The Stone Court shook. Not from Aerion's voice this time. Not from the Old Laws grinding against our bones. From light. A beam of pure, searing brilliance, like someone had hurled a newborn sun straight across the chamber, slammed into the back of his perfect, golden head. The sound of it cracked reality itself. Like the world biting its own tongue. Aerion staggered. Didn't fall. Turned, slow, furious, dazzling, like a king insulted mid-coronation.
He met him. Luxor! Standing. Burning. Alive with a fury so bright it seared the shadows off the walls. His golden eyes, once full of mischief, vanity, laughter, were molten now. No mercy. No hesitation. Only war. He didn't speak. He ran. Each step thundered into the marble like a war drum. Sparks flared beneath his boots. He wasn't a man anymore. He was a comet.
Taiorchi moved. No roar. No warning. Just raw inevitability. A mountain that decided to strike. His fist slammed into Aerion's face with enough force to shatter suns. The sound wasn't a punch. It was an event. The Court cracked. The walls spiderwebbed. My ribs rattled from the inside out. Aerion reeled. Luxor was already there. Already slamming into him with wings of light erupting off his back, with solar flares lashing from his skin, with fists that burned like dying stars. Stone. Light. Colliding with order.
The pressure in the chamber twisted. The Old Laws groaned, as if the foundations of reality weren't sure who to obey anymore. I lost it. Feral. Chaotic. My body still shackled to the stone by laws older than memory, but inside, I was breaking free. My chaos poured out in sparks, in smoke, in probability shredding itself against invisible chains. My body shook so hard tears poured down my face, ugly, snot-streaked, raw. I mouthed words I couldn't force out. My lips bled with them. I will kill you.
Aerion staggered under the double onslaught. Luxor was a supernova, burning him from the front. Tairochi was inevitability, pounding him from the side. For the first time, he buckled. The gods gasped. Hope. Flickering, fragile, alive.
Luxor roared like a sun collapsing. He hurled himself forward, spear of light aimed for Aerion's heart. But Aerion… adapted.
Air vanished. Stolen from Luxor's lungs, from his blood. His light sputtered. He choked, fell to one knee, still throwing punches even as cracks of golden fire bled through his skin. Aerion squeezed harder. Cruel. Victorious. Tairochi hit him again. Silent. Ruthless. A mountain's fist across his jaw. For the first time, gods above and below, for the first time… Aerion bled.
Silver ichor sprayed across the stones. The Court gasped like the universe itself had flinched. Hope surged. That was when my chains snapped. They didn't loosen. They shattered. The Old Laws tore out of me in burning threads as my chaos detonated. The Court howled. Marble boiled. Space fractured. I rose. Not running. Not sprinting. Detonating.
One heartbeat, I was on the floor. The next, I was rage incarnate, a jagged blade of chaos writhing in my fist. Aerion turned, pulling a shield of compressed air, thick, unyielding, the kind of magic that broke cities. I ripped it apart with my bare hands. He tried to crush my lungs. I laughed. Broken. Ugly. Beautiful. I laughed right in his face. I hit him. Not with power. With grief. With rage. With every wound he carved into her. With every night she bled for him. With every goddamn scream I'd swallowed because I couldn't touch him.
The Court exploded into chaos. Luxor, bleeding light, half-dying but still fighting. Drove solar flares into Aerion's ribs. Taiorchi, splintering apart with every movement, hammered him with mountain-breaking fists. And me, chaos incarnate, slicing through probability, tearing through space, screaming his name like a curse. Three of us. Light. Stone. Chaos. United. The other gods, still kneeling, still bound, lifted their heads. Some with tears, some with awe. All with something I hadn't seen in this Court in centuries. Hope.
Because for the first time… Aerion bled. For the first time… the Stone Throne was empty. For the first time… victory felt possible.
Luxor rose first. Gods, he glowed. Brighter than I'd ever seen him. Burning like he'd remembered what he was made for. Tairochi drove Aerion backward, each step shaking the Court like tectonic plates breaking. Chaos snarling at my fingertips, bleeding out of every crack in me, I shaped it. Pulled it into a lance sharp enough to split reality. I threw it. Luxor crushed the air from Aerion's lungs in a blazing pulse of light. Tairochi roared, mountain-shaking, sky-splitting, and struck. For half a heartbeat, it looked done. It should have been done. But Aerion wasn't a king. He wasn't even a god. He was force. Force doesn't yield.
The air collapsed inward, hardening into a sphere so dense my bones screamed. Luxor gasped, his light sputtered. Tairochi's arm shattered like clay. The Old Laws wrapped around my ribs and wrists, dragging me back to the floor in iron chains of command. I howled. Not like a god. Like an animal. Chaos ripped at the bindings until I thought I'd tear in half.
A shockwave, order detonated from Aerion in a brutal ring that ripped the Stone Court apart. We flew. All three of us. Shattered bodies across shattered stone. Aerion, bleeding, bruised, stood. Straightened. Smiled. Victory on his lips like it had always been his. He moved before I could even spit blood. Fast. Too fast. Luxor was the first he caught. Golden boy by the throat, slammed into stone so hard the marble cratered. Light sputtered from him like sparks off dying firewood. Tairochi tried to rise. Aerion's elbow drove into his cracked ribs, the sound of mountains splitting apart. I lunged. Blade in hand. Chaos screaming. He caught my wrist. Effortless. Then squeezed. Pain ripped through me. I screamed as my own magic burst apart in a spray of dying sparks. Wrist shattered. Blade gone. He flung me across the chamber like garbage. I hit the wall. Slid down it. Could barely breathe through the red mist in my head.
"You think rebellion makes you strong," Aerion said. Calm. Certain. Cruel. "It only makes you weak."
I wanted to laugh. Couldn't. Wanted to spit in his face. Couldn't even lift mine off the floor. Sudden large waves. Salt. Fury. Yara. My Yara-pearl. She hit him like the sea itself had risen to claim a ship, slamming tide after tide into him. Every step she took was a storm. Every strike was the ocean reminding cliffs they break eventually.
The shadows peeled off the walls. Leyla. Gods. She was terrifying. Her darkness crawled alive, birthing nightmare beasts with too many eyes and too many teeth. They swarmed him. Tore at him. Dragged him. Even Aerion faltered. Even Aerion slowed. Luxor staggered back to his feet, burning. Tairochi roared through broken stone. I forced myself upright, blood down my face, chaos whirling ragged and jagged at my hands.
For a breath, a miracle breath, we had him. Maximus, sweet, reckless fool, grabbed Navir's wrist. Electricity lit him like a star on wine. He laughed, mad and brilliant, and threw lightning across the Court. It hit Aerion. Full. In the spine.
For the first time, he screamed. The gods pounced. Luxor punched with dying suns. Tairochi broke shields with mountain fists. Yara drowned him in wrath. Leyla bound him in nightmares. Maximus slammed lightning into his jaw. I ripped away every illusion he carried, carved chaos straight into the gold. We had him. We had him. We had him-
He stood. Bleeding. Burned. Cracked. But still standing. The Stone Court, traitor that it is, listened. The Old Laws hummed under his voice. Aerion raised his hand. The world obeyed. Water boiled to steam in Yara's palms, her scream as it seared her. Shadows ripped apart, Leyla was hurled like a doll. Luxor smashed into the wall, his light dimming to embers. Tairochi cracked in half, bleeding starlight. Maximus hit the floor like a man who'd gambled and lost. My chaos shredded, stripped away into sparking ribbons. Silence. Only him. Breathing hard. Smiling through blood. Standing over us all. We'd given everything. It wasn't enough.