Chapter 323
It starts with the bells.
Shrill and frantic, they echo across the palace like the ringing of a death knell—cutting through the music, the glitter, the gasps. The once-perfect ballroom cracks at the seams under the sound, as if the world itself is warning us.
Above, the great glass dome trembles.
Shoal stands at the center of the ballroom, arms still raised as the first shadow slices across the sea. It’s subtle at first, like a bruise spreading through the water overhead. Then—too quickly, too wrong—the eclipse devours the light.
“A moment of silence,” he says softly. “For the end of an age.”
I feel my stomach twist. A ripple in the Ether. A pressure. A coldness that has nothing to do with the temperature of the sea. I know that feeling.
Leviathan is stirring.
I stumble, grabbing Wake’s arm as a flash of vertigo slices through me. It’s as if a great eye has opened somewhere in the deep and turned its gaze on the world. I don’t see him—he’s still bound, still buried in his prison—but every part of me knows that he’s aware. The celestial event, the activation of Darklite across Estellis, the surge of energy—he feels it. And he’s responding.
Delphi catches me by the elbow. “Phoebe?”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “He’s… awake. Not all the way. But enough.”
She nods grimly. Her hand tightens on mine. I look over her shoulder—Khale has drawn his sword, standing protectively in front of Cora. Miore’s eyes glow faintly, hands twitching at his sides, unsure. Nuala looks like she’s already calculating escape paths and attack patterns.
And still, Shoal speaks.
“All your sacred lines,” he says, voice rising as he takes to the dais like a stage. “Were once accidents. Chaos shaped into order. But you held onto that chaos. You buried it in ritual. You wrapped it in silk and salt and silence.”
He gestures toward the nobles, toward Lovelace, toward Petra.
“You turned power into a throne. And then chained yourselves to it.”
Lovelace finally steps forward, regal even in the face of armed betrayal. “What you propose is not evolution—it’s anarchy.”
“No,” Shoal says, descending the dais to face the room. “It’s correction. A return to the source.”
He lifts a hand—and the walls of the ballroom begin to hum.
I feel it in my teeth first. Then in the water itself.
The palace is built on a foundation of Darklite. I knew that, we all did. But what I didn’t know—what none of us could have anticipated—is that it’s not just built on it. It’s connected to it. Laced through the crystal walls, the marble floors, the ancient stone beneath. All of it one massive conduit.
And Shoal has activated it.
Darklite pulses through the palace in jagged lines, glowing brighter, turning everything not gilded or alive into veins of power. The light rises up the columns, underfoot, up the dais, into the ceiling—and shoots skyward like a beacon.
He’s using the palace as a siphon.
“This world has been shackled by tradition long enough. You and the other Heirs cling to a system that’s already failed. You don’t even see it—how little you truly lead.”
He gestures toward the nobles, still frozen in terror.
“They cower because they’ve never been taught another way. Because the gods told them only a chosen few could carry power. I reject that.”
“And what, you’ll force power into their hands?” I shout. “You’ll steal it from Leviathan like it’s yours to give?”
“It is mine!” Shoal bellows. “Because I’m the only one willing to take it. Power belongs to the bold.”
“And what happens when you take too much?” Wake growls, stepping forward, lightning sparking along his arms. “What happens when your body gives out? When your mind breaks? We’ve seen what happens when you try to contain something that isn’t meant for you.”
“I’ll become more,” Shoal answers simply. “Not a god. Not a tyrant. A herald. A new path forward. No more bloodlines. No more shrines. Only the raw will to change.”
Across the room, nobles are fainting, seizing, or falling to their knees, overwhelmed by the pressure in the water. Shoal’s enhanced soldiers hold steady, their expressions blank. Controlled. Lily watches with fascination as her soldiers herd the rest of the ballroom into clusters—cutting off exits, penning in the families, cornering the weaker Heirs.
It’s a full takeover.
Axel, still under her sway, stands at the center of it all, face unreadable, mouth set in grim lines. Wake is staring at him like he’s seeing a stranger. I reach for his hand again and squeeze. He doesn’t look at me.
Delphi breaks away from us.
“Delphi!” I hiss. “What are you—”
But she’s moving toward Axel.
Fast. Graceful. Determined.
Lily sees her.
So do I.
“No—Delphi, don’t!”
Too late. Delphi dives, a flash of green silk, and grabs both sides of Axel’s face—she begins to sing. The Ether flares.
Axel shouts in pain and drops to his knees. Delphi holds on, mouth tight with effort, her whole body glowing as she rewrites the connections woven by the hivemind, pushing through the fog in his mind.
Lily screams. The sound is piercing, crystalline. She hurls a spear of energy at Delphi—
And shoots her.
The sound is muffled underwater, but it’s unmistakable. A modified gun, hidden in her robes, fires a slug of Darklite directly into Delphi’s side. She collapses in Axel’s arms.
Everything explodes in movement.
Wake is there in an instant, slamming a statue into Lily with the brute force of a train. Cora rushes forward and swings her blade in a clean arc that slices through the barrel of Lily’s weapon. Lily screams, writhing.
I’m on my knees beside Delphi before I even realize I moved. Her body is trembling, her skin already pale, lips tinged with violet. The Darklite wound pulses, corrupting her Ether link.
“No. No no no,” I whisper, hands flying to her chest. “Stay with me. Delphi, stay with me.”
Cora drops beside me, grabbing my hand. “We have to link. Now.”
We do.
The moment our palms connect over Delphi’s heart, the Ether roars between us. Delphi gasps, her back arching as our energy floods into her. It’s not enough to erase the wound—but it stabilizes her.
“You’re going to be okay,” I say, brushing hair from her brow. “You hear me? You matter. You did something no one else could do. You broke her spell.”
And she did.
Because across the ballroom, Axel’s eyes are clear.
He rises slowly, like someone coming out of a trance. Looks at his hands. At the soldiers still obeying his last command. Then at Wake.
Then at me.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
And he lifts his voice. “Stand down.”
The Abyssinian Guard hesitates. Lily shrieks something unintelligible, voice splintering.
Axel roars: “Stand down!”
And they do.
One by one, the soldiers lower their weapons. Confused. Dazed. Lily watches in horror as her carefully orchestrated army begins to crumble from within.
Shoal doesn’t look back. He doesn’t care.
He’s too far gone.
He’s stepped onto the dais now, face serene, body trembling with the force of the power rushing through the palace. His armor is glowing brighter. The veins of the floor are starting to split. The city itself is cracking.
Wake pulls me to my feet.
“It’s starting,” he says, voice low. “The siphon. The final draw.”
I glance at the sky—at the eclipse, still burning black above us, framed by meteors like a crown of fire.
Leviathan is coming.
And if Shoal succeeds in draining him—
He won’t just change the world.
He’ll end it.
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