I could feel the massive, unstable pressure building in the circle, and I knew if the loop broke while the power was moving this fast, it would be like snapping a high-voltage cable in a storm. “I have to take it,” I gasped, my body arching as the violet light grew so bright the room disappeared. “I have to take it all!”
But I didn’t listen to Greyson’s roar of terror. I stopped being the river and became the pit. I opened every door inside me, every hidden corner of my soul I had been keeping locked away, and stopped pushing the energy back.
Instead, I started pulling. I pulled the ice, the fire, the shadows, and the hum.
I pulled their pain, their exhaustion, and their centuries of silence until I had taken it all into me.
The world went silent as the roaring in my ears vanished, rep
