The thought shakes me down to my marrow.
She needs me. She needs me now.
I slam my trident into the sea, lightning spilling from its tips, and bellow, “We must finish this now!”
Alaric turns sharply from above, his great Dragon’s maw dripping with fire and shadow-blood as he rains hell on the SoulTakers.
Dagan’s roar answers mine, the ocean floor quaking as he bends the bones of the earth beneath the tide.
Together, we surge against Idris’s ships, breaking hulls, crushing masts, hurling SoulTakers into the abyss.
But still—there are too many.
The dome of shadow Idris wields flares, and the sea itself recoils, hissing against the foul magic.
For the first time, doubt cuts through me. Are we enough? Even with all our might, even as Titans and Lords—are we enough?
The crown of the Prime pulses from Castletide—I can feel it calling.
The thing craves an owner, and power, and right now Idris is filling the air with lies that he is the one who has it—no! We must not allow him to win.
Just as I feel myself tearing apart, becoming fractured between duty to Nightfall and duty to her, the sky cracks open.
A bolt of lightning spears downward, splitting the night, and riding it—Thorne.
Cloaked in fire and fury, his eyes blaze molten, his laughter savage as the storm that carries him.
“Did you think I would miss the fun?” he bellows, his voice carried on thunder.
He hurls his flame into the heart of the storm, searing through Idris’s shadow-dome.
The darkness shrieks, splintering under the combined weight of sea, sky, fire, and stone.
Power floods us, each Lord answering the other, our elements weaving together into something older, stronger.
Thorne’s fire swirls forming lightning bolts that light the entire purple sky.
Alaric’s Dragon’s wings whip the wind into a cyclone.
Dagan thrusts his fists into the deep, and tectonic plates grind, vomiting waves that tower like mountains.
I drive my trident forward, and the sea itself rises at my command.
Idris’ ship raises its black sails and with a dark shimmer it blinks out of this realm.
The coward.
The SoulTaker fleet shatters soon after.
Ships buckle, snap, and vanish into the abyss.
Those still bound by Idris’s spell we net with water and stone, to be saved later.
The rest? Oblivion claims them.
The storm calms at last, the waters littered with wreckage and silence heavy as judgment.
I turn to the others, chest heaving, fury still clawing my insides.
