Page 101 of Soulmarked

“Probably,” I agreed, even as more energy poured into me through the mark. The pain was unbearable, but I focused on the task despite my body beginning to fail.

“Cade!” Sean's voice carried something beyond fear now, understanding, maybe, of what I was really doing. What this would cost. “Don't you dare! We'll find another way! We always do!”

The mark burned colder than deep space as more power poured in, making my vision white out at the edges. This waswhat it had been made for, not to break reality apart, but to hold it together. To contain what should never have been freed.

Asmodeus struck at me with desperate fury, but his darkness simply folded into the vortex I'd become. Above us, the tear in reality began to close, those countless ancient eyes blinking out one by one.

“You think this is victory?” Asmodeus demanded, his borrowed form beginning to crack and peel. “This power will hollow you out! Leave nothing but an empty shell, a prison of flesh and bone!”

“Maybe.” The word came out wet with blood. I could feel vessels bursting in my eyes, my nose, but I couldn't stop now. “But at least I chose this. This is my choice. Not yours, mine.”

“Cade, stop!” Sean's voice cracked as he slammed his fists against the barrier. “You don't know what it'll do to you!”

“I know exactly what it'll do,” I managed, each word tasting like copper and frost. “And I know it has to be me. There's no other option.”

Asmodeus's scream of fury shattered windows for blocks around. His perfect human disguise began to peel away in layers of black fire, revealing something ancient and terrible beneath. Bones like polished obsidian shifted between realities, moving in a pattern that defied comprehension.

“You dare?” the Prince's voice carried harmonics that made reality shudder. “You insignificant speck of flesh and bone, you dare defy what was written before your kind learned to speak?”

The Prince lunged at me, claws that could tear through dimensions slicing toward my throat. But the power flowing through me had changed something fundamental. I wasn't entirely here anymore, wasn't entirely anywhere.

“Impossible,” Asmodeus snarled.

“Guess you should have done more homework,” I replied, a small part of me taking satisfaction in out-thinking an ancient being of supposed infinite wisdom.

More power cascaded through the sigils, turning my bones to something between matter and memory. The pentagram's symbols began to pulse and contract, their ancient magic threading into my flesh like burning roots.

Sean slammed his hands against the barrier again, and the raw anguish in his voice made something in my chest crack. “Don't do this. Please.”

“I'm sorry,” I managed, feeling tears cut trails through the blood on my face. “But this was always coming. From the moment I said yes in that alley, this was where it would end.”

Power surged through me again, cutting him off as reality buckled. The tear above us began to close, those ancient hungry eyes blinking out one by one as Asmodeus realized what was happening. Its rage hit like a physical wave, making the very air crystallize with cold.

“You think this is victory?” Asmodeus's skeletal form began to fracture, cracks spreading through bone and shadow. “You'll be conscious for every moment! Feel yourself become nothing but a prison of flesh and...”

“Shut up,” I gritted out, pushing more power through the mark. The Prince's form wavered like a bad transmission, his connection to our reality weakening.

Sean's voice cut through the chaos, straight to my heart: “Cade, please. Not like this. Not alone.”

He was the best thing I'd found in this mess, and leaving him would hurt worse than what was about to happen to my body. Our connection had started as necessity but had grown into something I never expected to find in this life.

“I'll find you,” I said softly, letting the words carry all the weight of choices made and futures lost. “Remember that. Whatever happens next, remember what we had was real.”

The mark blazed brighter as the last of the pentagram's power poured into me. Reality bent and folded around my body like paper being crushed into a ball. Through the white-hot agony, I heard Sean screaming my name, felt the barrier finally shatter under the force of his desperation.

But it was too late. The power had reached critical mass, and there was only one way this could end.

I closed my eyes, imagining I could feel Sean's hands through the barrier, the way he would grip my shoulders if he could reach me, trying to anchor me to this world through sheer stubbornness. For a moment, I let myself pretend he could touch me, that the wall of power between us didn't exist. But I could hear him pounding against the barrier, his voice raw with desperation as he tried to reach me.

Then I opened myself completely to what I'd been made for, letting the mark do what it had been designed to do all along.

The void erupted from where the pentagram had been, expanding like a living thing, all darkness and hunger and ancient purpose. I stood at its center, every molecule of my being fighting to contain what should never have been freed. Power coursed through me in waves that made reality itself shudder, the mark burning so cold it felt like my chest might shatter.

The invisible wall between us had finally crumbled, leaving nothing but raw, unfiltered connection. He reached for me, his fingers trembling as they passed through my increasingly insubstantial form.

“I'm not leaving you.” His voice cracked on the last word. “Don't ask me to walk away. Not from this. Not from you.”

I tried to smile, though I wasn't sure my face was still entirely corporeal. “You have to.” My voice echoed strangely, like it wascoming from everywhere and nowhere at once. “Someone needs to remember. Someone needs to keep fighting.”

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