Chapter 16: Chains of the Past
The greenhouse shook as the distant rift yawned wider, its pull dragging at the very air. Evan's hair stood on end, his scar burning like a brand. Across the ruined glasshouse, Selene's silver-lit form flickered—a candle guttering in a storm.
Kai convulsed at their feet, his half-liquid body rippling as the roots inside him twitched in unison with whatever was clawing its way through the rift.
"Evan—" Isolde gasped, scrambling back from the vines still snaking toward her. "We can't fight both!"
Aria was already moving, her hands full of stolen alchemy vials. "Then we don't." She hurled one toward the rift's general direction. The resulting explosion shook the ground. "We collapse the damn tunnel."
Rowan hauled himself up from the wreckage, blood streaking his temple. "That won't hold it."
"Then what will?"
All eyes turned to Selene.
Her glowing gaze fixed on Kai. "Him."
Selene's explanation came in fractured bursts between dodging vines:
The roots weren't just controlling Kai—they were bonded to him. His water magic had fused with the Vessel's essence when Caine used him as a conduit.
"And bonds go both ways," Selene said, silver flames licking up her arms as she severed another attacking vine.
Evan's stomach turned. "You want to use Kai to control it?"
"No." Selene's eyes met his, glowing unnaturally bright. "I want to use him to starve it."
The vines lashed harder, as if hearing her words.
It required all of them.
Rowan's terramancy to anchor Kai's flickering form to solid ground. Isolde's wards to keep the roots at bay long enough. Aria's alchemy to burn away the excess tendrils without harming what remained of Kai himself.
And Evan.
Evan, with his hollow chest and absent magic, had the cruelest task:
"Hold him down," Selene ordered.
Kai thrashed as Evan pinned his shoulders. His skin was fever-hot and slick, alternating between solid and liquid under Evan's grip. His eyes rolled wildly—one still sea-green, the other fully black.
"Please," Kai gasped, his voice barely human. "Don't—"
Selene plunged her silver-flamed hands into his chest.
Kai screamed.
The sound wasn't just his own—it echoed with the Vessel's rage, a thousand voices shrieking in unison. The roots throughout the greenhouse spasmed, their eyes bursting like overripe fruit.
Evan held on, even as Kai's form threatened to dissolve entirely beneath him. Even as the black ooze seeping from Kai's pores burned his own skin.
Selene's voice cut through the chaos, sharp as shattered glass:
"Enough."
Her hands wrenched back—and with them came strands of the Vessel's essence, glistening like oil on water. They stretched taut between Kai's body and her grasp, vibrating with unnatural tension.
For one suspended moment, everything held.
Then—
The strands snapped.
The recoil sent Selene flying. Evan barely caught her before she hit the glass-strewn ground, her body suddenly limp, her silver light guttering out.
Across from them, Kai lay motionless.
Human.
Whole.
The roots around them shriveled to dust.
Aria was the first to break the silence. "Did it work?"
As if in answer, the distant rift's howling cut off abruptly—not sealed, but stilled.
Rowan pressed two fingers to Kai's throat. "He's alive."
Isolde sagged against a broken planter. "For now."
Evan looked down at Selene's unconscious form in his arms. Her silver glow had faded entirely, leaving her pale as parchment. But her chest rose and fell.
She was alive too.
For now.