Page 398

It was a split-second decision. One born from a guess.

She couldn’t fight this cosmic tide, but perhaps she could steer it. The universe wasn’t a rigid structure but a living fabric, and time flowed through it like a current. By altering that flow, she could nudge the spatial trajectory without fighting its immense weight.

The temporal currents swirled around her, growing more turbulent by the second as the universe contracted. The collapse was like a great whirlpool, sucking everything inward.

It created a knot in time—a point of compression where every moment folded inward, stacking tighter with nowhere left to go.

With a deep breath, Taly focused on that density. On the pressure that built and built.

The goddess’s approval rippled through her like a sweet, vicious thrill.

“Fuck you, Bill,” Taly whispered into the blackness of space.

Then she wrenched with her magic, yanking at the fabric of the universe as it rushed toward convergence. She aligned herself with the collapsing flow of time, harnessing its momentum to carve a new course.

Just a degree of difference—but over infinite space, the deviation grew.

Like a shuttle cast through the warp, she was flung across the cosmos, riding the crest of a tidal wave of energy. The universe blurred. Stars streaked past like comet tails. Galaxies spiraled by in a dazzling whirl of color. Time stretched and snapped.

She wasn’t stopping the collapse. She was redirecting it. She felt the Aion Gate twist behind her, dragged in the arc of her trajectory.

She needed a new destination—and she found one.

The thrum of hyaline resonated through her. A second Gate. Ancient, nearly forgotten. Its signal was faint, buried beneath the noise of collapsing space, but it was there. Waiting.

A bright red planet shone like a distant beacon, standing out against the endless dark.

That’s where she aimed. Locking onto its distant gravity, she wrenched the course toward the forgotten Gate.

Taly opened her eyes, and she was back in her body.

Aneirin was only just realizing what she’d done. His eyes widened, his arrogance fracturing into shock, rage, then a delicious hint of panic. “You bi—”

She didn’t think. Didn’t hesitate.

With a surge of aether, the world blurred, time stretching as her movements accelerated.

Taly seized him.

Those spectral wings flared wide—and with a mighty beat, she focused every ounce of her strength into that final, decisive shove.

Aneirin—Aiden—let out one last scream, raw and piercing, a sound that seemed to echo through the void as he toppled backward. The Aion Gate loomed behind him, its surface rippling like molten glass.

Then he was gone.

The lamina of energy swallowed him whole. His scream cut off mid-note.

Taly stood panting, those wings of pure aether slowly contracting back into her.

The mages holding Aimee looked around, confused, and she took the opportunity to wrench free of them.

She started toward the Gate. Her steps faltered. Then her head turned, and her eyes found Taly instead.

“Taly.” Aimee’s voice cracked as she grabbed her shoulders. With a hiss, she let go like it burned. “Taly, we have to go now.”

But Taly remained aloof, silent. Aimee’s panic barely registered, her words like distant echoes in a world now too small, too fragile.

She could see it all—the infinite Weave bending to her will. Aimee was just another piece on the board, insignificant and trembling.