Chapter 92 Chapter 92
AMINA
The golden net in the sky didn't just glow; it screamed. It was a high-frequency vibration that resonated in my teeth, a celestial web designed to catch a god. Every time it pulsed, I felt a sharp, agonizing tug in my lower abdomen. The Null-Point—my baby—was reacting, its own hunger flaring in response to the massive energy field above.
"Get him inside!" I yelled over the roar of the wind, my voice cracking as I gestured toward the medical gurney holding my father. "Silas, take him to the sub-level labs! Now!"
Rian didn't move. He was still standing over Lord Balthazar, his hand clamped around the defector’s throat like a vice. Rian’s eyes were swirling with that bruised obsidian light again, the First Alpha’s influence leaking through his restraint.
"Rian, let him go!" I commanded, stepping between them.
"He’s a Council rat, Amina," Rian growled, his voice a low, predatory rumble. "He brought a beacon into our home. He brought that," he pointed a jagged claw toward the Bone-Cathedral descending through the clouds. "He’s a Trojan horse. I should rip his heart out right here and end the signal."
"If you kill him, we lose the only map we have to Magnus’s head!" I countered, placing my hands on Rian’s chest. The violet light of my palms fought against the darkness of his skin. "Look at him, Rian. He’s terrified. He didn't come here to kill us; he came here because he has nowhere else to hide."
Balthazar was weeping, a pathetic, high-pitched sound that didn't belong to a Lord of the High Council. "Please... Rian... she’s right. Magnus... he’s not the man you knew. He’s not even the man who raised you. He’s a shell."
Rian’s grip tightened for a second, his knuckles white, before he threw Balthazar to the scorched pavement with a grunt of disgust. "If he so much as twitches toward a comms-link, I’ll feed him to the Shadow."
We retreated to the war room in the depths of the Vale Tower, the only place where the reinforced lead and silver shielding could dampen the golden net’s resonance. My father was being stabilized in the infirmary, but the weight of his arrival hung over me like a shroud. I hadn't seen him since I was a child—since the night the Sanitizers burned our library and told me he was dead.
Now, I was a Sovereign, and he was a broken old man being used as bait.
Balthazar sat in a high-backed chair, his charred armor clattering. He looked around the room, at the monitors showing the crumbling defenses of Meridian, and let out a dry, hacking laugh.
"You’re playing at war," Balthazar whispered, looking at Rian and me. "You’re building barricades and sharpening claws. You think Magnus wants your territory? You think he wants the throne?"
"He wants the child," I said, my hand resting protectively over my stomach. "The Null-Point."
"He wants more than that, Amina," Balthazar said, his eyes wide and vacant. "He’s opened the Seventh Gate. The one the First Alphas swore never to touch. He’s invited the Eater of Stars into his marrow."
Rian leaned over the table, his shadow stretching long and jagged across the maps. "Speak plainly, Balthazar, or I’ll stop being patient."
"Magnus is no longer the King," Balthazar whispered. "He is a vessel. There is an entity—an intelligence that predates the Lycans, predates the Earth Pulse itself. It is the original Void. It’s what the First Alphas stole their power from. And Magnus has offered himself as its host."
A vessel, I thought, my skin crawling. I looked at Rian, thinking of the First Alpha currently submerged in his mind. We were all becoming hosts. We were all becoming puppets for things that didn't care about our lives.
"Why the Seers?" I asked. "If he has this power, why is he harvesting my people?"
"Because the Entity is too vast for a Lycan body to contain," Balthazar explained, his voice trembling. "It’s like trying to pour the ocean into a thimble. He needs the Seer bloodlines—the stabilizers—to act as lightning rods. He’s weaving a lattice of Seer souls around his own heart to keep himself from exploding. He’s turning the entire European Council into a living battery."
Rian let out a sharp, cynical laugh. "And you? You just decided to grow a conscience and leave?"
"I saw what he did to the children," Balthazar said, his voice breaking. "He didn't just kill them. He... he unmade them. He turned them into fuel. I may be a bastard, Rian, but I’m not a monster. Not like that."
Rian’s eyes flickered to me, the old-world Alpha in him demanding blood. He’s lying, Amina. He’s a rat jumping a sinking ship. We should extract the data and discard him.
No, I projected back, the hive-mind vibrating with my resolve. He’s broken. And a broken man is the only one who tells the truth about a god.
"Where is he?" I demanded, leaning over Balthazar. "Where is the extraction site? Where is he keeping the Seers?"
Balthazar looked at the floor, his hands shaking so violently he had to tuck them under his thighs. "He’s at the Citadel of Ash. But you won't get close. The Bone-Cathedrals are just the first wave. He’s building something there—a Great Siphon. He’s going to use the Null-Point’s birth as a catalyst to pull the entire Ley-line network of the planet into the Citadel. He’ll become the world, Amina. Literally."
The room shook as a massive explosion rocked the Tower. The golden net was intensifying, starting to pull physical objects toward the sky. I felt the baby kick—a violent, kinetic surge that made the lights in the room flicker and die.
"There’s one more thing," Balthazar said, his voice dropping to a terrifying, hollow whisper.
I leaned in, my heart stopping. "What?"
"You think your mother is dead, don't you? You think she vanished into the Void to save the city."
"I saw it happen," I said, my voice rising. "She sacrificed herself."
Balthazar shook his head, a single tear trailing through the soot on his cheek. "She didn't vanish, Amina. She was intercepted. Magnus has been studying the Void for decades. He didn't let that energy dissipate."
I felt the blood drain from my face. No. Please, God, no.
"She’s in the heart of the Great Siphon," Balthazar whispered, the words hitting me like a physical blow to the chest. "He hasn't just been using the Seer children for fuel. He found the ultimate source. Elena Thorne isn't a ghost, Amina. She’s the Core."
The room went silent, save for the hum of the golden net above.
"What do you mean, the core?" Rian asked, his voice deathly quiet.
"He has her suspended in a stasis-vortex at the Citadel," Balthazar said. "He’s using her connection to you—the Bond of Blood—to track the Null-Point. She’s the anchor. Every time your child breathes, it’s pulling energy through her soul. She’s being used as the literal conduit for the spell that will destroy your city. She’s not just a battery, Amina... she’s the trigger."
The rage that erupted inside me wasn't violet. It wasn't the Earth Pulse. It was a cold, black vacuum that felt like it was born from the Void itself. I looked at the ceiling, through the miles of stone and the golden net, straight toward the Citadel of Ash.
He’s using her. He’s using my mother’s love to kill my baby.
"We're going to Europe," I said, my voice no longer sounding like my own. It was a chorus of a thousand storms.
"Amina, we can't," Rian said, stepping toward me. "It’s a trap. He wants you there. He wants the child at the Core."
"I don't care!" I screamed, the violet light on my skin flaring so bright it scorched the maps on the table. "He has my mother! He’s torturing her soul to fuel his godhood! I’m going to tear that Citadel down stone by stone!"
"Amina, listen to me—"
"No!" I shoved him back, a kinetic pulse throwing him against the wall.
The hive-mind screamed with my agony, a jagged, broken connection. I looked at Balthazar, who was staring at me with pure terror.
"Is she still alive?" I demanded. "In there? Is she conscious?"
Balthazar looked at me, his silver eyes reflecting the violet fire of my own.
"She’s conscious enough to feel it, Amina," he whispered. "And she’s conscious enough to know that the only way to stop the Siphon... is for you to kill her."
As the words left Balthazar’s lips, the monitor behind him flickered to life. It wasn't a tactical map. It was a live feed from the Citadel of Ash. I saw a vortex of black-green light, and in the center, suspended by chains of liquid silver, was Elena. Her eyes were open, glowing with a horrific, necrotic green.
She looked directly into the camera, as if she could see me through the miles of ocean. She didn't speak, but her lips moved. Kill me, she mouthed. Amina, kill me before it wakes up. Below her, the floor of the Citadel began to crack, and a massive, obsidian hand reached up from the depths, grasping for the light.