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I stiffened, not expecting her to turn against Hadi so suddenly, her chosen one as she put it.
Nothing she was saying or doing made any damn sense. But if she gave me the power to destroy the nocs, I would have to cut them down.
My heart ached, but I steeled my resolve.
Right now, I would end Hadi! I had to. Despite my legend, I had consistently failed those closest to me. First, my family and then my dearest friends who fell on the battlefield, or more recently, when they were captured and enslaved.
I refused to be a hostage to my failures a moment longer. I held the keys to ending the war in my hands. I just had to be willing to open the lock, to remove the tether.
“Undo the tether,” growing a backbone stronger than blood onyx now, I implored Tsuki to give me the power to end Alhayda, who simply frowned, chin raised, defiant even now. “So that I may end him without perishing.”
“You will perish with them if I do, or if I don’t,” Tsuki whispered eerily as her face pressed against the mirror, melting, pushing through the magical glass as it rippled like water. “The tether, strong or severed, binds your souls. But when it is strong, ohh, you can become the conqueror of realms! Your bonds will reshape the world. You, Sun, given to the King of the Night. You are Hadi’s blade that will usher in a new dawn.”
This was news to me. This time Clem wailed, banging against his glass tomb, but I shrugged.
“So be it. I will end him as you commanded, even if it ends me.”
She clenched her blackened teeth, the gnashing stinging my ears, blood leaking from her blindfold until it stained her dress.
“That is not my will! Listen and hear me, Sun. Destroy the one who betrayed me. Destroy the false emperor who occupies the chosen’s rightful throne. The false noc king Daaku and his followers will fall beneath your feet, cut down like blades of grass if you remain united. Bring me back to my husband. Save us all, Sun, before it is too late, and I am banished from this realm!”
“Stop!” Hadi shouted as I was yanked from him by a supernatural force, my body suspended mid-air in front of Tsuki’s portal.
“G-goddess!” I screamed, immobilized, as her cold, withered hands broke through the glass and clutched at my face.
It was like her whole body was decaying before my eyes.
Hadi was moving, his legs stroking the air behind my head. But she must have put up another shield to stop him, and now I was completely under her control.
Tsuki’s blindfold slipped away, and I wailed, her face indescribable, a swirling mass of darkness that could not be perceived.
Yet, she still wept like a child.
Her tears fell into my eyes like shards of starlight, unraveling the past, present, and a strange future that blinded me to all else. A book held by my emperor, a spell with creatures of the night thrown into a cauldron, a secret that sparked a war without rhyme or reason, leaving our world in ruins. The truth was before me, and it was undeniable.
And it could not be true!
“Unhand me! Unhand me now you lying harlot!” I screamed, crushed in her grasp. I kicked and fought and denied her revelations.
How could I trust her? I couldn’t! She was lying. Why would the emperor create these monsters, and use them against us? Why would the nation’s father do such a thing?
How could Emperor Gaulu be the creator of the nocs? It simply wasn’t true!
“No… No!” I cried out, falling to the ground as Tsuki retreated, fading into the inky void, her body crumbling away.
And then, Hadi’s manic laughter took over all else.
“Can you feel it Sun, the truth flowing through our veins, through the tether, through her memories? I knew my father had to be more ruthless than this wench.”
“No! Shut up! You–” I shouted but was silenced by her continued wailing.
“ENOUGH!” she bellowed, as the mirror world too faded away, her glass portal shattering from the force of her scream. Only her voice remained.
“Emperor Gaulu must face punishment! Balance can only be restored by my chosen acolytes! Only you can carry out my will before all of Naran perishes!”
Bloody moonlight flooded the world, and we were thrown back into the snow in a heartbeat. Hadi caught me, holding me in his arms for a moment before he just as easily tossed me aside.
Kiar, Bracken, and Clem were suddenly beside us, and Tsuki’s temple was no more as snow drifted down from the pillar of light left behind, blood red, shrinking faster and faster until it was gone.
