Chapter 15: The Interest on the Soul

The violet sludge didn't just climb; it devoured. As the liquid void touched the base of the Silver Heart cliffs, the ancient stone didn’t crumble—it dissolved into a humming, purple mist. The High King stood amidst the wreckage of his own fleet, his white-gold armor reflecting the unnatural light of the rift he had torn in the sky.

"Kaelen, get the civilians to the inner sanctum!" I shouted, my voice barely audible over the roar of the collapsing reality. "Now!"

Kaelen didn't argue. He grabbed his journals and slammed a crystal resonator into the floor, creating a temporary tether to stabilize the Great Hall. "Elora, don't try to siphon him! His energy is a mirror of your own—if you pull, he’ll pull back, and you’ll both turn inside out!"

I didn't have time to process the physics of soul-merging. I leapt from the balcony, calling upon the wind. I didn't fall; I glided on a platform of frozen air, my silver scar burning so brightly it turned the skin of my arm translucent.

I landed on the dry seabed, a hundred yards from the High King. The air here felt like static electricity and old blood.

"You’re a long way from the West, 'King'," I spat, the violet veins in my neck beginning to throb.

The High King didn't shift. He didn't even raise his staff. He simply looked at me with eyes that were solid, glowing amethysts. "I am not from the West, Little Queen. The West was merely a convenient tool. I am the Lord of the Tenth Circle—the one who was supposed to inherit the Abyss Throne before your mother decided to play architect with destiny."

He raised his staff, and a wave of violet fire erupted from the sand. I countered by slamming my hands into the ground, unleashing the Full Deprivation. I stripped the fire of its heat, turning the flames into harmless, freezing shards of light.

"You think you understand Deprivation?" The King laughed, a sound like grinding metal. "You only know how to take things away. I know how to make things nothing."

He pointed his staff at me. A beam of absolute darkness shot forward. It wasn't energy; it was a lack of space. Where the beam passed, the air vanished.

I felt a massive weight slam into my side. Thane.

He had tackled me out of the way just as the beam hit the ground where I had stood. The sand vanished instantly, leaving a perfectly spherical hole in the world that hissed with the sound of a vacuum.

"Stay back, Elora!" Thane roared, his shadow-steel armor glowing a dull, angry red. His shadow-wolf form was now thirty feet tall, a towering titan of dark fur and rage. "He’s eating the bond! Every time I get close, I feel the mark on my chest tearing!"

"That’s because he’s a scavenger!" I realized. I looked at the rift in the sky. It wasn't a portal; it was a siphon. He was using the Silver Heart’s own energy to fuel his attacks.

"Jace! The rift!" I projected my thoughts.

"I’m on it!" Jace’s voice echoed in my head, strained and distant. "But it’s not just a hole, Elora! It’s alive! Every time I try to phase through it, it tries to grow a mouth!"

I looked back at the High King. He was walking toward us, his footsteps leaving holes in the earth. He was a living void.

"Thane, I need your strength. Not your wolf, your human heart," I whispered, reaching out to grab the edge of his armor. "He can eat the magic, but he can't eat the choice."

I closed my eyes and reached through the Tri-Mark. I didn't call for the Abyss. I called for the Life-Force of the three men who loved me. I felt Kaelen’s logic, Jace’s spirit, and Thane’s devotion. I didn't siphon them; I invited them.

The silver scar on my arm changed. The violet veins didn't turn white—they turned a brilliant, pulsing gold.

"You want interest?" I screamed, the gold light erupting from me in a pillar that reached the clouds. "Take this!"

I didn't attack the King. I attacked the ground beneath him. But instead of stripping it, I overloaded it. I poured the combined vitality of our four-way bond into the atoms of the seabed. The sand began to grow—not into plants, but into raw, unchecked biological life. Massive vines of silver-gold briars exploded from the dust, wrapping around the High King’s legs and his white-gold armor.

He tried to dissolve them, but for every vine he made "nothing," three more grew in its place. It was the antithesis of the Abyss—pure, chaotic creation.

"Impossible!" the King hissed, his violet eyes flickering. "You cannot create from nothing!"

"I’m not creating from nothing," I said, stepping forward, my eyes now glowing gold. "I’m creating from Us."

With a final surge, the vines dragged the High King down. The white-gold armor began to crack under the pressure of the surging life-force. The rift in the sky began to waver, its violet light being drowned out by the gold.

But as the King’s helmet shattered, I saw the face beneath. It wasn't a monster. It was a man who looked exactly like the father I had once known.

I froze.

"Elora, don't stop!" Thane shouted, but the King used the second of my hesitation.

His staff flared. A shockwave of violet energy exploded, shattering the golden vines and throwing us all backward. The King didn't stay to fight. He looked at me, a trickle of violet blood running down his chin, and smiled a cold, terrifyingly familiar smile.

"The debt is not just power, Elora," he whispered as he floated back toward the closing rift. "The debt is blood. And you’ve only just begun to bleed."

The rift snapped shut, taking the King and the remains of the fleet with it. The violet sludge turned back into harmless sea-water, and the silence returned to the bay.

I sat in the sand, my hands trembling. The gold light faded, leaving me cold and empty.

"Elora?" Jace materialized beside me, looking at the spot where the King had vanished. "Who was that?"

"I don't know," I whispered, looking at my hands. "But he had my father's eyes."