Trauma does not give the wounded permission to become destroyers themselves.
Nyrielle opens her mouth to speak. But Elyssara does not give her the dignity of final words. She drives her blade forward before a sound croaks out.
It slides home. Clean. Final. Because even gods can be felled by steel.
Nyrielle stills. For a single, suspended heartbeat, the world holds. Then the power collapses. It tears out of her in a violent release, unraveling everything she held together, everything she controlled, everything she believed could not be taken from her.
Power returns to the gods, the stolen fragment restored to its origin. It slips beneath their skin—home again.
Nyrielle falls.
And the war breaks with her. Silence does not follow, but something close to it settles.
And then—Kael. He is still moving, his focus now set on a wall of Aether shields, the men behind them trembling as they hold. Because some wars do not end when the enemy falls. Some live on in the people you refuse to lose.
He is injured, bloody, broken, but still moving. Still tearing through anything that stands too close, his power unchecked, uncontained, the Decay burning through him with no regard for what remains.
“Stop him!” someone shouts.
The gods move. Their power moving from one source of unchecked power to the next. They hold him, binding their divine powers around him, pinning him in place.
“No,” Elyssara whispers. “Please.”
Kael gnashes his teeth, snarling and lurching. The man lost to the beast.
Elyssara falls to her knees, a sob tearing from her throat. Warm arms embrace her. Strong, steady arms that belong to the man that smells of fresh bread and apples.
“Wait,” Ronyn says, forcing the word out. He’s Unmelded, returned to the skin of her best friend, a tattered tunic falling past his knees that he’s thrown on in the midst of the world breaking. “Hold him there.”
Elyssara freezes. Ronyn looks at her.
“I have a plan.”
There is no time for doubt, so she nods.
His eyes search for Seren, and they find her.
Breath heaving, blood smeared across her cheek.
“Unity beat the Decay once, right?” Ronyn says. “It can beat it again. But this time, we’re not destroying it.”
Elyssara stares at him through blurred vision, sobs wracking her body, confused.
“This time, we share it.” Ronyn gestures to Seren. “Bind Kael’s Decay to me.”
The words land like a blow.
Madness. Or love. At this point, they are the same thing.
Seren startles. “What?”
“It can’t be destroyed, right? We don’t want to give it to anyone else—trust and all that,” he says, already stepping forward. “So share it. It might be enough to reach him. I’ll take some. Ease the burden.”
Ease the burden.
The words land like a war hammer to the chest. The way Ronyn always sees life from a place of togetherness. Teddy would have loved this.
The gods do not speak—deciding to stay out of mortal affairs.
