images, again and again. Each one cold and filled with evil.
That’s the future?
“Not for you, Theo. Never for you. But only if you come to me.”
An explosion rocks the dark place we’re in.
Red and black fire rushes past me, and I look up to see Janine opening her arms embracing the blaze. She throws her head back in ecstasy and cries out. “Tyrus! Yes!”
I don’t know what’s happening, but as I try to remember what a Tyrus is, my body convulses in a pain that is beyond description.
Fire floods my veins which quickly freezes and shatters into jagged, frozen shards, shredding me from the inside.
Janine is laughing. Why is she laughing?
“Because the power of the High Magus now belongs to me, poor Tyrus.”
I double over in pain as I feel a piece of me die. A patch of nothing forms in my core. Gone. Dead.
“But it appears to be different when one of your bonds is cut, poor Theo. But let them go, and then you’ll be free.”
Bonds?
Suddenly I’m aware of the fragile golden-filaments pulling from my chest. My heart. They don't lead to Janine, but instead travel out into the darkness.
I count the threads.
One.
I stroke the filament and suddenly I see Donovan. He’s shifted, sweat pouring down his torso as he fires arrow after arrow. —Dono…—
He doesn’t hear me.
The second strand leads to Alexis, unconscious on the floor in his human form, a pool of blood beneath his head. —Lex?—
Nothing
The third stretches taut, almost snapping out to Ludo. My Ludo. But I can’t quite see him, too much smoke… —Lu, please...—
Four.
—Max, I need you— He growls and swipes at a soldier, leaping across the room and away from my vision.
The fifth thread is scorched and blackened, drifting away into the darkness. A voice whispers, “One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.”
Then I’ve nothing to hold on to.
Nothing to keep me here.
Wasn’t there a sixth connection?
“I’m right here, Theo.”
Who is that?
“Concentrate on me.” Janine smiles, showing her sharp teeth. Her crimson thread is the sixth. It doesn’t sit quite right but I’m so confused.
The doctor begins to tug me closer.
The golden wires try to anchor but they’re stretching thinner and thinner.
One is already broken…please, Gods no more.
Please, Gods?
Wasn’t there a gift from a God who helped me?
Yes, child. Remember me.
I want to remember. I do. But I’m so tired and so alone. Janine’s will is sucking at me. What am I even doing here?
Crackle. Snap. My chest thuds, like I’ve been poked by a small bolt of lightning. The fizzing that follows fills the cavity behind my ribs.
Lumina. I remember lumina. Amirene? Is that you?
For a moment I see a stranger’s face, blindingly beautiful and shining with pure light.
Please, child, fight harder. Amirene gave you my gift, now you must use it.
She reaches out a hand, but then the vision wavers. Her serene features become overlaid with Janine’s hunger.
I don’t want to see it. I want the other woman.
But I don’t know how long I can withstand this push and pull.
“Come back to me,” I cry out. “Who are you?”
Fight for me, Theodora Wilson. The beautiful woman appears once more, eyes filled with worry. You must do this.
“It’s too hard, I’m too alone.” I flail around, not sure what I’m hoping to find, but my hand smacks into something. A shining white cable. I wrap it around my wrist and hold tight with everything I have.
The glowing cable cuts into my flesh, but strangely doesn’t hurt. It’s almost as though the wire is melding with my arm. It pulses with a familiar, grounding hum.
You aren’t alone, child.
The darkness of Janine begins to peel back like scorched paper, and standing there, holding the other end of the white chain, is Wes.
He doesn't look like the boy I left in the hospital bed. He looks like the man who held me, loved me and said he would always be mine. Wes reaches out, his hand cupping my cheek, and the ice holding me to the floor melts instantly.
“I’m here, you’re not alone,” he whispers. “And you are so fucking wanted.”
Then he shows me the truth, overriding Janine's poisoned versions of my past. I see Opal again, running through the rain, but the bitterness I felt before is gone. I see the tears on her face as she kisses my forehead in that hospital restroom.
“Live, little baby. If they find you with me, they’ll kill you. You have to be someone else to stay alive.”
Then I see Mum and Dad. “I love her so much, so much,” Mum cries. My father hugs her close. “And we’ll protect her forever.”
“Your men, Theo,” Wes says, his voice filled with desperation. “We aren't gone…we haven’t left you, we're here. We’ll always be here.”
The darkness shrieks as Janine’s crimson thread begins to fray.
Suddenly, the space between us erupts in a cascade of sparkling light and from the center, a woman appears. Tall and radiant, wearing a gown of woven starlight. Her presence is perfect, balanced, and absolute.
Theodora, I am Harmonia—and you are my human embodiment in this fractured world. Chaos has reigned long enough through the rot of the dark energy.
She places a hand over my heart, and the Lumina within me reaches out to meet her.
You were born for this, my child. The energy from Avalon has been twisted into a weapon. You are the one capable of filtering it into the light.
I feel Wes at my back.
I see the golden threads that are tied to my heart.
And then I reach out and grab the crimson umbilical cord with both hands.
“My turn,” I snarl.
Then I pull.
Pull Janine towards me. Into me.
I swallow her whole.
The dark energy crashes into me like a tsunami, but my lumina is ready, giddy and swirling, chasing down every atom of Janine, smothering her smoke with my stars.
More. I’ve got to give more.
My skin starts to crack, golden light leaking out of the fissures as the dark and light battle inside my ribs. I’m screaming, but there’s no sound—only the vibration of a world being reset.
I feel my soul thinning, reaching the breaking point.
—Hold on, Tee-Tee—
—PULU—
—Sparkles—
—Nymph—
With one final, lung-bursting heave, I push.
The black of Janine, turns to gray, then to a brilliant, shimmering lilac. I thrust my hands upward, and the energy erupts from my chest in a pillar of pure, neutralized power.
It blasts through the roof of Janine’s mind, through the steel shutters of the manor, and out into the night sky, spreading across the world like a shimmering aura.
I fall backward, my vision fading to white, the last thing I feel being Wes catching me before I hit the ground.
???
The world doesn't return in pieces; it returns in a flash of absolute, blinding clarity.
I’m standing in the center of the shattered ballroom, but I don’t feel the cold wind rushing through the broken doors and windows. I hold up my hands and see my skin is shimmering—the Goddess Harmonia still inside me.
Swinging around, I study all the Elites who cower in the corners. They are diminished. Any power they’d derived from the dark energy is totally gone.
We did it.
WE.
Where are they?
I look towards the dais and the golden light in my chest falters. This is where the gray and gold dragons battled and fell. Tyrus is a slumped, broken shadow. But Alexis and Max kneel before a charred carcass, with blackened scales.
Cosmo.
Five golden threads remain in my chest.
And one scorched to a dead, black wick
"No." This cannot be.
“NO,” I say again and this time the word travels through the room like a physical shockwave, cracking the remaining glass in the windows.
Wes is still beside me and as my fingers touch his chest, a brilliant, white-gold spark jumps between us.
Click.
Charred sixth thread re-forms slightly.
“Theo, get him back.” Wes eyes reflect my sparkling goddess-light.
I’ll get him back.
I don't need to think; I weave the light I’ve filtered through my soul, throwing a strand to Donovan.
Click.
Cosmo’s thread grows a little further as the centaur’s frantic energy settles. Dono reaches out to Ludo.
Click.
Ludo kneels next to Max, they meet eyes.
Click.
The chain is still too weak, too short. Maximus rests his palm on Alexis’s back.
Click.
Alexis stretches out, trying to connect with our dead dragon. “There’s nothing, pulu. Nothing.”
My heart, supercharged by Harmonia’s grace, refuses to accept that.
Reaching deep into the core of the goddess herself, I grab the feeble burned strand of Cosmo’s bond and I pour the starlight into it, forcing the golden light to travel backward, down into the underworld itself.
Connect. Please, Gods, connect.
For a heartbeat, nothing happens.
Then, a spark.
A single, liquid-gold pulse beats from the center of the ash. The blackened scales shift slightly.
Click.
The bond snaps back into place with the force of a supernova.
Cosmo’s eyes fly open—no longer blue, but the same shimmering lilac as the Lumina. He gasps, drawing in a breath and the circle is complete. The six golden threads turn into pillars of light that hit the ceiling then explode through.
The light expands, as I feel the dark energy being scrubbed from the world, one heartbeat at a time.
Until the world is truly free.
Finally, I release my hand from Wes’s.
And he instantly shifts.
Before me is a beautiful shining pegasus.
—Let me take you away from here—
I slide onto Wes’s back and we fly high into the night.