All Chapters of Rosie's Bloom: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Aria POVThe abyss didn’t feel like water anymore.It felt like space dark, endless, swallowing itself in spirals of silver and shadow. My moonfire pulsed out of me in waves, pushing back just enough to keep the three of us from being crushed by the pressure.Clara was trembling from the reflection encounter, but her storm hadn’t dimmed. If anything, her lightning crackled hotter, tighter, angrier.Ares flanked us, gold burning steadier than I’d ever seen. Even here in the goddess’s deepest sanctum he looked like the one piece of reality that couldn’t be rewritten.But the abyss had noticed that.The silver void started twisting.Closing.Folding inward like something was trying to erase the very space we occupied.A shiver crawled down my spine.“She’s collapsing the realm.”Clara snarled, lightning arching upward. “Let her try.”“No.” Ares’s voice was low, tense. “She isn’t destroying it. She’s trying to trap us inside the fold.”And then the floor or whatever counted as

Aria POVThe goddess falters.It’s small barely noticeable unless you’re watching the way I am but I see it. The way her form wavers. The way the ocean behind her ripples out of sync with her movements. The way her eyes those hollow, silver pits shrink when our powers touch.She’s scared.Of us.My pulse steadies, the last of the moonfire settling around me like a second skin. Clara stands on my right, breathing hard, lightning flickering through her fingers. Ares is on my left, tense, gold shimmering in waves with every exhale he forces through clenched teeth.Three lights on a dark shore.She tries to rise again, but the water pulls at her like it suddenly weighs more than she does.“What… did we do to her?” I whisper.Ares keeps his gaze locked on the goddess. “We didn’t weaken her.”Clara answers, lightning buzzing sharply, “We overshadowed her.”The realization hits like a punch: She is incomplete. Broken. A fraction.And we me, Clara, and Ares we are the thing sh

Aria POVThe creature steps forward, and the world seems to shrink around it.Not because it’s enormous though it is. Easily taller than any wolf I’ve ever seen, its shoulders nearly brushing low branches. Its fur crackles with faint streaks of blue-white energy, as if lightning threads through every hair.Not because it’s monstrous though it looks like something carved out of storms and nightmares.No.The world shrinks because its eyes land directly on Clara.And they shine the same shade of stormlight she carries.“Ares,” I whisper, “don’t attack. Not yet.”He tenses but freezes, gold flickering around him like warning light.Clara steps back half a step, lightning coiling around her wrist. “Why does it look like me?”It takes another step forward, slow but purposeful.Not predatory.Not curious.More like… searching.I swallow, sensing the threads around us the web of power, fate, magic, memory and the creature’s aura slips right into the pattern.Recognition flares in m

Aria POVThe moment Ares steps into the clearing, the forest holds its breath.Not metaphorically literally.The wind dies.The branches stop swaying.Even the distant hum of insects fades into nothing.It’s as if the world knows who he is before he fully remembers it.Gold floods outward from his feet, tracing ancient sigils through the soil not random, not chaotic.A pattern.A language older than the goddess herself.My heartbeat stumbles.Those symbols…I’ve seen them in dreams.In visions.Burning on the surface of the sleeping Core beneath the ocean.Clara moves closer to my side. “Aria… those marks… they’re not normal, right?”“No,” I whisper, “they’re not.”Ares stands completely still in the center of that glowing circle, golden sigils rising up his arms, across his chest, etching themselves over his skin like memories carving their way home.His eyes shimmer violently gold and violet and something deeper.His voice comes out low, strained, like he’s speaking through ce

Aria POVThe light cracks open.Not like sunrise. Not like moonrise. Like a wound.Silver splits the horizon in a clean, impossible line, and for the first time since this began, I feel her clearly the Goddess. Not dreaming. Not stirring. Not whispering through visions.Awake.Her awareness sweeps across the world like a cold wind, brushing against the trees, the earth, the sky then locking directly onto us.My breath stutters.She knows where we are.At my left, Clara is pure electricity, hair lifting, lightning racing over her skin. At my right, Ares is barely holding himself together gold flickering like a candle caught in a storm, the breach still tugging at him like a magnet.I grab his face with both hands.“Ares. Look at me.”His eyes fight to focus. “She she’s trying to finish the pull ”“No.” I pull his forehead to mine, power vibrating through my bones. “We decide what happens next. Not her.”The light pulses again, brighter, and something begins stepping forward in