Page 232 of Of Nine So Bold

But nothing else did.

And that made her so very, very weak.

Our power slammed into the deepest, darkest part of the beast, past the layers of magic the Voidborn had given her, past everything she’d become. Down to the center of her essence where that one truth formed the original bedrock of everythingshe and the Voidborn had built. The central piece that was only, purely, and simplyMelisandre.

The linchpin of their destruction. The real thing amid their unreality that they’d needed to access our world and make any of this possible.

The true core.

A scream tore from the heart of the beast, and deep within its darkness, something fractured like glass. Cracks spread through the monster, racing through its massive body, radiating out from the inside.

Until it shattered.

Hundreds of Voidborn scattered like leaves. The massive form of the snake began crumbling to dust in their wake, a cascade of disintegrating fragments that disappeared into nothing before they ever came close to the tiny scrap of reality where we stood.

At the edge of where the last remnants of our world touched the void, my stepmother stood. Shudders shook her. Countless hairline cracks covered her skin, her dress, even her hair, as if all she’d been was only a fragile, breaking shell. As the cracks spread, dust wafted from her body like all her power, all herexistencewas disintegrating into the hungry, empty dark. She reached for us only to lurch as her hands and arms began to turn to ash and crumble away.

Tiny wisps of smoke rose from within her as if emanating from every part of her essence. The ghost of glowing yellow eyes wavered before her, watching us above the eerie glint of long metal fangs.

I tensed, bracing for the shifting shadows to coalesce into a Voidborn.

But the yellow eyes grew dull, their glow fading as its misty form dissipated and blew away like smoke on a breeze.

A faint chuckle escaped my stepmother. “Told you… I won, Alaric.” Her gaze slid to me, and her lips curled into a weak sneer as the last of her began drifting off into oblivion. “But he was right about this too. The Nine do destroy the world.” Her voice became a whisper on the emptiness. “Such a wretched little realm anyway.”

And then she was gone.

Rumbling shook the void.

Clay made a nervous sound. “Anyone else have a bad feeling about…” The last of the dust of the massive creature my stepmother had been drifted away. “Oh, shit.”

The cracks that destroyed her hadn’t stopped. They’d continued out into the vines, radiating across the emptiness all the way to where the rot chewed at the other realms.

But now, from the inside out, those cracks were changing. In the distance, light suddenly pierced out from them, splintering the darkness like pure energy was breaking through the rotting surface of the vines. In a cascade, the fissures of light spread, all of them gaining speed.

And heading our way.

“We poured our power into the heart of anti-reality to summon reality back again,” Casimir said slowly. “And now… it’s coming.”

“All the energy of our realm.” Byron’s gaze tracked over the countless cracks of light racing toward us. “All at once.”

I stared in horror. “Oh gods. I didn’t?—”

“No,” Dex cut in. “You didn’t. We all did. The Nine are one, and”—he shook his head, watching the cascade race closer—“it was the only thing to do.”

“But this… this is okay, though, right?” Niko said, the hope in his voice doing nothing for the fear in his eyes. “It’ll just go into our realm and bring everything back… and that’ll be fine.”

Byron shook his head. “That is the power and essence ofeverything. Mountains. Oceans. All the people and anywhere the ley lines she corrupted could touch. And it’s going to hit one point of the world. Justone.”

“You know nature, my friend,” Casimir said. “Tell me, how well does a tree fare in the face of an avalanche?”

“Or a volcano,” Ozias murmured.

Niko turned, staring out at the light spearing the darkness. “Then what do we do?”

Desperate looks passed between us all. We’d stopped the Voidborn, yes. But the energy of an entire realm?

Light crackled through the dark vines of rot like lightning, racing closer.

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