The salt flats hissed beneath my palms. As I surrendered to the hunger, the white crystals didn't just crack; they dissolved into a fine, grey mist. I could feel the heartbeat of the world beneath me, a frantic, rhythmic thumping that slowed as I drained the very vitality of the soil. The sensation was no longer a void; it was a connection. I was the conductor, and the earth was my instrument.
"Rowen, stop!" Aiden's voice was a desperate rasp. He lunged toward me, but he couldn't get close. An invisible perimeter of dead air surrounded me, a vacuum so absolute that his cloak began to fray and disintegrate the moment he breached the ten-foot mark. He fell back, gasping, as the red glow of his pendant flickered like a dying candle.
Above us, the Air-Galleons of the Arcanum descended like vengeful stars. Their hulls were etched with "Sol-Runes," radiating a blinding, holy light meant to purify the darkness. To the common folk of Eden, this was the sight of salvation. To me, it was the sight of a harvesting crew. They weren't here to save the world from the warbeasts; they were here to reclaim the battery that had walked out of their lab.
"The girl! Target the girl!" Malakai's voice echoed across the flats, amplified by the ships' resonance chambers. "Deploy the Null-Nets! Do not damage the marrow!"
Great shimmering webs of silver energy launched from the lead ship, expanding as they fell. They were designed to trap magical entities by reflecting their own power back at them. I looked up, and for the first time, I didn't feel fear. I felt an icy, crystalline clarity. They were throwing magic at a girl who erased it. It was like trying to drown the ocean.
My sister, the grey woman I now knew as Subject No. 1, let out a piercing shriek. At her signal, the Seeker above us dived, its bone-wings tucked tight. Dozens of other shapes began to emerge from the shadows of the Great Wall—warbeasts of all sizes, some multi-limbed and twitching, others massive and serpentine. They didn't attack the ships with claws; they simply stood in a circle around me, their presence amplifying the void I was creating.
"They are giving you their hunger, Rowen," my sister whispered, her voice a ghost in the wind. "Don't fight it. Let them feed through you."
The Null-Nets hit my perimeter. The moment the silver strands touched the air I had claimed, they didn't just snap; they turned to smoke. The recoil hit the lead Galleon like a physical blow. The ship lurched, its Sol-Runes turning black. One by one, the floating vessels began to lose altitude as I pulled the very gravity from their engines.
"Look at what you're doing!" Aiden screamed over the roar of the collapsing ships. He was crawling toward me, his face caked in salt and blood. "You're killing everyone on those ships! There are students up there, Rowen! Initiates who don't know anything about Malakai's secrets!"
His words sparked a flicker of the old Rowen—the girl who cried over a wilted flower. My grip on the earth wavered. The grey mist thinned. In that split second of hesitation, a single Inquisitor, faster than the rest, dropped from the sky. He wasn't using a platform of light; he was falling, guided by a specialized "Drop-Suit" that functioned on mechanical tension rather than magic.
He hit the ground with a heavy thud and fired a jagged, obsidian bolt from a wrist-mounted crossbow. It wasn't a magical projectile. It was cold, hard physical matter.
The bolt tore through my shoulder.
The pain was a white-hot iron. My connection to the earth snapped. The hunger, deprived of its channel, turned inward. I fell to my knees, clutching my shoulder as blood—dark, almost black—seeped through my fingers. The grey aura vanished, and the Air-Galleons regained their hover, their engines roaring back to life with a triumphant hum.
"Rowen!" Aiden was there in an instant, shielding my body with his own. He looked up at the Inquisitor, who was reloading his wrist-bow.
"The Anomaly is neutralized," the Inquisitor signaled to the ships. "Moving in for extraction."
My sister didn't move to help. She stood among the warbeasts, her eyes narrowed. "Is that all you are?" she hissed, her disappointment cutting deeper than the bolt. "A girl who bleeds? If you cannot survive a single sting, then you are not the one I saw in the stars."
"Shut up!" Aiden yelled at her. He turned back to me, his hands shaking as he tried to staunch the wound. "Rowen, listen to me. I can get you out of here. My pendant... it's fully charged with the energy you gave it at the tower. I can use it to create a 'Blink-Gate'. It will take us miles away, but I need you to stay conscious. Don't let the void take you."
I looked at him, my vision blurring. He was so beautiful in the moonlight, his eyes full of a frantic, desperate love. But then I looked at the pendant. The blood-red stone was pulsing in time with his heart.
I was built to be your anchor.
Was he saving me? Or was he just recharging the device that kept me tethered to the Arcanum's leash? The note under my pillow flashed in my mind: He is the only one who knows how to kill you without touching you.
"Aiden," I whispered, my voice thick with blood. "The pendant... it's not for me, is it?"
He froze. For a fraction of a second, his gaze flickered. "What are you saying? It's the only thing keeping us alive."
"It's a regulator," I realized, the pain bringing a strange sort of honesty. "You aren't stabilizing me. You're dampening me. Every time I feel powerful, every time I feel... free... you use that stone to pull me back. You're the cage, Aiden. A beautiful, human cage."
The Inquisitor was ten feet away now, his shadow long and menacing. "Hand her over, boy. Your mission was to secure the asset, not play hero."
Aiden stood up, his sword leveled at the Inquisitor, but his eyes remained on me. "I am protecting you, Rowen! Without me, you'll turn into a monster like her! You'll destroy everything!"
"Maybe everything needs to be destroyed," I said.
I didn't reach for the earth this time. I reached for the bolt in my shoulder. I gripped the obsidian shaft and pulled. The scream that tore from my throat wasn't just human; it was a sonic wave that shattered the Inquisitor's glass visor. I pulled the bolt free and held it.
I didn't let the blood fall to the salt. I commanded it to stay. The black blood began to swirl around the obsidian bolt, coating it in a layer of absolute darkness. I looked at the lead Galleon, where I knew Malakai was watching through a far-glass.
"You wanted to see the Anomaly?" I whispered.
I threw the bolt.
I didn't have the strength of a soldier, but the bolt didn't need strength. It was propelled by the raw, kinetic hunger of my soul. It streaked through the air, a line of pure nothingness. It didn't hit the hull; it hit the Sol-Rune at the ship's heart.
The explosion was silent. A sphere of grey void expanded from the center of the Galleon, consuming wood, metal, and men. The ship didn't burn; it simply ceased to exist. The remaining vessels scattered like leaves in a storm, their pilots screaming in terror as they realized their "holy" magic was useless.
The Inquisitor turned to run, but my sister was faster. She moved like a blur of grey smoke, her obsidian nails catching him across the throat. He fell without a sound.
Aiden looked at the spot where the lead ship had been. He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw it. The love was gone. It was replaced by a cold, naked fear. He took a step back, his hand hovering over the red pendant.
"You've reached the Threshold," he whispered, his voice trembling. "I have to do it. I have to lock it down."
"Don't," I warned, my voice echoing with the power of a thousand warbeasts.
He didn't listen. He smashed the obsidian stone against his palm, intending to trigger the final suppression ward.
But I was no longer the girl who could be suppressed.
I reached out and gripped the air between us. I didn't pull his energy; I pulled the connection itself. The pendant shattered in his hand, the red shards embedding themselves in his skin. He cried out, falling to his knees. The tether was broken. For the first time in my life, I was truly, terrifyingly alone.
My sister walked toward me, the Seeker landing behind her. She looked at the ruined ships, then at the cowering boy, and finally at me. A slow, cruel smile spread across her face.
"Welcome home, Rowen," she said.
She pointed toward the Great Wall. The massive stones were starting to glow with a sickly, internal light. The warbeasts began to howl in unison—a song of triumph.
"The Wall isn't there to keep us out," she said. "It's there to keep the real world from seeing what they've done to the sky. Beyond that wall, the Arcanum has been hiding the truth for a century. Do you want to see what happens when the sun finally sets on their empire?"
I looked at Aiden, who was clutching his bleeding hand, looking at me as if I were a stranger. I looked at the ruins of the Academy's finest ship.
"Show me," I said.
As we walked toward the Wall, the earth itself seemed to move to accommodate us. The warbeasts parted like a dark sea. I was no longer a student. I was no longer a victim. I was the storm that was about to break the world.
And as the gates of the Great Wall began to groan open for the first time in a thousand years, I felt the final rule of magic dissolve.
Rule One: All magic comes with a price.
I smiled as I stepped into the darkness beyond. The price had already been paid. And now, I was coming for the change.