I didn't speak for a long time after she vanished.
Words felt useless—too small for what had just torn through me and left me hollowed out and burning all at once. We made camp beneath a cluster of twisted trees whose roots clawed above the soil like something trying to escape. The fire Rowan lit stayed low and blue, as if it feared me.
Elara sat across from me, her face streaked with tears she no longer tried to hide.
"I thought if I divided it," she said quietly, "if I let part of you sleep… you could choose a life untouched by what they feared."
I stared into the fire. "You chose for me."
Her breath hitched. "Yes."
The truth settled heavily between us—not explosive, not dramatic. Just devastating in its simplicity.
Rowan broke the silence. "What was done can't be undone the same way. Whatever she separated is already finding its way back."
I felt it even now—a pressure beneath my skin, like veins remembering their purpose. Power didn't surge anymore. It waited.
Nyxara's presence lingered at the edges of my thoughts, not speaking, not guiding. Watching.
"What happens when it's whole?" I asked.
Rowan's jaw tightened. "The world notices."
Elara reached for my hand. I didn't pull away, but I didn't hold on either. "They erased her because she refused to be owned," she said. "Nyxara didn't rule. She didn't conquer. She existed beyond permission."
"And that terrified them," I murmured.
"Yes."
The fire flickered, responding to the shift in me. I could feel its hunger, its patience. I understood then that magic wasn't something I wielded—it was something that recognized me.
Sleep came eventually, but it was different.
I stood in a vast, endless dark. No ground, no sky—only presence. Nyxara emerged from the shadows, not fully formed, her edges blurred like a memory still deciding to stay.
"You are afraid," she said.
"I should be," I answered.
She smiled. "Fear means you are not me. That is good."
"What do they want from us?" I asked.
Nyxara's expression hardened. "Control. Or extinction."
I swallowed. "And you?"
"I want you to live," she replied. "But living has a cost."
The darkness shifted, revealing countless threads of light—some broken, some burning, all connected to me.
"When you become whole," Nyxara continued, "you will not be able to hide again. Not from them. Not from yourself."
I woke before dawn, heart pounding, the echo of her words etched into my bones.
I rose quietly, stepping away from the sleeping camp. As the first light crept over the horizon, I raised my hand—not in anger, not in fear—but in curiosity.
The air answered.
Power gathered, calm and precise, bending gently to my will. I let it go just as easily, breath steady, mind clear.
I understood something then that none of the lies had prepared me for.
Becoming wasn't a single moment.
It was a choice I would have to make again and again.
And somewhere beyond the waking world, the ones who remembered were already deciding how to stop me.