Page 61 of Crowned By the Shadow
The Empress actually faltered, her galaxy-swallowing eyes widening in shock. “You,” she whispered, disbelief and ancient rage warring in her tone. “After all this time... you dare face me now?”
Van, or whoever he truly was, met her gaze steadily. “I always have,” he replied softly. “And I always will, until balance is restored.”
With those cryptic words, his fingers danced across the lyre’s strings in a melody that shook the very foundations of reality. Notes of purest sunlight poured forth, each one a searing arrow aimed straight at the Empress’s heart.
She screamed as the music tore through her, golden light burning away the shadows that cloaked her form. For a breathtaking instant, I glimpsed what lay beneath. She was not a monster, but a being of heartbreaking beauty, her face a mirror of Van’s own.
Before any more arrows of music and light could hit her, she swirled away, her great wings acting as shields as she wrapped them around herself and disappeared deeper into her prison, using the darkness to hide herself.
Van took a deep breath as though he was suddenly exhausted. “She was my counterpart,” Van continued, his voice heavy with ancient grief. “The balance to my light. We maintained the harmony of all realms together until the void corrupted her during a cosmic alignment, much like the one right now.”
“You’re the Sun God,” Ronan whispered, disbelief coloring his words.
Van nodded, his eyes reflecting a pain too vast for mortal understanding. “A fragment of him. When she fell, I couldn’t bear to destroy her. Instead, I fractured my essence, scattering it across the realms to hide from her. As those fragments have died off, the constellations in the sky have faded. It’s how I knew Senara was my last hope of fixing this.”
The mirror pulsed in my hands again, drawing our attention. One half of it showed the Empress’s true desire, not destruction, but reunion. Behind the corruption lay a desperate longing to be whole again, to find the other half of herself.
“She doesn’t want to destroy the realms,” I said, understanding dawning. “She wants to find you, to be reunited with her counterpart.”
“Yes,” Van admitted. “But the corruption has twisted that desire into something destructive. She believes the only way to find me is to remake all realms in her image, to force a reunionon her terms. To force us both to be what we once were, even though that’s not possible. Time and power have changed us both.”
Thorn’s hand found mine, steadying me as the weight of this revelation settled over us. “So we’re not fighting a monster,” he said. “We’re fighting a goddess who’s lost herself to darkness.”
“And who wants to reunite with her other half?” Wyn added, her twilight powers swirling in response to this new understanding.
I stared into the mirror, watching as it showed one final truth. The Sun God, whole and radiant, choosing to shatter himself rather than face the corrupted form of his beloved. Not out of cowardice, as Van had claimed, but out of love. He knew that confrontation would force him to annihilate her.
“All this time,” I whispered, “we’ve been preparing to fight an enemy we didn’t understand.”
The mirror’s surface stilled, returning to its normal, non-reflective state. But the knowledge it had revealed changed everything. The Empress wasn’t just an entity to be defeated. She was a goddess to be healed, a balance to be restored. Her form may have been slightly different thanks to taking on a physical avatar, but I knew it was the same goddess I’d spoken with, or at least fragments of her that I’d spoken with previously.
“What does this mean for us?” Ronan asked, breaking the heavy silence.
I looked up at my companions, determination replacing the shock in my heart. “It means we have a chance to heal what was broken, not just destroy it. The artifacts weren’t created as weapons. They were made to restore balance.”
Van’s eyes met mine, a flicker of hope kindling in their ancient depths. “Do you think it’s possible? After all this time?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But I know we have to try. For all our sakes. Based on what we’ve seen so far, I’m not sure we stand a chance in a head-to-head fight.”
As the mirror cooled in my hands, I felt the weight of this new purpose settle over me. We weren’t just fighting to save the realms; we were fighting to restore a goddess, to heal a cosmic wound that had festered for an unimaginable amount of time.
And somehow, that made our impossible task feel even more daunting. The key was the artifacts. I knew that down to my very bones. “Do you remember how to use the artifacts to restore the balance?” I asked Van.
He shook his head sadly. “I’m only a fragment of the Sun God. I don’t have all his memories or knowledge.”
I took a deep breath, my mind racing. The revelations spun like the threads of fate weaving through our lives, each one pulling me closer to an understanding I had barely begun to grasp. I looked at Van, whose radiant presence felt both comforting and overwhelming.
“We have to gather our strength,” I said, my voice steadying as determination settled over me. “If the artifacts can help heal the Empress, I mean, the Goddess, then we need to figure out how they work together.”
Ronan stepped forward, his expression focused. “We know the Crown banishes darkness, the Pendant allows for safe passage between realms, and the Mirror reveals truths. But how do we combine them?”
Thorn clenched his fists, a fire igniting in his eyes. “We don’t have much time before the convergence happens. Or before she attacks again. If we can reach her while she’s vulnerable…”
Van’s gaze softened as he looked at each of us. “If I can face her without fear, you all can, too. We must remind her of who she was, of the light that we believe still lives within.”
“Use the Moon Blades,” Volker said, speaking up for the first time in a while.
“Explain?” I asked, hating the idea of parting with my weapons.
