The world on the other side of the gate was wrong. It felt like memory and prophecy had collided and then collapsed in on themselves. Elizabeth stumbled forward first, catching herself on a jagged marble pillar that had once been a column. The floor stretched wide beneath her feet, carved of stone veined with molten silver and ash. Shattered stained-glass windows lined the walls of a massive cathedral-like space, their images too fractured to decipher—but all of them were watching. There was no sky. Only shifting light. As though they stood beneath a dome that mimicked stars without truly knowing what they looked like. Nicholas and Lilith appeared beside her moments later, both slightly breathless from the transition. They scanned the space immediately—warrior and witch in full readiness. “This… isn’t his,” Lilith said under her breath. “Not completely. This place is older than Adrian.” Nicholas nodded, his eyes sweeping the sigils burned into the high stone walls. “He’s not the architect. He’s the usurper.” Elizabeth didn’t respond. Her eyes were locked on the far end of the hall, where a raised dais stood beneath a fractured arch. Shadows pooled unnaturally there.
Then the shadows shifted— And Adrian stepped out of them. He looked different. Not simply older. Not even more powerful. He looked… deeper. Like a man hollowed out and rebuilt with everything he once believed in scraped away. His black coat swept the ground. Runes circled his wrists, burned into the skin rather than drawn. And his eyes— They held galaxies of rage. “Welcome back,” he said, voice smooth and unhurried. “Though, you never really left, did you?” Elizabeth stepped forward, her chin high. “This isn’t your home, Adrian. You’re just squatting in someone else’s ruin.” Adrian tilted his head, lips twitching. “And yet I knew you’d come. Even after all I’ve done. Even after what I became. You couldn’t resist the pull.” “I didn’t come because of fate,” she replied coldly. “I came because you crossed a line.” He took a slow step forward. “You are fate, Elizabeth. And you haven’t even begun to understand what that means.” Lilith stepped in, her magic already burning beneath her skin. “Let’s skip the poetic delusions and get to the part where you lose.” But Adrian barely acknowledged her. His focus was fixed on Elizabeth. “I saw your past lives,” he murmured. “I remember them now. And I remember when you were mine.” Elizabeth flinched—but only for a moment. “And I remember why I left you. Every time.”
The temperature in the hall dropped sharply. The shadows on the walls lengthened unnaturally. Adrian’s smile died. “Then you leave me no choice.” A pulse of dark energy rippled outward from him like a living wave. Nicholas stepped forward in front of Elizabeth, blade drawn. “You’ll have to go through me first.” “Oh, I plan to,” Adrian hissed, and with a snap of his fingers, the hall awoke. From the cracked ground, creatures began to form—shadows given form, not flesh but nightmare. They slithered and crawled and grinned without mouths. Lilith responded instantly. A wave of flame arced from her fingers, forming a protective barrier as Nicholas leapt into motion, cutting down the first lunging beast. Elizabeth raised both hands, and violet fire bloomed in the air like a storm caught in motion. But as they fought—together, precise, furious—Adrian stood back. Watching. Feeding off the power in the room. “Do you see it now?” he called out, voice reverberating against the marble. “This is the power we could have had. If you’d only stayed. If you’d only remembered sooner.”
Elizabeth shouted a spell that split three of the shadow-creatures in a burst of starlight. Her breath was heavy now, sweat lining her brow. But her hands never shook. “I did remember,” she gasped. “And I remembered what you did.” He stepped forward slowly. “I did what I had to.” “You chose yourself,” she spat. “Over every innocent life. Over me.” Adrian’s voice cracked, just once. “Because I was afraid. Because I didn’t want to lose you.” “And now you will,” Nicholas growled, striking down the last of the shadows. Lilith threw a barrier wide, sealing the space between them and Adrian in a ring of mirrored flame. Elizabeth stepped through it. Face to face. “You say fate brought us together,” she whispered. “But fate didn’t make you what you are. You did.” Adrian raised a hand, and for a moment, the entire hall groaned. The gate behind them pulsed once. A flicker of something massive shifted in the void. Then Elizabeth placed her hand on the floor—and her magic answered.
Chapter 20 - Echoes and embers
The gate’s silence was deceptive. Elizabeth stood with the weight of every past self gathering in her bones, her heartbeat synced with the pulsing stone beneath her feet. Magic clung to the air like mist, but the kind that meant something was waiting—holding its breath before the storm. Nicholas flanked her left, a line of tension in his jaw and shoulders as his hand gripped the obsidian blade. Lilith was to her right, her fingers already glowing with spell light, sharp and precise. Adrian stood across the hall, but he no longer looked like a man waiting to win. He looked like a man who refused to lose. "You've come so far," he said, voice soft but warped by power. “It’s almost beautiful. But it won’t be enough.” “I didn’t come here to be enough for you,” Elizabeth said. “I came to end this.” Her words struck like a bell—reverberating through the fractured sanctuary. The runes carved into the marble floor shimmered, responding to her presence. She was no longer a trespasser in this place. She belonged here. Adrian's expression flickered, just for a second. Regret. Grief. Fear.
Then he struck. The sanctuary shattered into chaos. Shadows ripped from the walls, coalescing into monstrous, eyeless forms—creatures born of twisted memory and broken magic. They screamed without mouths, lurching toward the trio. Nicholas surged forward, blade cutting through the first two with swift, brutal precision. Lilith spun, her charms igniting mid-air—circles of fire and salt slowing the advance. Elizabeth lifted both hands and called. Not a spell she had learned—not words from a page—but something older, etched into her soul. Magic pulsed outward, silvery and violet, rippling through the sanctuary like a second heartbeat. The shadows recoiled. Adrian’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not channeling power.” Elizabeth stepped forward, magic rising behind her in a great arc of light. “I am the power.” She struck. The two forces collided—Adrian’s blood-red wave of destruction against Elizabeth’s ancient flame. The impact cracked the sanctuary walls, shattering what glass remained in the windows above. The force knocked Nicholas and Lilith back, but they recovered fast, returning to flank her.
For a moment, Elizabeth could see through it all—through the magic, through time itself. She saw Adrian’s first betrayal. The choice to save himself at the expense of everyone else. She saw her past self—Elara—turn from him, tears in her eyes, because she had once loved him too. And she saw herself now—stronger, more whole than ever. “You tried to shape fate,” she said. “But fate doesn't kneel.” Adrian howled, unleashing a torrent of corrupted energy. Elizabeth raised her hand—and caught it. The sanctuary itself lit in response. The runes on the walls turned gold. The gate behind them flickered, not just with light—but with possibility. She turned his power aside with a sweep of her arm, and for the first time… Adrian stumbled. Nicholas was there in an instant, blade drawn. But Elizabeth held out her hand. “No.” Adrian looked up at her, dazed. “You… you remember it all now.” “I do,” she said. “And I choose to move forward, not backward.” Something inside him cracked. He stepped back—and vanished in a surge of black smoke, retreating through a tear in the veil that shimmered like a dying star. Gone. But not defeated. Not yet. Silence rushed in. Elizabeth lowered her hands. Nicholas and Lilith came to her side, bruised but breathing. “He ran,” Nicholas said. “No,” Elizabeth replied. “He’s gathering strength. And we just made him desperate.” Lilith scanned the room. “That tear he escaped through—that wasn’t his magic alone.” Elizabeth turned toward the gate. There it was again. That spiral rune. Watching. Waiting. Whispering. This wasn’t over.
Later That Night They returned home just before sunrise. No words passed between them for a long time—just the quiet unpacking of charms, the slow restoration of protective wards, the settling of breath after the storm. Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table, a cup of tea cradled in both hands. Nicholas sat beside her, fingers loosely brushing hers. Lilith was at the stove, humming quietly, comfortingly, as she cooked. “We stopped him,” Nicholas said. “For now,” Elizabeth replied. “But something else is coming.” She looked down at her bracelet. The final charm had changed. Where once there had been a blank circle of silver, now there was an etched spiral. And it glowed. Nicholas met her eyes. “We’ll be ready.” Lilith placed a plate in front of her. “You’ll be ready, Eliz. And we’ll be right behind you.” Elizabeth gave a small, tired smile. For the first time in weeks, she felt peace—even if it was only a fragile breath before the next storm.
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