Viktor stood on one side of the shimmering boundary, Stefan a few steps behind him. Across the line Davina held her ground, chin lifted, the other witches clustered behind her in uneasy silence. The air between them hummed with power.
"You've been busy," Viktor said, voice calm but carrying easily. "This barrier is stronger than anything your people have managed in years. Stronger than the ancestral well ever made it. I'm almost impressed."
Davina's eyes stayed fixed on him. "Impressed enough to walk away?"
"No." He tilted his head slightly. "Impressed enough to wonder who is feeding it. You don't have this kind of strength on your own. Not after we capped the well. So I'll ask again. Who gave you the courage—and the power—to stand against us?"
She didn't answer right away. The witches behind her shifted. One of the elders opened her mouth, but Davina raised a hand and silenced her.
"You think you're the only ones who can make deals," she said finally. "You think the city belongs to you because you're older and stronger. But age doesn't make you right. And strength doesn't make you untouchable. We've been preparing for a day like this since the moment you walked back into New Orleans and started rewriting the rules."
Viktor took a single step closer to the boundary. The air thickened. "Preparing is one thing. Killing two of mine is another. Damon and Katherine weren't soldiers in some war you declared. They were family. And you took them from me."
Davina's jaw tightened, but she didn't look away. "They were first bloods. Extensions of you. Symbols. If you wanted them safe, you should have kept them closer."
Stefan made a low sound behind Viktor, but Viktor didn't turn. He lifted one hand and pressed his palm flat against the invisible wall. The barrier flared, light rippling outward. Davina's eyes widened as she felt the pull.
Viktor began to siphon.
The reaction was immediate. The witches staggered. Several cried out. The boundary shuddered under his touch, magic draining toward him in thick, glowing threads. Davina's face went pale.
"Stop—!" one of the elders shouted.
Viktor's eyes glowed faintly as he drew more. The power was vast, deeper than anything the local covens should have been able to produce. He pulled harder, testing the limits, and felt the truth settle into his bones.
The source wasn't finite.
It kept feeding. No matter how much he took, more poured in to replace it. An endless well of energy, clean and cold and ancient. He frowned, mind racing.
The ROB had spoken of gods once—beings who watched from higher planes and occasionally meddled. But gods rarely handed this level of power to a single teenage witch. Not without a price that would have already shown itself. The Guardians? Possible in theory, but he and his family had reached a truce with them years ago, and even then their reserves had never been this deep. This felt bigger. Older. Deliberate.
Gods, then. Or something close enough to them that the difference didn't matter.
Viktor released the boundary. The light faded. The witches gasped as the pressure lifted. Davina straightened, a flicker of smug triumph crossing her face.
"You can't take it," she said, almost breathless. "It's beyond you."
Viktor only smirked. The expression was slow and sharp.
"You still don't understand," he said. "That's the difference between us. You think power is something you borrow. Something you store in a spell or a deal. We don't borrow. We are the power. My family has walked this earth longer than your bloodline has had a name. We have watched empires rise and fall. We have buried gods and raised kings. I am the first tribrid this world has ever seen. I am the reason the night itself learned to fear. You killed two of my blood. You stood behind a wall and called it courage. But walls don't make you strong. They only delay the moment you find out how weak you really are."
He rose from the ground.
His feet left the earth without effort. The sky above the Quarter darkened in seconds, clouds boiling into existence where clear night had been. Lightning cracked across the black canopy, white and violent, answering him like a living thing. The wind picked up, whipping through the streets and sending loose papers and debris skittering.
Viktor's voice rolled out with the thunder, deep and resonant, carrying over the entire witch quarter.
"If I cannot siphon it all… then I will simply destroy it."
Davina's face changed.
For the first time since she had stepped into view, real fear broke through her defiance. Her eyes went wide. The witches behind her stepped back as one. None of them had ever seen an Original command the sky itself. None of them had felt the air answer a single man's will like this. The boundary still stood, but it suddenly looked fragile against the storm gathering above them.
Viktor hung in the air, lightning reflecting in his eyes, the full weight of what he was finally on display.
Davina's voice, when it came, was quieter than before.
"You… you can't just—"
"I can," Viktor said. The thunder underscored every word. "And I will. The only question left is how much of your quarter will still be standing when I'm finished."
Across the city the sudden change in the sky did not go unnoticed.
In the French Quarter tourists stopped mid-step and pointed upward as the clear night turned black in seconds. Street performers fell silent. Jazz spilling from open doors faltered. A woman clutching a to-go cup of coffee whispered, "That ain't normal weather," while her friend just stared, phone forgotten in her hand. Further down Canal Street, drivers slowed and leaned out of windows. The lightning that followed painted the buildings in harsh white flashes, and more than one person crossed themselves without thinking.
In a quiet second-floor apartment overlooking the river, a woman stood at the window with a glass of red wine in her hand. She watched the clouds boil and the lightning answer a single man's will. A slow, interested smile curved her lips.
"Well," she murmured to the empty room, "looks like the Originals finally stopped playing nice."
She took a measured sip, eyes never leaving the storm, already calculating what an enraged Viktor Mikaelson might be worth on the open market.