I am done.“This is over,” I snarl.
“And what the hell are you going to do?You’re nothing,” Architecti says.“You’re exactly what I tell you you are.”
I crack a smile, because for the first time in my life, a realisation settles in my bones.It’s so strong and so resolute I stand a little taller.
“What the hell are you smiling about?”she sneers.
Interitus glances as me, her expression softening.She stands a little taller, her chin held high.
“You’ve both failed because I was never meant to be the power you wield.”
Architecti’s eyes widen, her body, despite being pressed against her sister’s, trembles.
“You may have created me for your own goals.But in the end, even you don’t control my fate.”
Interitus’s eyes gleam with delight, whether from her sister’s anguish or because she’s realised where this is going, I’m not sure.
“I’m going to give you both what you want.For Interitus, a new system of fate will be born before the dawn rises.And for you, Architecti, I will destroy Interitus.”
This time, Architecti’s eyes are the ones that glimmer.But my face hardens.
“But not in the way that you want…”
Her expression falls.
“Your punishment for the pain you’ve caused and the lives you’ve taken is to spend the rest of eternity as the single entity you were always meant to be.And I will spend eternity deciding my own fate and doing to you what you have spent my life doing to me.”
Architecti shakes her head, frowning.“You can’t.”
“I can and I will.I will spend eternity wielding your new form as the force for a new system of free will.”
Interitus laughs silently, tears fall from her cheeks as she throws her head back and shrieks out a hysterical bark.
“Oh, I knew you were brilliant,” she says, and this time, it’s the words of Thalia, my old mentor.“Well played, my friend.Very well played.”
Interitus’s features darken, her eyes go black, her skin shivers and vibrates and she starts to dissolve.
“NO,” Architecti shrieks.But it’s too late.
The merged moth flutters to my chest, as if it is ready to accept its fate.
I close my eyes and reach for my runes one last time.I dig deeper than I’ve ever dug, gathering all the power I can muster.
I reach for Interitus, the gift of self-destruction she gives me willingly, and I let my power merge with her essence.
Architecti I will have to take by force.
My light meets her destruction, swirling and shimmering.Architecti shrieks and kicks, but it’s far, far too late.
The light now flecked with darkness descends on Architecti, disassembling her cell by cell.Breaking her down the way she broke me.The way she controlled me and made me the way she saw fit.
Tonight, I remake her.
The air fills with the scent of oceans and summer breeze, a little smidge of cold coffee and decay and beneath it all the faintest hint of woodsmoke.Gellara.
The last part of them to dissolve is the merged moth.
Perhaps I have always known what they will be, what I will reform them into, but as the creature forms, I know without doubt this was the right thing to do.
