Page 124 of Of Nine So Bold

“Is that who you really are, pet? Smelly Melly… or a queen on her way to becoming a goddess?”

Howdarethe bastard think he could speak to me this way?

I flung my power at the edge of the lingering energy of the gateway. All around me, the space shuddered, cracking and tearing, unable to withstand my might.

Shrieks came from the tiny beings who still hid within the darkness, hoping they were too small for me to notice them. They burned as the blurred space of the gateway splintered and let in light from my world and darkness from the empty realm beyond.

Alarm tried to interrupt me at that, chattering that perhaps this was a mistake, but that was a mere distraction. Those cracks were nothing. A testimony to my strength and nothing else.

The rippling effects of my strike faded, leaving the energy of the gateway hovering around me like the fraying threads of a rope on the verge of being severed completely. Tendrils of light and sound seeped in behind me from my world, plucking at my awareness like annoying fingers trying to pry me back from the edge of greatness.

But before me lay a profound and eternal darkness. I could see it past the gaps I’d created in the gateway energy, as if the fractured space of the gateway was a cliff overlooking something so much deeper than merenight.

Shudders crept through me, unstoppable. My eyes couldn’t leave the darkness, the pure and utter emptiness in which nothing so small and fragile aslifecould ever hope to survive. The sheer weight of it, the enormity and inescapability of it, had given rise to countless warnings from the witches and scholars. They all believed that without precautions and protections, it would drive their lesser minds utterly mad.

But I’d been here once. Seen this once, when Gwyneira had escaped being sent here as a sacrifice in my place. Alaric had taunted me that I hadn’t survived it unscathed, but I didn’t believe him. He was a fiction made by the Voidborn to torment me.

Or… he was now. But back then, hehadbeen real. At least before I killed?—

“Do you feel it, pet? How it calls to you?”

I growled in irritation. Damn that bastard and his persistent attempts to destabilize me. I wouldn’t crack in the face of himorthis place. “I hear nothing.”

“Now, that is a lie.”

“What would you have me perceive, you dead, irrelevant bastard?”

“The possibilities.”

“What?”

“Look closer.”

Fear bubbled at the edge of my mind, and Alaric chuckled, contemptuous, as if he could tell.

Rage took its place, crushing any paltry trace of cowardice as completely as this place wanted to crush me. That bastard sounded closer now. Practically like he stood at my side, but that was madness and I wouldn’t succumb to such a thing.

I peered deeper into the darkness as if I was leaning over the edge of a cliff. But I would not fall. I only sought the better vantage point I deserved.

The darkness before me changed. Pinpricks of light glimmered in the distance, glinting like stars. Clouds of myriad colors slowly became visible, dancing between some of the stars while others shone all on their own, surrounded by nothing but darkness. Like a glistening land beyond a fathomless sea, they all lingered on the far side of the darkness, whispering. Waiting.

Alaric’s voice came again, thoughtful and quiet, almost as if he was standing by my side and musing upon this sight. “The highest ranks of scholars and witches have only glimpsed what you now see.”

I nodded distantly, staring. I’d heard this described. Gleaned details from what little those vain bitches in the Jeweled Coven had mentioned in my presence, years before when they thought me nothing more than a carbon witch barely worthy of being a servant let alone capable of achieving anything great.

But toseeit…

“Countless realms,” Alaric continued. “Realities upon realities, all of them marring the beautiful darkness with their pollution of noise and life and light.”

I blinked at the description. “Marring?”

“Well, think on it, pet. What would you call all this power and possibility left to just…be?” He made a rude sound. “The energy of those realmscouldbe used to serve us—to serveyou. Yet they continue to simplyexistas if you don’t matter. As if you arenothing.”

I shuddered. That… Was that a good point?

It rather felt like one.

I leaned closer, ignoring the plucking fingers of my realm as it tried to pull me back from the abyss like an annoying child seeking my attention. From across the emptiness, hints of the whispers that carried on the clouds of energy reached my ears.

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