Page 116 of Echoes From the Void

Calling them home.

To choice.

To change.

To willing sacrifice that transforms rather than destroys.

My father’s restored power wraps around me like living armor as we prepare to continue our work. Through all our various bonds, I feel love pulse stronger than any corruption:

Finn’s light reaching across impossible space.

The pack’s fierce determination above.

My father’s transformed protection.

My own shadows, carrying new purpose.

“Time to remind everyone,” I whisper into spaces between realities, “what we were always meant to be.”

Together.

In shadow.

In choice.

In love.

Forever.

Chapter 40

Frankie

Valerie waitsat the heart of the void.

I sense her before I see her—her essence a twisted knot of corruption and desperate hunger that makes the void itself shiver. She stands among the frozen light shifters like a spider in her web, trailing corrupted fingers across their crystallized forms. With each touch, void-purple poison seeps deeper into reality’s foundations.

My father’s restored form tenses beside me, shadows rippling with ancient recognition. Through our various bonds, I feel the others’ reactions pierce the void: Finn’s light flickers with old fear, the pack’s distant fury burns like summer lightning, my wolves’ hackles rise as they remember asylum walls and children’s screams.

But something’s different now.

After absorbing my father’s burden, after understanding corruption’s true nature, I see her clearly for the first time. Where before she radiated power that made my shadows recoil, now I see the truth beneath her corruption. See the scared thing she’s become, consuming others’ essence because she never understood her own purpose. Each strand of her corrupted web pulses with desperate emptiness.

“I wondered when you’d finally come,” her voice carries that familiar false sweetness that once haunted my nightmares. Her form shifts as she turns, corruption flowing off her like oil on water. “My perfect vessel. My greatest creation.”

“I was never yours to create,” I say quietly, letting my transformed shadows rise. Through our pack bonds, I feel them respond—Matteo’s predator nature tensing, Leo’s sunshine trying to pierce the void, Bishop’s Guardian marks pulsing with protective fury, Dorian’s frost patterns searching for weaknesses. “None of us were.”

She laughs—that same laugh that echoed through asylum halls while children screamed. The sound makes the frozen light shifters’ forms vibrate with remembered pain. “Look at you, playing at power. Did you think absorbing a few shadow beasts would make you strong enough to face me? I’ve spent centuries perfecting corruption. Centuries learning its true purpose.”

“No,” I counter, moving closer. The frozen light shifters pulse with faint recognition as I pass, their crystallized forms humming with possibility. “You spent centuries running from yourself. Twisting others because you couldn’t bear to face your own emptiness.”

Her corruption surges outward, trying to fill the spaces between realities. Void-purple tendrils writhe through the air like hungry serpents, but now I see what she’s really doing—trying to devour everything so she won’t have to be anything. Each pulse of her power carries echoes of desperate loneliness.

“Such brave words,” Valerie’s form shifts as she moves among the frozen light shifters, trailing corruption that makes their crystallized essence crack and strain. “From the girl who used to beg so prettily. Who cried for mercy in my ballroom.” Her smile turns razor-sharp. “Shall we dance again, Frankie? For old times’ sake?”

The memories hit hard—Marcus’s hands bruising my arms, Sterling’s breath hot against my neck, endless nights of performed obedience. My wolves snarl, their forms bleeding shadow-smoke as they remember. Through our twin bond, I feel Finn’s light flare with protective rage. Through the pack bonds, I feel their distant fury ignite like summer storms.

But these memories hold no power over me now. I hold my wolves back, letting my transformed shadows rise instead. This isn’t about violence anymore. This is about something older. Something necessary.

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