Sera's POV
The divine energy burns through me like liquid fire.
I can see everything. Every prophecy thread the gods ever wove. Every chain they ever placed on humanity. Every lie they ever told about destiny and divine love.
And I can destroy it all.
Stop her! Maya screams at the golden warriors.
They rush at me with weapons raised, but I'm faster now. Stronger. I pull my hands from the crystal and throw them outward. Silver light explodes from my palms, slamming into the warriors.
They shatter like glass.
More warriors pour from the temple. Twenty. Thirty. An entire army of golden light.
I don't care.
I reach into the crystal again, pulling more power, and this time I direct it at the temple itself. The ancient columns crack. The roof begins to crumble. The very foundation of the gods' power is breaking apart.
Sera, stop! Nyx shouts. If you destroy the source too fast, the backlash will kill everyone here!
I don't care! I scream back. My father is dying. Kael is dying. How many more people have to die before the gods are satisfied?
I care! Cassian runs toward me through the chaos of fighting warriors and falling stone. Sera, please! Control it!
He reaches me and grabs my shoulders. His touch grounds me somehow, pulls me back from the edge of pure rage.
I look into his eyes and see fear there. Not fear of me fear for me.
If you lose yourself to this power, he says desperately, I lose you forever. Please. Come back to me.
The silver light around me flickers. Dims slightly.
My father my voice breaks.
Is alive, Lyra calls out. She's kneeling beside my father, her hands pressed to his chest. The arrow missed his heart. Barely. He's bleeding badly but he's breathing!
Relief crashes through me. He's alive. He chose me, and he's alive.
The rage that was consuming me softens into something else. Something I can control.
I take a deep breath and focus. Instead of destroying the crystal in one explosive burst, I start to carefully unmake it. Thread by thread. Layer by layer.
With each thread I break, the gods grow weaker. I can feel it their presence in the world fading.
Maya realizes what I'm doing. No! You promised me! she screams at the empty air. You promised me power!
But the gods don't answer. They're too busy trying to survive as their power source crumbles.
This is your fault! Maya turns on me, her face twisted with hatred. You ruin everything! You were supposed to die! You were supposed to be nothing!
She grabs a fallen warrior's sword and charges at me.
Kael despite his poison, despite being barely able to stand throws himself between us. The blade meant for me cuts across his chest.
NO! I drop my connection to the crystal and catch Kael as he falls.
The stone serpent poison has spread to his face now. His skin is turning gray and hard. He's running out of time.
The moonflower, I gasp, remembering. Where's the moonflower garden?
Behind the temple, Nyx says, fighting off two warriors at once. But Sera, if you leave the crystal now
I don't care about the crystal! I care about him!
I haul Kael up, throwing his arm over my shoulders. Cassian appears on his other side, helping support his weight.
Go, Cassian says. I'll help you. We'll finish this together.
We run behind the temple, leaving the others to hold off the remaining warriors. Maya's screaming follows us, but I tune it out.
Behind the temple is a small garden. And growing in the center, glowing with soft blue light, are the moonflowers.
I practically throw Kael onto the ground beside them and grab the flowers, crushing them in my hands. Blue juice runs between my fingers.
Drink this, I order, pressing my hands to his mouth.
Kael swallows the extract. For a long moment, nothing happens.
Then the black veins start to fade. The gray stone texture of his skin begins to crack and fall away, revealing healthy flesh underneath.
He gasps, his eyes flying open. I can... I can breathe...
You're okay, I whisper, tears streaming down my face. You're going to be okay.
But we're not safe yet. The temple is still collapsing behind us. The crystal is still half-intact. And Maya is still screaming for my blood.
We need to finish this, Cassian says, pulling me up. The crystal. You need to completely destroy it.
We run back to the temple. The remaining warriors have been defeated Nyx, Lyra, and the survivors are catching their breath. My father is conscious now, Mira holding pressure on his wound.
The crystal floats above the altar, cracked and dim but still pulsing with power.
Maya stands in front of it, her hands raised. She's trying to channel the remaining energy into herself, trying to become what I refused to be a god.
Maya, don't! I shout. It'll destroy you!
I'd rather be destroyed than be nothing! she screams back. You got all the attention. You got the power. You got the prince. What did I get? A broken prophecy and a ruined future!
You can choose a new future! That's the whole point!
I don't want to choose! I want what I was promised!
She plunges her hands into the crystal.
Golden light explodes outward. Maya scream snot in triumph, but in agony. The power is too much for her. Her body can't contain it.
Help me! she cries, her voice distorting, becoming less human. Sera, help me!
Despite everything she's done, she's still my sister.
I run forward and grab her, pulling her away from the crystal. The divine energy fights back, trying to keep her, but I'm stronger. I pull with all my remaining power.
Maya comes free, collapsing in my arms. Her skin is scorched. Her eyes are wild.
I hate you, she whispers. I'll always hate you.
I know, I say sadly. But you're still my sister.
I turn back to the crystal. It's unstable now, flickering between solid and energy. If it explodes, it could level the entire mountain.
Everyone get out! I shout. Run!
Not without you, Cassian says firmly.
I have to stabilize it first or we all die!
Then we stabilize it together.
Before I can argue, he takes my hand. Kael now healed takes the other. Nyx, Lyra, and the others form a circle around us, all touching, all connected.
We're all free now, Kael says. We're all Void-Born. Use us.
I feel their will flowing into me again. Not power choice. The purest magic that exists.
Together, we reach into the crystal.
And together, we unmake it.
The crystal doesn't explode. It simply... stops existing. One moment it's there, pulsing with divine energy. The next moment, it's gone, dissolved into silver light that disperses on the wind.
The gods are truly gone now. Forever.
We did it.
I collapse, utterly exhausted. Cassian catches me, holding me close.
It's over, he whispers. It's finally over.
But as I look up at the sky, I see something that makes my heart stop.
The stars are moving.
Not just twinkling actually moving, rearranging themselves into new patterns. Without prophecies to hold them in place, the entire universe is reshaping itself.
What's happening? Lyra asks in wonder.
Nyx's face goes pale. When you destroyed the source, you didn't just free humanity. You freed everything. The stars, the seasons, fate itself. Nothing is predetermined anymore. Not for anyone. Not for anything.
Is that bad? I ask.
I don't know. He looks at me with something like awe. No one's ever lived in a truly free universe before. We're about to find out what that means.
A crack of light appears in the air not gold like the gods' power, but every color at once. It tears open like a doorway.
And through it steps a woman.
She's not a god. She's something older. Something that existed before gods, before prophecies, before anything.
Sera Luminhart, she says in a voice like wind and water. You have broken the chains. You have freed the universe from predetermined fate. And in doing so, you have awakened the Chaos.
What chaos? I ask, terrified.
She smiles sadly. When nothing is fated, anything can happen. Good and terrible things. Light and darkness. Creation and destruction. You wanted freedom for humanity. But freedom has a price uncertainty. And something ancient has been waiting for this moment, when the universe became uncertain, to return.
What thing? Cassian demands. What's returning?
The woman points behind us.
We all turn.
The chamber of stone people the ones who tried and failed to reach the temple they're moving.
Their stone bodies crack and fall away. But what emerges isn't human anymore. It's something twisted, changed by centuries of being frozen between life and death.
They're not grateful for freedom. They're hungry. Angry. And there are hundreds of them.
The Forsaken, the woman says quietly. Those who were caught between fate and free will. You've released them too. And they blame humanity for their suffering.
The first Forsaken opens its mouth and screams a sound that shouldn't come from anything that was once human.
Then they charge.
Run! I shout.
And we run, bursting from the temple as hundreds of monsters pour after us, as the universe reshapes itself around us, as the price of freedom reveals itself to be higher than any of us imagined.