Chapter Seventeen: Nuclear

The next morning came far too fast.

I stood in the clearing with sweat already sliding down my back, hands glowing with an unsteady flare of gold. Snow’s blade flashed toward me in a clean arc.

“Focus, Charlie!” she barked.

I threw my palms up just in time. A burst of light exploded outward—messy, unfocused, more panic than precision—but it was enough to knock her strike off course. The force sent her skidding across the grass, boots digging into the dirt to stop herself.

“Better,” she called, already charging me again, “but not good enough!”

I ducked, rolled, and slammed both hands into the ground. A shockwave pulsed outward, rattling the earth beneath us. Snow leapt over it like the show-off she was, landing effortlessly and spinning back toward me.

Before she could reach me, Phineas lifted his staff.

“Charles. Again.”

The air thickened instantly—pressure closing in around me like invisible hands squeezing my ribs. My legs buckled. My lungs fought for air. Even Snow stumbled, cursing under her breath.

“Grandfather!” she snapped. “You’re pushing him too—”

“He must learn to cast under strain,” Phineas said calmly. “The Wicked will not give him breath to think.”

I grit my teeth, raised shaking hands, and forced the golden energy to gather between my fingers. It flickered violently, like a flame fighting a storm. Come on. Come on.

Phineas’s eyes narrowed. “Release.”

I thrust my hands forward. A concentrated bolt of light shot across the clearing—cleaner than anything I’d formed before—slamming into the boulder Phineas had set up earlier. It cracked straight down the middle with a deafening crack that echoed through the trees.

I stared at my hands, chest heaving. “Holy shi—”

“Language,” Phineas warned.

Snow let out a breathless laugh. “Okay, that was actually impressive.”

But the Wizard wasn’t finished. He tapped his staff once, and the shadows around the treeline began to twist—stretching upward, forming three tall figures made of darkness and smoke. Their heads jerked unnaturally as they turned toward me, hollow eyes glowing faintly.

My blood ran cold. “Phineas… what are those?”

“Fear,” he said simply. “Your fears, given form. They will not harm you—but they will not go easy.”

The shadow-creatures lunged.

I leapt back, firing a volley of blinding sparks that barely slowed them. One swiped at me, its smoky claws passing straight through my shoulder yet filling my body with a searing, icy sting.

Snow rushed in, sword raised. “Charlie, left!”

I pivoted, catching another creature in a burst of light that split its form apart like mist. But two more reformed behind me, faster this time, closing in as Phineas’s voice boomed across the clearing:

“Control your mind, boy! Your fear feeds them—your clarity starves them!”

Clarity. Right. Sure. Super easy to be clear-minded when Nightmares were sprinting at me like Olympic track stars. I slammed my palms together. A ring of golden fire erupted at my feet, exploding outward. The shadow-creatures evaporated with a high-pitched hiss, vanishing into the morning air. Silence fell.

The clearing smelled faintly of ozone, burnt grass, and sweat—mostly mine. Phineas approached, leaning heavily on his staff, eyes sharp.

“Your power grows,” he said softly. “But your control does not yet match it.”

I wiped my forehead with my sleeve, trying to catch my breath. “So… that was round one?”

Snow smirked. “Try round five.”

Phineas nodded once, slowly. “Three days, Charles. That is all we have.”

I lifted my hands again, golden light flickering to life. “Then let’s go again.”

The next round hit harder. Much harder. Phineas lifted his staff, not even bothering to warn me this time. The ground beneath my feet lurched violently, tilting sideways as if the entire forest had been yanked off balance. I lost my footing and crashed face-first into the dirt.

“What the—?!”

“Adapt,” the Wizard’s voice echoed, distorted by the shifting air.

I pushed up, but gravity slammed sideways again, forcing me to use every ounce of strength just to stay upright. Snow sprinted across the tilting ground like it was nothing, blade flashing. “C’mon, Charlie! If the Wicked warps the terrain, what are you going to do—faceplant at him?”

“That wasn’t a faceplant,” I grunted, crawling onto my feet. “It was a tactical… ground-assessment.”

Snow barked a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Charles,” Phineas snapped, “focus!”

The Wizard raised his staff again. A wave of shimmering heat rolled across the clearing, and before I could react—

—all color drained from the world. My chest tightened.

The sky above was now red. The trees twisted into black silhouettes.

Ash drifted from nowhere. My legs locked in place.

The Oracle’s vision. The red sky. The burning world.

My breath came in quick, shallow gasps. “Phineas—stop. Stop, I can’t—”

“You must,” Phineas said sharply. “If you freeze in the vision, you die in the reality.”

The air thickened, choking me. The world around me warped further—distant screams, flickers of flame, silhouettes that looked like Carter’s shape appearing in the smoke—

My palms burned with light.

“Charlie!” Snow’s voice pushed through the nightmare. “Hey—look at me! Not him. Me!”

I ripped my gaze away from the vision. Her eyes—sharp, steady—pulled me back. The red sky wavered. The ash flickered. My heartbeat slowed just enough for me to drag a breath into my lungs. And then the light burst out of me. A shockwave of brilliant gold tore through the false world. It shattered like glass, the red sky cracking open until color came spilling back, the real forest replacing it piece by piece. When it finally disappeared, I was on my knees, gasping, sweat streaming down my face.

Phineas stepped forward, planting his staff in the earth. “Good,” he murmured. “Better than yesterday.”

“That was cruel,” Snow snapped. “He isn’t ready for that kind of—”

“Snow,” Phineas said tiredly, “the Prophecy does not care whether he is ready.”

I swallowed hard, wiping my face with a shaking hand. “Do it again.”

Snow turned to me, eyes blazing. “Are you insane? You nearly passed out!”

“I don’t care.” My voice came out rough, cracked. “If Carter’s going to lose himself in three days, then I don’t get to take breaks.”

Phineas studied me for a long moment—eyes old, unreadable.

Finally, he nodded. “Very well.”

He raised his staff again.

Snow groaned. “This is actual torture.”

“Welcome to saving the world,” I muttered.

The light flared between my hands again, burning brighter than before.

The red sky stretched on endlessly, bleeding into the twisted forest around me. Ash fell in thick, choking sheets, coating my hair, my robes, even my skin.

And there—Carter.

He stood a few feet away, but something was wrong. His eyes… they weren’t his. They glowed faintly, burning with something dark and hollow. His movements were jerky, unnatural, like a puppet caught between two worlds. He lifted a trembling hand toward me.

“Charlie…” His voice was both him and not him, warped, echoing through the suffocating air. “You… can’t save me… You can’t save anyone…”

I stumbled back, heart hammering. “Carter, it’s me! You’re okay! You’re—”

The figure laughed, a hollow, terrible sound that made the hair on my arms rise. The ash swirled around him, and every step he took left scorched footprints in the ground, though I knew the forest wasn’t burning. The red sky pulsed, as if feeding on the fear gnawing at me.

“Focus!” Phineas’s voice snapped through the nightmare. “If you falter, you’ll die in reality.”

I willed my hands to glow, and the light flared between my palms. It shimmered, humming with energy, alive, and I poured every ounce of fear, love, and desperation into it.

The golden light erupted outward, forming shapes—my fox, my hawk, my lynx, even the bear. They leapt from me into the vision, circling Carter, pushing against the shadows, trying to shield me from the corrupted version of my friend.

“Charlie…” the vision whispered again, voice bending with anguish. “Why… why are you fighting me? You don’t even know me anymore…”

The bear roared, a wave of golden energy smashing into Carter’s figure, forcing him backward. The fox darted at his feet, scattering the ash that tried to coil around him. The hawk dove, talons glowing, slicing through the smoke that warped his movements.

I shouted, forcing my focus. “I know you, Carter! You’re not this! You’re not this!”

For a heartbeat, I thought it worked. His glowing eyes flickered, hesitation crossing his twisted form. But the vision surged again, stronger, louder, feeding off my panic, pulling at my mind.

I grit my teeth, refusing to look away. “I don’t care what this is! I won’t let you—won’t let him—destroy you or anyone else!”

The golden light between my hands exploded outward in a blinding pulse, washing through the nightmare. The red sky cracked, the ash swirled violently, and Carter’s figure froze mid-step, caught between the corrupted illusion and my power. And then, slowly… he blinked.

For a split second, it was him again. Carter, real, alive—or at least recognizably him. The hollow glow in his eyes softened, and he staggered, gasping like he’d just surfaced from water. The illusion wavered, shadows snapping back toward nothingness, the red sky splintering into shards that dissolved.

I collapsed to my knees, chest heaving, golden light flickering faintly in my palms. “Carter… it’s okay… I’ve got you,” I whispered.

The vision finally shattered, leaving only the familiar forest and the real, breathing Carter nowhere near me—but the memory of his face in that red sky, twisted and hollow, burned in my mind.

Snow crouched beside me, eyes wide. “You… you kept him in check. That could have gone so wrong.”

I swallowed hard, shaking. “It almost did.”

Phineas planted his staff in the dirt, eyes unreadable. “The vision is not your enemy,” he said slowly. “It is your lesson. Remember him. Remember why you fight.”

And deep in my chest, the light still hummed, alive, waiting for the next test.

The world rebuilt itself around me piece by piece, the red sky splintering into pale blue. The ash dissolved. The warped shadows melted back into trees. And Carter—whatever twisted version of him the vision had conjured—was gone.

Only my ragged breathing remained.

Phineas didn’t give me long.

“Again,” he said.

Snow rounded on him. “Grandfather, he’s going to collapse.”

“He must collapse,” Phineas replied evenly. “And then stand back up.”

Before I could protest, the ground buckled again—but this time, I was faster. I caught myself, light flaring instinctively at my feet, anchoring me. The sky flashed crimson, the aurora of ash swirling—

But I didn’t freeze.

I shaped the light before the fear could root itself. A wolf this time—large, snarling, made of pure gold. It launched forward with a howl, ripping through the first wave of fire. Phineas raised his staff. The illusion thickened, shadows clawing at my vision, twisting into Carter’s outline once more.

This version staggered toward me, reaching, pleading. “Charlie… don’t leave me…”

My breath caught. But then I remembered the real Carter—sarcastic, stubborn, impossible Carter—who would never beg, never crumble, never call for me like this.

“Not real,” I whispered. “You’re not him.”

The wolf lunged through the illusion, breaking it apart. The fake Carter dissolved into sparks of crimson light.

Snow watched, stunned. I kept going.

A jaguar formed at my left, teeth bared. A stag at my right, antlers glowing like molten sun. They charged into the oncoming hallucinations—shadows, flames, warped silhouettes of people I knew—Crushing them.

Dispelling them. Protecting me.

My heart still pounded, fear still gnawed at the edges, but it couldn’t drown me anymore.

Not with the light roaring inside me.

The sky broke open once more. The red bled out. The ash stopped falling.

And this time, when the illusion cracked—

I didn’t fall with it. I stood.

Breathing hard. Shaking. But standing.

For a long moment, the clearing was silent.

Then Phineas lowered his staff.

The shift in the air was immediate—like the entire forest exhaled at once. Snow stared at me like she’d never seen me before. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen myself before either. Phineas stepped toward me, folding both hands over the top of his staff. His expression—usually unreadable, carved from centuries—softened.

“Charles,” he said quietly. “Enough.”

I blinked, disoriented. “Did… did I mess up?”

“No.” His voice dropped, deep and resonant. “You succeeded.”

The words hit me harder than any illusion.

Snow let out a breath she’d been holding for what had probably been hours. “Finally,” she muttered. “I thought he was going to break the entire forest.”

“Perhaps he has,” Phineas said, with something like pride tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But better the forest than himself.”

I could barely process the victory, the warmth still pulsing behind my ribs. “So… what now?”

Phineas studied me—the shaking hands, the sweat-streaked face, the exhaustion and stubborn defiance that hadn’t burned out even when I’d been dragged through a nightmare.

Then he nodded. “You are ready.”

The words sank into me like light itself—warm, blinding, unreal.

Ready. For Carter. For the Prophecy. For whatever nightmare the Wicked planned for us.

Snow walked up beside me, bumping my shoulder with hers. “Ready doesn’t mean you get to stop whining, though.”

I huffed a tired laugh. “Good. I thought you’d gotten soft.”

Phineas tapped his staff once against the earth. “Rest now. Both of you. Soon, our true battle will begin.”

I looked down at my hands—still faintly glowing—and swallowed hard.

Ready.

For the first time, I actually believed it.

A sudden crack of earth-shattering thunder tore through the clearing—violent enough to rattle the ground beneath our feet. The three of us froze. Even the wind seemed to stop breathing.

Then we looked up.

And my entire world dropped out from under me.

The sky was bleeding.

Not just red—bleeding—as if some colossal wound had been carved into the heavens and left to spill out across the clouds. Crimson seeped through the blue, twisting and churning until black veins spider-webbed through it, swallowing the daylight whole.

My stomach plummeted.

My skin went cold.

My pulse hammered like it wanted out.

Snow staggered backward, her face draining of every ounce of color. “No… no, no—this is too soon.”

Phineas didn’t speak. For the first time since I’d met him, the old Wizard’s eyes—usually so calm, so steady—shone with pure, unmasked dread.

I tore my gaze from the sky and rounded on him, heat rising in my throat. “What the hell is going on?! You said we had time! You said—”

“The Wicked had other plans,” Phineas said quietly, his voice hollow, stripped of its usual certainty. “He has begun.”

Those three words sliced through me like a blade. He has begun. My chest tightened.

Carter.

Carter was out there—under that bleeding sky—becoming something he never wanted to be.

Phineas snapped out of his paralysis, his voice suddenly sharp. “Snow! Get the horses tacked—now!”

Snow bolted toward the stable, her panic echoing through the clearing.

The Wizard then faced me, stepping close enough that the embers in his pipe cast faint light across his grim expression. “Charlie,” he said, and my name carried the weight of a prophecy I wasn’t ready to bear. “Listen to me.”

I swallowed, hard.

“This is the moment you have been training for,” he said, “Child of the Sun. It begins now. You cannot falter. You cannot fear. You cannot run.”

The sky cracked again—another thunderous tear through the heavens—showering us in falling ash that hadn’t existed seconds ago.

Phineas placed a hand on my shoulder, eyes steady despite the chaos above. “The world is shifting. Carter is slipping. And if you do not reach him first…” His voice lowered, grief threaded through the warning. “There will be no world left to save.”

I looked at the bleeding sky, letting the fear in my chest harden into something sharper, hotter—something resolute. “Then let’s go.”

Phineas nodded once. “Prepare yourself.”

And as the world burned red overhead, we moved—toward the horses, toward the darkness, toward the fate that had finally come for us.