Page 30 of Crowned by the Shadow (Bound by the Veil #5)
I nodded, drawing strength from his presence, from the unbreakable bond we shared. Turning back to the prison, I raised the pendant high, feeling its power thrum through my veins like molten starlight.
Before I could even think of anything to say, a laugh like shattering crystal echoed back to me, the Empress’s form becoming more distinct as she pressed against her weakening cage.
“Foolish child,” she purred, her voice resonating on multiple planes at once.
“You think you can stop me with trinkets and swords? I am the end of all things, the hunger that devours stars.”
“Not anymore,” Wyn countered, shadows gathering around her like a cloak. “We know what you are, Empress. What you once were, before the void corrupted you.”
A flicker of something passed across the Empress’s inhuman face. Surprise, perhaps even fear. “You understand nothing,” she hissed, her form rippling with barely contained power. “I am transformation incarnate, the inevitable change that awaits all things.”
“No,” I said firmly, feeling the artifacts’ power building within me like a rising tide. “You’re a blight on creation itself. A corruption that must be cleansed.”
With those words, I unleashed the pendant’s energy directly into the fracturing prison walls, a surge of silver-gold light that burned like captured sunlight against the encroaching darkness.
The Starforged Mirror and Eclipsed Crown flared in response, their ancient magic interweaving with mine in a symphony of cosmic power.
For a breathless moment, it seemed to work. The cracks in the crystal began to mend themselves as the light from the artifacts suffused every facet with radiant energy. The Empress recoiled as if burned, her shadowy form shrinking back from this onslaught of purifying magic.
But then, just as victory seemed within reach, something shifted, a subtle alteration in the very fabric of reality that sent tremors through my bones like distant thunder.
The prison shuddered as new fractures raced across its surface faster than we could repair them.
Shadows poured out in oily tendrils that writhed with malevolent hunger.
And at their heart emerged the Void Dragon Empress reborn, scales glistening like polished obsidian under starlight while twin vortices of collapsing galaxies stared down at us framed by lashes crafted from purest darkness itself.
On her brow rested an ebony crown encrusted with jewels that seemed to absorb any light that was around her, while talons scored deep grooves into reality’s foundations beneath her feet.
“Did you truly believe it would be so easy?” she asked almost gently, despite madness glinting behind ageless eyes. “The void cannot be contained forever. I am its avatar, its herald. And within minutes I will be free and you shall be the first to fall to the new world order.”
With a gesture that stretched space itself, she flexed her massive wings, and the prison shrank around her, or maybe she grew to fill it. Either way, I knew that if she got free, all of creation would tremble in her terrible shadow.
We stood frozen as the artifacts in my hands pulsed frantically, their light flickering as if in fear of this primordial darkness made flesh.
“The convergence is upon us,” the Empress declared, her voice echoing across countless realms at once. “The barriers between worlds grow thin. Soon, all will be one within the glorious void.”
I gripped the pendant tighter, feeling its power surge through me like a rising tide. “We won’t let that happen,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “We’ll stop you, whatever it takes.”
The Empress laughed, the sound like glass shattering. “You cannot stop the inevitable, child. But by all means, try. It will make your final failure all the sweeter.”
With those words, she spread her wings even wider, vast membranes of the purest shadow that blotted out the stars themselves. Darkness rolled off her in waves, a hunger that sought to devour all light, all life, all hope.
I raised the Starforged Mirror in trembling hands, angling its ancient surface toward the Empress.
Beside me, Wyn gathered shadows around her like a cloak of midnight, while Thorn’s eye blazed with golden fire.
Together, we poured every ounce of our power into the artifacts, a desperate attempt to push back against this all-consuming void.
The mirror’s surface flared with silver-blue light, catching the Empress’s darkness and reflecting it back at her in a searing beam of cosmic energy. She recoiled with a hiss of pain; her form flickering as the purifying magic tore at her essence.
As though it was sentient and knew the Empress would only be pushed back for a short time, The Starforged Mirror pulsed beneath my fingers, a sudden surge of magic so potent I nearly dropped it.
I tightened my grip instead, channeling more of my power into the ancient artifact.
Its surface rippled like liquid silver, no longer reflecting our faces but something deeper, more primal.
“What’s happening?” Thorn asked, his voice tight with concern.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “But it’s showing me something.”
The mirror’s surface darkened, swirling with shadows that coalesced into recognizable forms. Images flickered across its depths, radiating out into the surrounding space. They weren’t memories or visions of the present, but truths hidden beneath layers of time and deception.
The mirror revealed a being of transcendent beauty, the one who had started all of this…
The Moon Goddess.
She was in her true form with silver hair that flowed like starlight and eyes like pools of radiant moonlight, while her skin seemed to glow with gentle power. She looked so alive and so strong that it was a stark contrast to the last time I’d seen her.
As I kept watching, darkness crept in from the edges, tendrils of void energy wrapping around her, seeping into her essence until those luminous eyes darkened to become the galaxy-devouring vortices I’d come to fear. Those eyes that haunted my sleeping moments, the eyes of the Void Dragon Empress.
“She was the Moon Goddess,” I breathed, the revelation stealing my voice. “Before the corruption took her.”
But it wasn’t enough. With a snarl of rage, the Empress rushed back to the edge of her prison, lashing out with tendrils of purest shadow, whips of darkness that struck the mirror, almost shattering it. I cried out as the backlash seared through me, driving me to my knees.
Thorn was at my side in an instant, his powerful arms wrapping around me protectively. “Senara! Are you alright?”
I nodded weakly, struggling to rise despite the pain lancing through every nerve. The pendant still pulsed against my chest, its light dimmer but unbroken. “I’m fine,” I managed. “But the mirror...” A large dark crack now marred the perfect surface, almost splitting it in two.
Wyn knelt beside us, running her hand over the damaged mirror. “It’s not destroyed,” she said softly. “Just... broken. Like everything else touched by her corruption.”
The Empress practically loomed over us, her terrible beauty marred by cruel amusement. “Foolish children,” she purred. “Your pitiful magics are but candles before the infinite dark. And now your lights will be snuffed out forever.”
She raised one massive, taloned hand, an executioner’s axe poised to fall. I braced myself for oblivion, my heart full of regret for all the things left unsaid, undone.
But the blow never came.
Instead, a blinding flash of golden light erupted between us and the Empress, a searing flare of sun-bright energy that forced even her to shield her eyes. When it faded, a figure stood before us, wreathed in shimmering radiance.