Page 26 of Bright Blinding Ruin

Gladus sighs and turns her back to me. “You were not here. You do not know what it was like. My sisters and I… we were too weak. It was why Invictis was imprisoned so far away from itself and all Laconian cities. I kept my piece of it safe. I thought I was doing what I had to. And then—”

Flashes pop into my mind, searing memories that don’t belong to me. Images of Gladus opening a locked, guarded chest. Her reaching inside and touching the soul gem. Her dropping it, and the chain reaction that followed. Invictis was released, and he bonded with her, the same tattoo on her wrist and outer hand as I had in the beginning. I didn’t see it when I went to confront her because of her armor.

“The whispers grew too strong to ignore. It preyed on my thirst for power, and I was not strong enough to resist,” Gladus speaks sadly, unhurried in facing me once more. “You must go to Acadia and continue your journey of discovery.”

Yes, that’s my plan, but I still have so many questions for this woman. So many things I want to ask her. “Wait,” I start. “I need to know more.”

Gladus gives me a morose smile, the smile of a powerful woman defeated. “And you will, but I have shown you all I can.Before you leave, however, there is one final thing you must accept.”

I look around, half expecting something to pop up out of nowhere, but the undercroft is unchanged. “What?”

The woman before me says nothing as she offers me her hands, palms up. Gloved in metal gauntlets, they are the hands of a warrior, a fighter, someone who should not have fallen so easily to Invictis.

If she fell, what hope do I have?

Her eyes are expectant; she wants me to place my hands above hers, I guess, so that’s what I do. Cautiously, I set my hands above hers and let her curl her gauntlet-covered fingers around them. The metal grazes my skin, and to my surprise, I can feel it. I can feel her. Though she’s dead, here, Gladus feels utterly real.

“Your only hope is what lies inside,” Gladus tells me. “Once you accept who you are, I think things will become much easier for you. You’ve denied it time and time again, but you must face the truth. Laconia has been waiting for you. My sisters and I have been waiting. You’re so much more than an empress, Rey.”

And here I am, beginning to think me accepting the fact that I’m an empress is what she’s going to say. Silly me. There has to be more to it.

Of course, it’s right after I have that thought that Gladus nearly knocks me off my feet with what she says next.

“You aretheempress.” The way Gladus emphasizes that word makes it sound final, and she speaks it with such conviction that I’m left at a loss for words.

“The empress?” I echo faintly. “What does that mean? I don’t—” I want to refute her words, tell her she’s wrong, but right then a peculiar sensation tingles my fingertips, and I angle my head down to see a grayish-blue magic coating them, engulfing both our hands.

“When Invictis told you the power did not belong to you, it lied. This is your power now. Use it to do what we could not and defeat it.” Gladus pulls her hands away from mine, and the magical sparks linger on me.

I lift my hands, wiggle my fingers, and stare slack-jawed at the magic that dances across my skin. I picture a small bolt of lightning forming above my hands, and it assembles out of thin air, brought to life by nothing more than my will.

Holy shit.

When I look back at Gladus, I find her physical form began to fade while I stared at my hands. Her eyes mirror the reflection of the magic that used to belong to her, and the look she gives me is a mixture of sadness and acceptance.

“The door is now open for you. Go in power, sister.” As Gladus speaks, she grows more and more translucent, no longer a tangible person in front of me. Within ten seconds, she fades into nothing as she becomes one with the air around us. A gentle breeze is all that remains.

The magic on my fingers has faded entirely now, and I turn around to see that the door I walked in before has reappeared, now wide-open to the library. With a quick pace, I hurry out of the undercroft, a renewed sense of agency in my bones.

Thena is gone, and after I’m out, the door to the undercroft seals itself shut, once more becoming nothing more than an etching in the stone on the wall.

Just to make sure I’m not losing my mind, I hold up a finger, testing out the magic again. A tiny bluish jolt jumps out of my finger and into the air, and when I see it, I can’t help but grin ear to ear.

Fuck yeah, baby. I’m back.

Chapter Eleven

The magic makes the journey out of Pylos easier. I use it to amplify my speed, like little lightning bolts on my feet that make sprinting a fuck ton easier, and with magic behind me, I don’t get out of breath.

And, and a bonus, I have an actual defense should I come across any blighted animals that want to rip my face off.

A renewed sense of purpose fills me, and that combined with the magic, make my journey out of Pylos a fast one. Maybe I can do this. And even if I can’t, I’ll still give it my best shot. Invictis thinks he can win this? He hasn’t messed with someone like me before.

As I zoom through Pylos, I spend a lot of time thinking back to what Gladus said and what she showed me. Those visions… those memories, it was like I was literally there, watching it happen in front of me. So vivid and clear, they were like movies.

Gladus, Morimento, and Krotas. Three empresses who couldn’t defeat Invictis, even when they banded together. Honestly, it doesn’t give me much hope for a different outcome this time, but what Gladus told me at the end repeats in my mind.

I’m the empress. The, as in, the one and only.

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