The void around us shuddered, stars flickering like candles in a breeze. The figure looked up sharply.
"Your guardians are persistent," they sounded annoyed. "But this conversation is not finished. We will meet again, Chalice-Bearer."
They began to fade, their form becoming transparent. But before they disappeared completely, they reached out once more, grasping not at me this time, but at the floating prophecy fragments. The fragments responded to their touch, flying toward them like metal to a magnet.
"What are you doing?" I cried, sensing danger though I couldn't articulate why.
"Rewriting," they answered simply. "If we cannot stop your prophecy, perhaps we can redirect it."
The fragments in their grasp began to change, the glowing symbols rearranging themselves into new patterns, new meanings. I felt each change like a physical blow, the blue markings on my arm burning hotter with each alteration.
"Stop!" I lunged forward, grabbing at the fragments they held. "You can't change them!"
"I already am," the figure was frustratingly calm. "Fate is malleable in the right hands."
Something snapped inside me then, a barrier I hadn't known existed. The blue markings exploded with light, spreading rapidly up my arm, across my shoulder, onto my chest, downmy stomach. Power surged through me, raw and ancient and terrible.
"No," I spoke with a voice that didn't sound entirely like my own. "These aren't yours to change."
I reached out, not with my hands but with the power flowing through me, and pulled. The prophecy fragments tore free from the figure's grasp, flying toward me instead. I caught them, not physically but energetically, absorbing them into myself, into the blue markings that now covered half my body.
The figure recoiled. "What are you doing? You can't!"
"I can," I cut them off, continuing to draw the fragments toward me. Each one that touched me sent a jolt of pain through my system, but I didn't stop. Couldn't stop. "They're part of me now."
"You'll destroy yourself," the figure warned, their voice losing its composure for the first time. "No human vessel can contain so much prophetic energy!"
They might have been right. The pain was becoming unbearable as more and more fragments poured into me, filling me with contradicting possibilities, with futures that could never coexist. My vision blurred, darkness creeping in at the edges.
But I kept going, driven by an instinct I couldn't name. These fragments, these broken prophecies, they needed protection. And somehow, I knew I was meant to provide it.
The figure made one last attempt to stop me, reaching out with both hands now, their form growing larger, more menacing. "Enough! Release them or be destroyed!"
"No," I gritted through the pain. "You don't control this anymore."
With a final surge of will, I pulled the remaining fragments toward me. As the last one merged with the blue markings, the void around us shattered like glass, reality fracturing and reforming in an instant.
I was falling, or perhaps flying, tumbling through layers of existence back toward my own. The figure's voice followed me, growing fainter with distance.
"The Chalice is drinking itself dry."
Then I was back in the storage room, collapsing as my knees gave way beneath me. The blue markings on my body blazed like fire, pulsing with the energy of dozens of absorbed prophecies. The pain was overwhelming, my consciousness flickered.
I was vaguely aware of voices shouting, of hands reaching for me. The breach was closing, the jagged tear sealing itself as if it had never existed. Horrace was making frantic musical sounds, his tentacles reaching toward me but unable to touch as the energy surrounding me repelled even him.
I felt myself falling, the room tilting around me. Someone caught me before I hit the floor. Not Milo or Zane or Rook, but Fenric. His usually composed face was transformed by fear and concern, his silver-blue eyes wide with panic.
"Winter," his voice seemed to come from very far away. "Stay with me. Focus on my voice."
I tried to respond, but the words wouldn't come. The room was growing darker, the faces around me blurring into indistinct shapes. The last thing I saw before consciousness slipped away was Fenric's face, his perfect bureaucratic mask completely shattered, replaced by raw devastation.
Then darkness claimed me, and I knew no more.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Fenric
