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Time to let it out. Time to let it all go. I refuse to let my life end like Rory’s, filled with a never-ending vendetta. I want it to end like Tinger’s, in service to those I love, those who love me in return. Taking a deep breath, I scream. I let it go. My rage, my fear, my insecurities. I scream until my throat is hoarse, and then I scream some more.
“I’M NOT NOTHING!”
I was something to Tinger. I am something to my family. I am something to my friends. I am something tothe Six.
If Fox believes this is the best choice, then I trust him. I’ll wait for him. I’ll be the spider—No! I’m not the spider, not when I raised civilizations from death and slumber. I’m the fuckinggiant. Always have been. I just never believed it before now.
A snap inside my chest. A twang around my heart. My hand flutters there as something changes, something dissipates.
The curse is gone.
I have a moment of peace, and then pain flays every inch of my body. Power consumes me, dark and intense. What is happening to me? My eyes bulge, my muscles lock, and I seize. There’s nothing I can do but ride it out and hope I don’t die. It’s not my magic. Not mine. But it’s blinding and willful, and it comes from Fox. From Styx. From four others in the distance. Theirs is a smaller trickle instead of a torrent, but it’s there filtering into my soul, latching around my heart, linking us together.
Blue light fizzes in the brightness of white manabeeze. Luminescent blue tiny marks appear on Fox’s neck, glimmering defiantly through the solid stone consuming his beautiful face and body. And Styx... blue marks glimmer on his neck, too. Somehow, I sense it on all six of them. I hold my hand above Fox’s mating mark on my neck. Blue light reflects onto my palm. Same color as their Guardian teardrop, as my parents’Well-blessed mating mark. It’s not the same beautiful, identical pattern on their arms. It’s something more me.
Teeth.
The hive’s magic flows through me. I am the center of their universe, their star. Their one true queen. One by one, their emotions slam into me. Sorrow, pain, confusion, hunger, anger, listlessness. Love. I gasp and look at Fox’s frozen face. I can feel him in there. Trapped.
Styx’s wings shift away with a rustle. His skin is blueish with a hint of blush. His horns go next. Then his tail. He hunches over himself and falls to a knee, choking and gasping for air. Slowly, the blue fades. All signs of his otherness are gone, as if they never existed.
“Let me help you.” I try to lift him off the dirt.
A strong arm swings at me, slaps me away. Sharp fangs gnash at my face—a flash of blue startled eyes. I stumble backward and give him space, holding up my palms in surrender. This would be disorienting after being trapped in stone for over a year.
Slowly, he catches his labored breath and straightens to his full, towering height. Fuck, he’s strong. All those bulging stone muscles are more frightening in the flesh.
Having dismissed me as no threat, he moves with the grace of a fighter around the room, inspecting items on the table. Fox’s clothes. Wasn’t Styx petrified for brawling with another Radiant? I try not to breathe, to draw attention from the caged wild animal finally freed.
He narrows his eyes at Fox, then faces me and asks, “Who are you?”
The Fucking End.
