“Clearly not,” I replied, my voice steady despite the storm. The Remnants surged across my skin, hungry for release, for vengeance. I could feel Winter’s cold fury, Sylvie’s sharp anticipation. But I was hiding something in that corner of my mind. Something Minerva had taught me without speaking.
Make them suffer, Winter urged.Take everything from them as they took from us.
Break their precious loom, Sylvie purred.
Minerva stepped forward. Power radiated from her in palpable waves, and I remembered with startling clarity that this was no gentle woman, but Reason and Wrath incarnate. “You simply failed to see.”
“We cannotfail to see.We see all. We know all. Do not speak to us as if you aren’t a traitor, wielding our stolen power.”
Minerva laughed. “Your power? You mean the Wrath you forced upon me when your schemes went awry? You stole part of my power and replaced it with a sliver of yours and you’ve been scheming ever since. In ancient times you saw the Huntress coming. Not as the woman that would break the balance of power. You saw her as the woman that would breakyou.And so you began to weave. You gave Ezra a vision of a path that would lead to her end. But in all of your scheming, you never saw the rest. A story that eluded you. The Huntress’s salvation. You couldn’t see the meetings to set up the false marriage. You wanted Archer on the throne to bind the Huntress to it as well. You knew of the bond. But not the third piece of it. You never saw Archer Bramwell’s death. Nor the Huntress’s vengeance on her mother. You don’t linger before a mortal queen, nor a struggling demigod. You’re looking into the face of a goddess with more power than she should ever wield.” Minerva’s smile grew wicked. She gestured to Quill, who stood unflinching under the Fates’ scrutiny. “And you certainly never saw her.”
“The child is nothing,” one of the Fates snarled.
“The child,” Minerva said, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, “is one of you.”
Silence crashed through the void like a physical force. The loom’s creaking faltered. The gods that had come to witness gasped.
“Impossible. We would have known. We would have felt?—”
“You would have,” Minerva agreed, “had you not been so consumed by your own schemes, so certain of your victory that you failed to notice what was right in front of you. The Fera’s rare power manifests differently in each bearer. Some manipulate emotion. Some see glimpses of futures.” She looked at Quill with something like pride. “And some can hide threads from those who weave them.”
Quill’s small hand found mine, squeezing tight. The contact grounded me, reminded me why we were here. Not only for vengeance, though that burned bright and fierce within me, but for her. For us. For the family she deserved.
I let my power flare, darkness and light intertwining around me in a deadly dance. “I was always meant to break you. You knew it and you did everything in your power to prevent it. But fate’s funny like that. I’m simply a consequence of your actions. You made me, and now I’m going to destroy you.”
They surged forward as one, their forms blurring together in a twisted mass of rage and desperation. Threads whipped through the air like weapons, seeking flesh to pierce, souls to bind.
Thorne moved with supernatural speed, pulling Quill behind him. Minerva and Tuck closed ranks around her, forming a living shield as was always the plan. I saw the understanding in Quill’s eyes as she ducked behind them, she had known her role from the beginning. To hide us. To give us this moment of surprise.
Now,Levanya whispered.
I let go.
Power erupted from me in a wave of pure destruction. The air cracked, reality bending under the force of my rage. Darkness poured from my skin like smoke, spreading across the floor, climbing the walls, consuming everything in its path.
The Fates screamed, the sound piercing through dimensions as my power tore into them. I could see it happening, the threads of their being unraveling, their carefully woven schemes coming apart at the seams. Needles of fate meant to pierce mortal flesh now turned inward, embedding in their own skin.
“You took him from us,” I snarled, advancing as they retreated. “You manipulated us all, gods and mortals alike, for your own selfish gain.”
Another wave of power surged from me, and the loom groaned under the assault. Nothing else existed. Not the gods at my back, not my family, not even me. Only vengeance. Only anger. Only destruction. Threads snapped, each one releasing a scream. Lives freed from predetermined paths. Destinies unbound from cruel machinations.
The voices in my head reached a fever pitch, a cacophony of screams and pleas and demands. But underneath them all, a single voice rose, clear and steady.Look, Levanya whispered.Look for the thread that binds us to you.
My Huntress power surged forward, seeking, searching through the tangles that made up the tapestry of fate. I could feel it, my own thread, golden and bright, winding through the loom. But there was another thread twined with it, darker, heavier, binding the voices of my past lives to my soul.
I reached for it, my power coalescing around the thread. The Fates shrieked, lunging toward me in desperate unison.
No!Sylvie screamed.
But it was too late. I seized the thread with hands made of Lost and Broken Things, of Renewal and Destruction. Of every layer of stolen power. Of a soul traversing a thousand lives of murder and love. Of a woman lost in grief and loved despite it. Of a child’s frozen fingers scraping along the cobblestone paths of winter alleyways seeking food, refuge. Of a mortal queen, fated to become mad, desperate to be anything else.
And I broke it.
The snap echoed like thunder, reverberating through my bones, my blood, my soul. The Fates collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony as their power bled out of them.
And suddenly, my mind went silent.
The voices—Winter, Sylvie, all of them—vanished in an instant, leaving behind an emptiness so profound it stole my breath. No more whispers. No more screams. No more constant battle for control.
