Chapter 78 Chapter 78
AMINA
The air in Zora’s parlor didn't just turn cold; it curdled.
Dominic stood in the wreckage of the doorway, a hulking, twitching monument to Magnus’s depravity. He looked like a man who had been turned inside out and stitched back together with glowing green wire. The necrotic energy humming off him was so thick I could taste it—a flavor of rot and artificial power that made my stomach lurch.
"Get Ethan out of here," I hissed to Zora, who was scrambling out of the shadows, her charcoal skin bruised.
"The back exit," she rasped, not needing a second invitation. "But Amina—he isn't just a wolf anymore. He’s a conduit. Don't let him touch the floorboards."
I didn't have time to ask what the fuck that meant. Dominic moved.
He didn't run; he translated across the room in a blur of sickly green light. He slammed into Rian before my mate could even raise his claws. The impact sounded like a car crash—metal on bone. Rian was thrown backward, crashing through a shelf of preserved scrolls and into the obsidian wall with a force that made the entire building groan.
"Rian!" I screamed.
"Focus, little bird!" Dominic’s voice was a wet, layered growl.
He turned his attention to me, his eyes wide and leaking a viscous green fluid. Behind him, three more rogues stepped through the ruins of the door. They were "Void-Born"—distorted, twitching versions of the wolves I’d seen in the alleyways, their skin covered in the same glowing runes as Dominic.
"The water," one of them hissed, his jaw unhinged. "The King wants the city to drink."
My blood went cold. The "Neutral Zone" sat directly atop the main reservoir for the Southern District. If they dumped that necrotic poison into the supply, thousands of humans would wake up with their souls dissolving before they even finished their morning coffee.
"Not today, you pieces of shit," I snarled.
I reached deep into the Earth Pulse. I didn't want to kill them—not yet. I still had this naive, desperate hope that Magnus’s victims could be saved, that the light could wash away the rot. I channeled a Mercy Pulse—a wave of pure, crystalline kinetic energy designed to neutralize the necrotic glow and soothe the central nervous system. It was the same frequency I’d used to calm the pack during the first Awakening.
The white-violet light erupted from my palms, washing over Dominic and his squad in a beautiful, blinding wave.
I waited for them to collapse. I waited for the green rot to fade.
Dominic stood there, the white light washing over his face like a summer breeze. He didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. He just let out a jagged, mocking laugh that sent a chill straight down my spine.
"Kindness?" he spat, the green light in his veins flaring brighter. "You’re trying to heal a weapon, Amina? Magnus didn't just give us power. He gave us a purpose. And your 'mercy' feels like a tickle."
He lunged.
I barely rolled out of the way as his fist shattered the floorboards where I’d been standing. The Mercy Pulse had done nothing. It had slid right off him like water off a duck's back.
His magic is immune to my intent, I realized with a sickening jolt. He’s not just possessed; he’s been hollowed out. There’s no soul left to appeal to.
"Amina! Move!" Rian roared.
He was back on his feet, his Ascended runes screaming with a blinding white intensity. He tackled Dominic from the side, and the two of them went through the back wall of the parlor and into the damp, dark tunnels of the reservoir access.
I turned to the three rogues. They were already moving toward the massive filtration pipes that fed the city. They were carrying glass canisters filled with a swirling, black-green liquid—the concentrated essence of the Void-Rot.
"Stay back," I warned, my voice dropping an octave. "I won't ask again."
"The King says the Hybrid is a coward," the lead rogue hissed. "He says you’re too afraid of your own shadow to be a Sovereign."
He threw the canister.
I didn't think. I reacted. I caught the glass in a kinetic stasis field, suspended inches from the intake pipe. But as my energy touched the canister, I felt a sharp, burning pain in my mind. The Void-Rot wasn't just physical; it was a psychic toxin. It began to eat at my stasis field, the black-green liquid vibrating with a malicious intelligence.
I slammed the rogue against the ceiling with a flick of my wrist, but the other two were already on me. I felt claws tear through the shoulder of my cloak, drawing blood.
Fuck 'mercy.'
I inverted the pulse. I didn't push; I pulled. I yanked the kinetic energy out of the air around the rogues, creating a localized vacuum. Their eyes bulged, their lungs collapsing as I compressed the space they occupied. It was brutal, clinical, and it felt terrifyingly easy.
They fell to the floor, unconscious or dead, I didn't care. I turned back to the reservoir access just as a massive explosion of green fire rocked the tunnels.
I ran into the dark, the smell of damp stone and ozone thick in my throat. I found them fifty feet down, near the main pressure valves.
Rian was pinned against a massive iron pipe. Dominic had one hand around Rian’s throat, and the other was buried in Rian’s shoulder. The green necrotic energy was flowing from Dominic’s hand directly into Rian’s Ascended runes, turning the white light to a sickly, mottled grey.
Rian was choking, his claws scratching uselessly at Dominic’s reinforced skin. He was being siphoned. Magnus’s "Void-Alpha" was literally eating the King of Meridian.
"Let him go!" I screamed.
I didn't use a pulse. I used a Kinetic Spear. I focused every scrap of my rage into a single, needle-thin point of force and launched it. It pierced Dominic’s side, erupting out the other side in a spray of black ichor, but he didn't even let go of Rian. He just turned his head, his neck snapping with a series of wet cracks.
"You're late for the show, Amina," Dominic rasped.
He threw Rian aside like a broken doll. Rian hit the wet floor and didn't move, his skin grey, the runes on his chest flickering like a dying lightbulb.
I rushed to him, sliding on the slick stone, but Dominic was faster. He caught me by the hair, yanking my head back until I was staring up at his ruined, glowing face.
"Magnus was right about you," Dominic whispered, his breath smelling of copper and rot. "You’re a beautiful little tragedy. You think you’re a Queen because you can move the earth? You’re just a girl holding a magnifying glass while the world burns."
I tried to summon the Earth Pulse, but my hands were shaking. The proximity to his necrotic energy was dampening my connection. It felt like trying to light a match in a hurricane.
"You think you're saving her, don't you?" Dominic asked, his grin widening to reveal those obsidian-stained teeth. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a register that felt like a needle in my ear. "You think if you break the link, your Mother will come home and bake you cookies?"
"Shut up," I hissed, blood leaking from a cut on my forehead.
"She’s already gone, Amina. Magnus didn't just take her soul. He gave her a new one. A better one."
He leaned in so close I could see the tiny, writhing worms of green light in his pupils. He gripped my throat, not enough to kill me, but enough to ensure I felt every vibration of his voice.
"I saw her before we left the flagship," Dominic whispered. "She looked at the bookstore ruins on the monitor. She didn't cry. She didn't even flinch."
He paused, a cruel, mocking light in his eyes.
"She whispered something to the King. She told him to make sure I told you."
"What?" I choked out, my fingers clawing at his hand.
Dominic’s smile turned into something truly horrific—a mask of pure, unadulterated malice that made the Void in my gut scream in recognition.
"She said the bookstore wasn't the only thing she wanted to see burn, Amina. She told the King... to start with the heart."
He slammed me against the iron pipe, the back of my head hitting the metal with a sickening crack. My vision went white. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Dominic let out a roar of triumph as he reached for the main reservoir valve.
"Meridian is thirsty!" he shouted. "Let's give them a drink of the Void!"
As my consciousness began to flicker, I saw Rian’s hand twitch. But it wasn't gold light that emerged from his fingers.
It was a trail of pure, liquid shadow.
As Dominic turned the valve, the water didn't rush out. Instead, the entire reservoir system let out a sound like a dying god. The pipes didn't burst—they liquefied. I looked at Rian, and my heart stopped. He wasn't Ascended anymore. He was something else. His eyes were gone, replaced by twin pits of absolute darkness, and the shadow-matter from his hand was snaking up Dominic’s leg like a living parasite.
Rian didn't stand up; he drifted off the floor, his voice echoing from the walls without his lips moving. "The King is dead, Dominic. Meet the Void."