Page 123 of Bright Soul

“That. Was. Amazing!” Wren declared loudly, clapping with each word. “I got it all on film, don’t you worry. The whole supernatural world is going to know about this!”

A smile split my lips out of sheer disbelief that she’d been filming the fight. “There’s no internet in the Void, Wren. There’s no way you streamed any of it,” Ben corrected.

She slanted him an impatient look. “Irecordedit. Now we have video evidence that Myuna is like, majorly dead, so we can get out of godforsaken Cerris City.”

“Good thinking,” I said, wincing at the boom of my own voice. “Um, I need to be de-goddessed now.”

Pretty much everyone turned to Phaeron. He’d released his shadowborn form and was talking quietly with a Moihan tribe male until he felt our attention on him. “How exactly did this happen?” he asked, gesturing up at my face.

“Well, you see…I think Braza’s energy gave the souls left within—”

Phaeron’s eyes dilated and he whipped his head around. “Where’s Braza?” he demanded.

“The last I saw her, she—oh shit.” I turned toward Myuna’s corpse. “She was grabbing the other half of her soul from you and diving back inside Myuna.”

In a blink, he was next to the corpse, pulling open the rip in her belly and sticking his head in to look inside. He released a muffled howl and fished in her stomach, removing something and turning to show me when I loomed behind him. It was the dragon scale…cracked into two uneven pieces. The runes on it flickered with the last vestiges of energy.

“There’s almost nothing left,” he said, looking at me with new realization. “All of the energy she gathered as a powercore went to awakening the souls of Myuna’s victims.”

A bolt of panic thrilled through me. This couldn’t be. She was an ancient powercore, the venerated protector of Moongrove Library. And the other half of her soul was tethered to me…a shiny little thread still connecting us to my awareness. Yet I had no idea where she was.

“I-I’ll just give some of the magic back to her. T-that’s possible, right?” I stammered, reaching for the broken scale.

He jerked away from me, breathing growing shallow. We were both panicking, feeding into a feedback loop that was no good for either of us.

Geo inserted his steadiness between us, both physically and emotionally. That loop of negative emotion broke upon his stone form, even as he laid an obsidian palm on Phaeron’s shoulder and my arm. “Braza is a being of shadow and right now, you are glowing like the sun,” he rumbled. “Undo this magic and perhaps she will show herself.”

“Well said,” Phaeron sighed, scrubbing at his face. “All right, Cress. Try again to tell me how you became like this.”

I did, leaving no detail out, not even flinching away from the fact that it was his deceased mate that kicked off the whole change that had led us all to freedom.

“Make me anew in your light,” he repeated slowly. “No…” He switched to Soiluirian, which I didn’t understand without Braza’s presence. “Clearly, you must release all of these souls that have bound their last vestiges to you. But we are still in the Void. What will become of them afterward?”

The spirit he’d been talking to stepped forward again, asking Phaeron a question. They spoke for a minute while I shifted with nerves. “My father claims to sense the way forward to the next life,” he eventually translated.

My jaw dropped. He was being really casual about having his father right there. But they were both standing rigidly, avoiding eye contact. It had to be a matter of pride at this point. “So, once I release these souls, they will be able to go too?” I asked.

Phaeron had a troubled cloud around him as he considered. “In theory. It would be for the best to release them and have them try, at least, my bright mate. It is not right for you to hold onto them for much longer.”

I completely agreed. So, I took part of his knowledge of Soiluirian along the mating circle and repeated the phrase he guessed would do the trick.“I have made you anew in my light and now I release you from your vow.”

The pressure within my body released like a deflating balloon. It was a near-immediate flood of souls, countless spirits fleeing the confines of our temporary pact. Many winked out of existence immediately.

Phaeron confirmed with his father that they’d gone on to the next life, rather than getting consumed by the Void. “He claims it has little power over them. Less than over us…but that may be because the Void has Myuna to feast upon for the moment. You may notice that it is suspiciously quiet,” he said.

I hadn’t noticed, but that was probably because I was feeling like a limp spaghetti noodle as I quickly lost the power of numbers that’d made me a “goddess.” My inner glow winked outand I slumped into his arms. Phaeron glanced down at my bare skin, having accidentally cupped my belly. His cool shadows enveloped my modesty.

Actually, everything felt cold all of a sudden, except for his body heat. I snuggled into him for more of it and he snuck a gentle nip on my ear. “Glad to have you human sized again,” he murmured.

“I thought being taller than you was the best part of all of this,” I sighed.

He raised a brow. “I’d get on my knees for you in a heartbeat.” Phaeron was nuzzling into my hair when the last two souls emerged from me…Ravai and Keshora. It was only my stiffening that had him look up.

I still had that basic grasp of his language that I’d borrowed, so I understood Keshora saying,“So it is true.”

And Ravai bulldozing straight past the awkwardness with a cry of,“Father!”

He gently nudged me aside and caught her when she flung herself into his arms. They spun and touched foreheads.“My Ravita. How blessed I am to see you again,”he said tenderly.

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