Chapter 325
Shoal’s body convulses the second I touch him.
My hand slams against the center of his chestplate, and the Ether pours from me into him—wild, luminous, and uncontrolled. My knees buckle, but I hold on, teeth clenched against the roar building inside my skull.
The power isn’t elegant. It’s not some divine stream guided by calm intention. It’s a storm. A maelstrom. It burns through both of us, and I can feel Shoal’s breath catch—feel his resistance harden into a wall.
He doesn’t understand what I’m doing. Not yet.
"Phoebe!" Wake’s voice cuts through the chaos behind me. He’s charging toward us, lightning dancing in the air around him like furious serpents, but Cora catches his arm.
“No—wait,” she says, her eyes wide, locked on me.
Because the light’s changing.
Shoal stumbles backward, but I don’t let go. He glares at me through eyes flooded silver, veins glowing with Darklite, armor buckling from the pressure boiling underneath.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he rasps. “You’ll burn us both.”
“Maybe,” I gasp. “But if you want to change the world—then feel what that means. Feel all of it.”
He tries to pull away again, but now I’m in his head. The Ether cracks open between us and I see his memories flicker like shattered reflections on water:
Him, as a boy, standing before the elders, asking why only a few were chosen while others suffered. Him, cast aside, told his passion was dangerous, his mind too radical. Him, grieving, when Elena died—never knowing what he truly was, or what he could have given her. Him, alone, begging the gods for answers, and getting only silence.
And underneath it all… the shame. The endless, echoing question: Why not me? Why not us?
I don’t pity him.
But I understand.
Shoal’s breath hitches. His hands twitch at his sides. His defenses falter.
Behind me, Miore steps forward.
He sees it too.
“Phoebe…” he says, barely a whisper. “You’re linking. You’re offering it.”
I nod once.
Miore closes his eyes. Breathes in. Then raises his arms—and joins me.
His power, deep and still as the ocean floor, flows into the link. It merges with mine, then with Shoal’s. The effect is immediate. The glow around Shoal changes color, deepens—his body jerks as if struck by a tidal wave.
“Enough,” Shoal growls through clenched teeth. “You think this will stop me? You think I won’t survive this?”
“No,” I say. “You’ll evolve. Or you’ll break.”
One by one, the others begin to move.
Nuala steps forward next, her hands lifted, her power crackling like submerged thunder.
“I don’t trust you,” she tells Shoal. “But I trust her.” She locks eyes with me. “And I trust what we’re meant to become.”
She joins the link.
The Ether expands. The palace groans louder, as though it can’t contain what we’re becoming.
Lile and Elanora follow together. They say nothing. Their silence speaks volumes. But their power—ice and pressure, memory and clarity—hits like a wall.
Khale steps up, with a bitter smile.
“I still think you’re a smug bastard,” he tells Shoal. “But if she sees something worth saving, I’ll risk it.”
Finally, there’s Wake. My mate. The one who started this all, and the link that ties us all together. Without hesitation, he places his hands on my waist, and gives me everything that he has.
His past, his future, his dreams, and fears. He holds nothing back.
And when he adds his power to the link, everything shifts.
It’s like a floodgate opens.
All the Heirs. All the bloodlines. All the ancient powers. Colliding inside one man who was never meant to hold them.
Shoal lets out a ragged scream—not of victory, but of agony.
The palace pulses. Cracks widen. Darklite explodes outward in shimmering waves as he stumbles, hands clawing at the air.
“I can’t—contain it—”
Lily is at his side in an instant, face twisted in horror. “Shoal!” She tries to link with him—tries to take some of the power for herself—but the moment she touches him, the backlash throws her back across the ballroom like a rag doll.
“No!” she cries. “We were meant to rise together!”
But the link can’t be split. Not now.
Shoal is a vessel.
And the vessel is shattering.
His armor splinters.
The Darklite in his veins starts to crack like glass under pressure. I can see the energy ripping through his cells, too much, too fast, too vast.
And still, I don’t let go.
Because this is it. The moment. The culmination of every prophecy, every vision, every whisper from gods too afraid to change.
He gasps. And I see it in his eyes now—fear. Real, human fear. The kind he’s never allowed himself to feel.
“Help me,” he whispers.
I lean close, voice low. “Let go.”
He does.
And the power has nowhere left to go—but out.
A shockwave explodes from his body, blasting back the Heirs, the guards, the walls of the palace itself. The ceiling shatters in a storm of crystal and bone. The sea howls.
I see it as it happens:
Shoal’s form disintegrating into light, into wind, into flame.
Lily diving after him, arms outstretched, screaming.
The Ether answering her call—not with mercy—but with judgment.
It pulls them both in, their bodies becoming vapor, then particles, then something other.
And when the light clears—
They’re gone.
No blood. No ruin. Just… silence.
I rise slowly, blinking back the sparks behind my eyes.
The Ether still hums inside me—but quieter now. Balanced.
I look around. Wake is beside me in an instant, lifting me upright, brushing dust and glass from my arms.
“You shouldn’t have—”
“I had to,” I murmur. “I had to try.”
Delphi is weeping softly. Cora stands behind her, blade lowered.
Miore kneels, staring up at the ruined ceiling. Nuala clutches her arm. Khale is slumped against a column, shaking his head.
“What just happened?” someone whispers from the crowd.
I exhale slowly.
“They got what they wanted,” I say. “Shoal and Lily. They rose.”
“But they’re… gone?” Elanora asks.
“No,” I say, voice hushed. “They’re changed. They’re in the Ether now. Spirits. Immortal. Trapped.”
Wake glances at the others. “And what about us?”
I pause.
Then slowly, I reach into the Ether and cast it wide—across the ballroom, across the city, across the entire sea.
And what I feel is… everything.
Every Enkian.
Awake.
Connected.
Changed.
“They all have it now,” I whisper. “The power. Not just us. Everyone.”
The crowd ripples with realization.
A girl near the back gasps as her hands glow faintly blue.
Ice crackles around my cousin Belis, her eyes glowing with astonishment.
A dozen more begin to shift—scales turning to skin, earning their sealegs probably for the first time in their lives. It’s clear on their faces that each one understands the kind of possibility this now affords them.
The world is theirs, now. The entire world.
Delphi presses a hand to her chest. “It’s not just us anymore.”
The Heir bloodlines are no longer alone.
The age of the few is over.
A new world begins.
And this time—
We all rise together.
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