Shadows Entwined (Shadows Descent #3)

36. Violet

36

VIOLET

The void shudders violently, reality fracturing around us like breaking glass. The sound is deafening—a shriek of shattering dimensions and tearing fabric of space. A chasm opens mere feet from where we stand, bottomless darkness yawning beneath. The edges crumble away into nothingness, each piece of reality dissolving like sugar in water.

My body feels like it's being torn apart from the inside. The Old Ones' power burns through my veins like liquid fire, ice, and shadow all at once. Each heartbeat sends waves of agony through my system. I can barely think straight through the pain, let alone figure out how to get us out of here.

"The book!" Thorne shouts suddenly. "The purple book can guide us back!"

He reaches for it, but another tremor rocks the void, more violent than the last. The ground beneath his feet disintegrates, and he pitches forward toward the abyss. My heart stops as I watch him fall, but weirdly, Nathaniel is there to catch him with his vampire speed, yanking him back just in time. The force of pulling him sends them both stumbling backwards into Flint.

"Careful," I pant, my body trembling with the effort of containing the Old Ones' power. Sweat drips down my face despite the bone-chilling cold of the void. "We need everyone in one piece."

"Thanks," Thorne says gruffly.

Nathaniel just shrugs. I see what Amara once said about him. He wasn't always a horror show.

Thorne pulls the book from his shirt with shaking hands, its pages glowing with an intense purple light that casts eerie shadows across his face. "It's reacting to something," he says, holding it up as the pages turn themselves, ancient symbols flickering across the paper. "The void's collapse is affecting it."

"Or it's trying to show us the way out," Caine suggests. He extends his hands, and pure white ice forms from nothing, forming a bridge across the growing chasm. The ice glows with an inner light - not just his usual frost magick, but something more ancient and powerful. "We need to move. Now."

Another violent shake sends us all staggering. The void screams around us, the sound like a thousand voices crying out in pain. Chunks of reality begin falling away into nothingness, disappearing into the infinite darkness below. The power inside me thrashes and burns, threatening to tear me apart from the inside.

"Violet," Flint says urgently, catching me as my knees buckle. "Let us help. Share the power before it destroys you."

I want to argue, to protect them from this burden, but another wave of agony rips through me. Black spots dance in my vision, and I know I can't hold it much longer. I nod weakly, no longer able to argue.

The guys form a triangle around me, their hands gentle but firm on my shoulders. The connection between us flares to life like a supernova, and I gasp as the overwhelming power begins to flow into them. The marks on my skin glow with light, creating intricate patterns in the darkness.

"Fuck," Caine hisses as ancient ice magick floods his system. His eyes shine with an arctic light, frost spreading across his skin in beautiful, terrible patterns. "That's intense."

Flint's eyes blaze with inner fire as he absorbs his share, flames dancing beneath his skin like he's made of lava. The air around him shimmers with heat, creating a sharp contrast to Caine's frost. Thorne absorbs the shadow god's power, breathing in deeply as the nothingness settles in his soul.

"We need to move. Which way?" Flint growls.

The book in Thorne's hands speeds up, pages turning rapidly with a sound like beating wings before settling. A beam of purple light shoots from it, cutting through the darkness and chaos, pointing the way through the collapsing void.

"That way," Thorne says grimly. "Through the chaos."

"Of course it is," I mutter, trying to find humour in our impossible situation. "Nothing's ever easy, is it?"

Nathaniel, who's been unusually quiet since Morgan's death, moves closer. His usual smug attitude is gone, replaced by something more serious, more focused. "I can help. The void... it speaks to me differently now that I'm free of her influence. I can sense the currents of reality, the paths between dimensions."

"How?" Thorne demands. "You are just a vampire. One who should be dust, I might add."

"Wasn't always a vampire," Nathaniel replies with that smirk I want to punch off his face. "You either trust me to come with me, or I go alone and watch you die. Your choice."

I study him for a moment, really looking at him, perhaps for the first time. Without Morgan's influence, there's something different in his eyes. He's still dangerous, still predatory, but no longer consumed by mindless hatred. "Fine," I say finally. "But one wrong move..."

"And I become Dragon food," he finishes dryly, shooting a glance at Flint. "Yes, I got that memo quite clearly. Shall we?"

We start moving, following the book's guidance. Each step is a challenge. The ground beneath our feet is no longer solid, shifting and breaking apart like ice in spring thaw. The void continues to collapse around us, and reality is breaking apart faster now. The sound is deafening, like shattering glass and screaming wind.

Caine works continuously, creating ice bridges where the path has broken away. His god-like power makes the ice stronger, more resilient, glowing with that inner light that helps illuminate our way in the growing darkness. Flint's enhanced fire holds back the encroaching chaos, burning away tendrils of void that try to grab us. Thorne's shadows, darker and more substantial than ever, wrap around us protectively, shielding us from the worst of the destruction.

"The power," I gasp as we run, feeling it straining against our control. "It's trying to escape the void."

"Yeah, well, so are we!" Caine grits out, forming another bridge.

"Try telling that to these arsehole gods. Each looking out for themselves!"

"We've got you," Flint assures me, his hand steady on my back, burning with reassuring warmth. "Just focus on moving forward."

A massive piece of reality tears away ahead of us, creating a swirling vortex of chaos. The sound is like a thousand thunderclaps at once, the force of it nearly knocking us off our feet. Colours that shouldn't exist swirl within it, and looking directly at it makes my head hurt.

Nathaniel swears. "Fuck. That's not good. The void is trying to pull itself inside out. Those colours are not meant to exist in any dimension."

"Can we go around?" Caine asks, already trying to form an ice bridge to the side, but another violent tremor answers that question. Our path crumbles away on both sides, leaving us on an increasingly narrow strip of reality.

The vortex grows larger, hungry and waiting. The impossible colours shift and change, creating patterns that hurt to look at. My enhanced vampire vision picks up things moving in there that my brain refuses to process.

"Through it," I say, gritting my teeth against another wave of pain as the Old Ones' power tries to escape, but I can't let it. Having those powers free in the world will be asking for a disaster. "It's our only option."

"That's my girl," Nathaniel states.

"I. AM. NOT. YOUR. GIRL! I severed the bond with you!"

"Hmm, nah. Sorry, that was a ruse. Morgan strengthened it."

"WHAT?" I thunder.

"Never mind that now," Thorne bellows. "We can deal with that shitshow after we get out of here!"

"Too fucking right we will," I growl. "Ready?"

The marks on my skin blaze brighter, creating a web of light between us. For the first time, I notice that the hole in my chest has healed. I wonder when that happened.

"On three," I say, watching as the path beneath our feet crumbles. "One..."

The void screams around us.

"Two..."

Reality bends and warps.

"Three!"

Together, we launch ourselves into the vortex.

The sensation is indescribable. We are torn apart and put back together a thousand times a second. I feel myself being pulled in every direction at once, dimension after dimension, trying to claim us.

Time loses all meaning. We could have been in there for seconds or centuries. Only our connection keeps us from being scattered across dimensions. I feel Flint's determination, Caine's strength, and Thorne's unwavering focus. And my stupid vampire bond to Nathaniel that makes my skin crawl even now in this nightmare.

We emerge on the other side, all of us gasping for breath. My lungs burn like I've inhaled fire.

Somehow, Thorne has kept hold of the book, and its light flickers but stays true, pointing us onward through the devastation.

"The Convergence," Nathaniel pants as we run, his voice strained. "It's starting. I can feel it."

"What?" I blurt out and then groan. I'd forgotten all about that. Fuck. Fuck!

But he's right. Now that I'm made aware of it, I can feel it beginning. The walls between dimensions are growing weaker, reality itself becoming unstable. We're running out of time.

"There!" Nathaniel shouts suddenly, pointing ahead. "A tear in the void. It's our world."

I look where he's pointing and see it, too. A shimmer in the chaos that feels like home. I can feel the Nexus tree's energy shimmering through it, calling to us. Its ancient power reaches out like a beacon in the storm.

But reaching it won't be easy. The space between us and our escape is a nightmare of collapsing reality and swirling chaos. The void itself seems determined to keep us here, to drag us down into oblivion. Pieces of broken dimension rain down around us like deadly shrapnel.

"Last sprint," I say, gathering what strength I have left. "Whatever happens, we go together."

"Together," they agree, and we make our final push.

Caine's ice creates stepping stones through the chaos, each one glowing with ancient power. Flint's fire burns away the void's attempts to grab us. Thorne's shadows guide us, finding the safest path through the destruction. My power, still overwhelming despite sharing it with them, keeps us anchored to each other.

We're almost there, so close I can almost taste the mist that perpetually surrounds the Academy when everything goes catastrophically wrong. The void makes one final, desperate attempt to stop us, reality shattering completely around us. The path ahead breaks apart like a jigsaw puzzle thrown into a hurricane, leaving us suspended in pure chaos.

"Jump!" I scream, channelling everything I have into one last burst of power. Purple lightning crackles around us, swirling with Flint's fire, Caine's ice, and Thorne's shadows in a stunning display of power.

We leap as one, hurtling through pure chaos toward that shimmer of home. The void roars around us, a sound of ancient fury and loss. Tentacles of nothingness try to pull us back, to trap us here forever.

"Hold on!" Thorne shouts, his shadows wrapping around us like unbreakable bonds. The purple book clutched in his hand, our only lifeline, blazes with light, cutting a path through the darkness.

Caine creates a final bridge of ice beneath us, but it shatters almost instantly in the maelstrom. "Too unstable!" he yells over the chaos. "We need more power!"

"Take it!" I cry, opening myself completely to them. The marks on my skin burn like brands as I channel more of the Old Ones', no, my , power into them. "Use everything! All of my power!"

And it makes a difference. In the back of my head, I know acknowledging this power as mine helps us. Flint roars, his Dragon fire exploding outward in a wave of protective heat. The flames take on impossible colours; deep purples and blues mixing with the usual oranges and reds. "Almost there!"

The tear in reality is right in front of us now, but it's starting to close. The Convergence is affecting the walls between dimensions, making them increasingly unstable.

Our connection holds. Our love holds. My bond with my hated sire holds. With one final, massive surge of combined power, we crash through the barrier between worlds.

We tumble out beneath the Nexus tree, landing in an ungraceful heap on the frozen ground. The void seals behind us with a sound like thunder, and for a moment, everything is still. The familiar scent of pine and snow fills my lungs, and I could cry with relief.

But there's no time for celebration. The Convergence is here, reality rippling around us like water. The power still burns through our veins, seeking release, seeking chaos.

The Nexus tree's branches wave without wind, its ancient power responding to the crisis. Above us, the canopy of leaves is doing impossible things, showing glimpses of other dimensions, other realities trying to break through.

"Well," Nathaniel says dryly as we stagger to our feet, his usual snark returning now that we're back in our dimension. "That was exciting. What's next?"

I look at my guys, seeing the same determination in their eyes that I feel.

"Now," I say, watching as reality ripples more violently around us, "now we finish this. We need to stabilise the dimensions before everything tears apart."

The Convergence has begun in earnest, and we're the only ones who can stop it from tearing our world apart. But as I look at my guys, feeling our connection stronger than ever, I know we can do this. We've just destroyed the Old Ones and escaped the void; saving this reality seems almost reasonable in comparison.

"Together?" I ask, holding out my hands to them.

"Always," they respond.

We've got this. We have to.

The real fight for our world is about to begin.