With every bit of concentration, I pull myself to my feet.
“Abdicate,” I command.
Something that feels like raw curiosity nudges against me, inspecting my imagined form. I fight the urge to cringe at the foreignness of the touch, more intimate to the depths of my soul than anything could ever physically reach me.
When the sensation retreats, the star dims slightly for a brief moment, then returns to its full blazing glory.
You are not ready,it seems to tell me.
I scowl. My life is currently seeping out of my body. I don’t have time for puzzles. “I have no choice. Abdicate. Now.”
Wrong. The star begins to pulsate, dimming and brightening.You had a choice. You chose to let him intervene.
I recoil, stumbling backwards, as I suddenly recognize that I am not imagining the intention. It is being projected to me. The entity iscommunicatingwith me.
“You can speak,” I gasp. “What are you?”
The pace of its pulsing slows before it responds.
You have given me many names.
How could it know?—
I know everything about you, daughter of man.
Horror, dread, awe, and a myriad of other emotions come to a boil, slipping into the void like wisps of vapor. The entity sees them, inspects them, brushing against me again with its inhuman curiosity… As if it’s done the same thing a million times, and I’ve only just now noticed it.
There are no lies you can tell me, no secrets you can keep from me. I am the judge of your soul, and I decide you are not ready.
Dread swallows the rest of my emotions, threatening to consume me as well. “You would let me die here?”
A pity the principality interfered.
“No,” I shake my head rapidly. “No, I have to go back. You can just… hide. Do what you did before. Surely you can find a way to circumvent Michael.”
He will not allow it again.
My window is becoming smaller and smaller. I’m running out of time, and my dread decays into something more volatile.
I walked away from everything I hold dear to me. I have sacrificed, again and again, knowing I did nothing to deserve it. They want to treat me like a lamb for slaughter—but I am not a lamb. I haveteeth. I am apredator.
And I am not finished yet.
“Then you leave me no choice.” Resolved, I take a step forward. “I’ll take your power as you would take my life.”
The light flashes brighter than the sun, causing me to hiss, but I will not be deterred.
I will not go gently into the good night.
The same way I imagined my body into existence, I imagine the darkness around me bending to my will—and it obeys. I pull it forward in spiny pillars, jutting them towards the star like spears of shadows. It shirks back, its form warbling, avoiding my projectiles before they disintegrate like ash on the wind.
Furious, it screeches at me,I will not have my judgment hastened!
“How do I know your judgment is any better than mine?” I advance another step, even as the searing pain intensifies. “Whatever primordial force you are, I refuse to play your games any longer. Iam the decider of my own fate—not you—andIdecide when I am ready. ”
I throw more spears of shadow at the star, but it avoids them again. Rage grows in me, burning hotter and hotter. I attack it, again and again, but I can’t land a single hit. The entity is impervious to damage.
A scream bursts out of me, holding every ounce of my frustration and fury. Fury for the star, for my circumstances—for everything. It is bottomless. Ceaseless. I scream like it’s the last thing I’ll ever give the world. Until my lungs are empty and I’m doubled over in exhaustion.
