Page 77 of She Who Devours the Stars
“Is that divinity?” she asked. “Or just the mercy of a universe too lazy to let us stop?”
Nobody answered. The mythscape spun, slow and elegant, tracing the geometry of trauma and rebirth.
“In the end, you either break the mirror, or you make peace with the cracks.”
Her last words echoed, fractal and clear: “I am not afraid of being shattered. I am afraid of being exactly the same, forever.”
She let the mythscape collapse.
The AI, visibly disturbed, overcorrected: the lights returned too bright, the desks realigned with a clack, and every student’s heart rate spiked in unison.
Alyx stood there, breathing hard, sweat breaking out along her jawline.
The professor was the first to recover. “Thank you, Alyx. That was… illuminating.”
A shiver ran through the room.
From the back, someone whispered, “she’s glowing.”
From the front, another voice: “Is she Pre-Awakened?”
A third: “Not possible. She’d need a stabilizer.”
The first: “She is the stabilizer.”
I snorted, and the sound was the only thing that didn’t sound like prophecy.
#
After class, the corridor was a tangle of rumors and sideways glances. Nobody dared talk to Alyx directly, but everyone watched her as she packed up her bag, slow and precise, like she was wiring a bomb.
I found her by the window, eyes still glazed from the inside out.
“Nice aria,” I said.
She didn’t turn. “Didn’t think you’d listen.”
I shrugged. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
She blinked, then looked at me, and in her face I saw the thousand versions she’d projected: some cruel, some kind, all cut from the same godawful diamond.
“It’s not for them,” she said. “It’s for me.”
She snapped her bag shut, and her hands trembled just a little.
“They think you’re going to Ascend,” I said. “They’re afraid of it.”
She snorted, bitter. “Then they should be.”
I laughed, because I had to.
“You’re going to burn,” I said. Not as a threat, just a fact. I’d seen it before.
Alyx grinned, sharp and hungry. “So will you.”
I reached out—because I wanted to, because I had to—and tapped her hand, just once.
For a second, the world spun.
