Chapter 9: THE ULTIMATE CHOICE

The heat from the pit was peeling the skin off my face. My left hand was locked on Kael’s wrist, my muscles screaming as the giant flame-hand pulled him down. In the other direction, buried deep in the white-hot fire, was the child version of me. My innocent soul. The part of me that still knew how to love without pain.

"Help me, Aria," the child whispered. Her voice was like a bell ringing in a storm.

"Aria, let go!" Kael roared. The fire was already catching on his hair. His eyes were wide with a mix of love and terror. "Save yourself! Save your soul! I’m not worth it!"

My heart felt like it was being ripped in two. If I saved Kael, I would lose the last bit of "good" left inside me. I would be a monster forever. But if I saved the child, the man who had stayed by my side, even when he was wrong, would burn into ash.

"Choose!" the Shadow God screamed in my head. "The clock is ticking!"

I looked at the child. She represented my past. Then I looked at Kael. He represented my messy, painful present.

"I don't want the past," I snarled.

I let go of the air. I lunged forward, not reaching for the child but wrapping both my arms around Kael’s neck. I slammed my forehead against his, our foreheads bleeding as the gray energy in my veins exploded.

"I’m not a child anymore!" I screamed into the fire. "And I don't need to be saved!"

I didn't pull Kael up. I pushed us both deeper into the pit.

Kael gasped, his eyes flying open as we sank into the white-hot light. "Aria, what are you doing?"

"Consuming the sun!" I answered.

I opened my mouth and breathed in the flames of the Sun-Eater. My "Power Absorption System" went into overdrive. The screen in my mind flashed red: WARNING! OVERLOAD! 500% CAPACITY! I didn't care. I sucked the fire out of the air, out of the giant hand, and out of the very core of the world. The white flames turned gray as they entered my body, mixing with my Abyssal darkness.

The child, Aria, gave a small, sad smile as she dissolved into the fire. She wasn't a separate person. She was a memory. And I didn't need memories to win a war.

The ground shook with a final, massive boom. The pit vanished. The flames died.

We were thrown back onto the forest floor. I hit the dirt hard, my body smoking. Kael landed beside me, coughing and gasping for air. His armor was melted to his skin in places, but he was alive.

"You... you crazy woman," Kael wheezed, looking at me with awe. "You ate a god."

I sat up, my hair glowing with a faint, silver light. I felt heavy. I felt like I was carrying the weight of the entire world in my stomach.

"Where is she?" I asked, my voice cold.

I looked around the clearing. The king was gone, crushed by the flame hand. But Seraphina was still there. She was crawling toward a small, golden carriage hidden in the trees. She was bleeding from her ears, her "Saintess" gown torn to rags.

"Going somewhere, sister?" I asked.

I didn't walk. I flickered. In a second, I was standing right in front of her.

Seraphina screamed and fell back. She looked at me and saw a god. She saw the end of her world.

"Please!" she begged, her voice high and thin. "I only did what Father told me! I didn't want to throw you in the Abyss! He forced me!"

"Liar," I said. I reached down and grabbed her by her golden hair, forcing her to look at the ruins of the forest. "You enjoyed every second of it. You liked the way the crown felt on your head. You liked the way Kael looked at you."

"Aria, stop," Kael said, walking up behind me. He put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't kill her like this. Not in cold blood. Let the people see her for what she is."

I looked at Kael. Then I looked at Seraphina.

"You're right," I said.

I didn't kill her. Instead, I touched her forehead. I didn't take her life, I took her beauty. I took the "light" that made people worship her.

Within seconds, Seraphina’s golden hair turned gray. Her skin wrinkled. Her bright eyes became dull and blind. She screamed as she felt her youth and power vanish, leaving her a shriveled, old woman in rags.

"Now," I said, dropping her in the mud. "You can live. You can live as a beggar in the kingdom you tried to steal. You can listen to the people cheer for me while you starve in the gutter."

Seraphina sobbed, her toothless mouth working but no words coming out.

"It's over," Kael whispered. He reached out to take my hand, his fingers brushing against mine.

But I pulled away.

I looked toward the palace. The red light was gone, but a new, dark purple light was rising from the towers.

"It's not over, Kael," I said.

I looked at my hands. The black veins weren't just on my arms anymore. They were moving up my neck. They were reaching for my brain.

"What's wrong?" Kael asked, his face full of worry.

"The Sun-Eater... it's too much," I whispered. My vision started to blur. "I can't hold it all. It’s looking for a way out."

Suddenly, the sky turned black again. Not from clouds, but from thousands of black crows circling above us. They weren't birds. They were messengers.

Each crow carried a small, silver scroll. They dropped them all at once, covering the forest in paper.

Kael picked one up. His face went white.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's an invitation," Kael said, his voice trembling. "From the Empire of the North. They say they know who you are. And they say if you don't surrender the power you stole... they will execute every citizen in Luminaire by noon tomorrow."

I looked at the palace, then at the crows.

"Fine," I said, a dark smile returning to my face. "I was getting bored anyway."

But as I turned to walk toward the city, Kael grabbed my arm.

"Aria, look at your shadow."

I looked down. On the grass, my shadow wasn't moving with me. It was standing still, its head tilted to the side.

And then, the shadow reached out and grabbed Kael’s shadow by the throat.