Alive.The word echoes through me like a prayer.
I lock my panic behind walls built with years of discipline and turn back to the objective.
Ethan did his part. Now, it’s my turn.
The prism’s surface is a web of fractures, iridescent light bleeding through each crack. The ward Ethan shattered can’t re-form — not fast enough.
Now or never.
I launch myself forward, my blade singing through the air. My wolf and I move as one, every muscle powering us forward in perfect sync. My strike lands on the prism’s apex, exactly where Ethan directed. Steel meets crystal.
Cracks spiderweb outward from the point of impact, racing across the surface faster than I can track them. Light pours through each fissure, bright and wild, no longer contained by Holden’s careful structure. For one suspended second, the prism holds together through sheer compression.
Then, it bursts.
Shards explode outward in a shower of razor-edged light. I throw up my arm to shield my face, but it’s not the crystal that hits me. It’s thepower. The cornerstone’s collapse sends a shockwave rolling through the temple, and the force of it throws me back three steps.
The candles flare bright enough to blind before guttering out in perfect unison. The salt lines carved into the floor crack and splinter. The entire temple vibrates like a struck bell, a deep resonant hum that courses through my bones before it even reaches my ears.
And Holden. . .Holden is still channeling.
The magic he absorbed has nowhere to go now. There’s no prism to focus it, no ritual object to shape it. But Holden’s already given himself as a conduit, and the power doesn’t care that its container is insufficient.
It tries to flood into him anyway.
His back arches. His mouth gapes in a scream that produces no sound. Light pours from his eyes, his nose, his parted lips. Green-white brilliance forces its way out of every opening it can find. His desperate move isn’t working. The excess power has to find another vessel.
Yet, Holden manages to ground himself. I can see him fighting for control, his hands clawing at the air as if he can physically reclaim the current. The light sputters, then catches, like it’s become snagged on an invisible hook. A shiver runs up my spine. He’s reeling it back in.
A flash of white pulls my attention straight toward Ethan.
He’s still unconscious on the floor, his face pale as death, a rivulet of blood tracing a path from his nose across his cheek. But his arm is outstretched toward where the prism stood, and the chain of Haron’s necklace is still looped around his wrist. His fingers still clutch the crystal charm in a white-knuckled grip.
The charm flares.
A sharp counter-pulse ripples outward from it, and the overflow of magic escaping through Holden becomes suspended. The charm’s interference holds it like a dam, preventing anyone from rerouting it.
Holden finally finds his voice. “No— NO! It’s MINE—”
But the magic doesn’t belong to him. It never did.
With the tether broken and Holden unable to control it, the stolen power snaps back to its true course. Another bright stream of light erupts from Holden’s body and races away from the temple, threading through stone and sky, returning to its rightful owner: Stasio.
The magic has taken its toll on Holden.
The backlash burns him from the inside out. His skin begins to glow, then to crack, lines of white-hot light splitting across his face like fault lines during an earthquake. His robes disintegratein a blaze without flames. His silver hair turns to vapor before my eyes.
One moment, he’s standing there, at the pinnacle of every treacherous scheme he ever hatched, every innocent person he hurt in pursuit of power he didn’t deserve.
The next, he’s simplygone.
His body collapses in on itself, flesh and bone and misguided ambition reduced to nothing but gray powder that settles in a small mound on the scorched floor. The only thing that survives is a small crystal charm — his own protective talisman, identical to the one Haron gave Ethan — sitting atop the pile like a grave marker.
The temple falls silent.
I stand there for one heartbeat. Two. My blade suddenly feels heavy hanging loose in my grip, dead weight in my fingers. The ringing in my ears fades, replaced by the soft whisper of settling ash.
The pressure dissipates. The thickness in the air lifts, losing that viscous quality that made every breath feel like swallowing tar. My lungs expand fully for the first time since we entered.
