Page 146 of Eternal Light

Such pain is almost more than Nix can bear alone.

He knows that technically, each one must have agreed to be there—but consent is often little more than semantics. Coercion, desperation, or the desire to save others—it all looks the same in the end, especially to people like James Rhodes Sr. or Winnie’s father.

Just look at Ansel, who had agreed to help his father, unknowing about the full extent of the penalty he would pay.

In the end, Withers would not have cared whether it had been freely given, and his decayed body hid a soul long tainted by pure evil.

The mass swirls, expanding in diameter, glinting under the full moon’s light and flashing with lightning.

Nix’s pain grows in tandem with the mass, but it is also tinged with something new:regret.

Nix, let Us help them.

The voice is layered. Tone upon tone, each word echoing in Nix’s mind—his soul—just as it had been all the other times They had spoken to him.

Those moments from the past rush through him—the memories he’d forgotten. Not just when he was a child in the forest, or crawling down the hall of Dawson’s apartment building, or trying to surface during the agony of his transition.

New memories, from a million other occurrences.

Through thousands of lifetimes, Their voice has been a part of his DNA, down to the cellular level.

He is the Goddess, and They are him. He is Chosen.

He doesn’t even need to agree; he just opens his bonds further, letting Their love and truth fill him to overflowing.

“Stop.”

Aleksander’s remaining eye widens as the tainted vortex of souls he had stolen is sucked back into his chest, where it does not belong.

Once freed, his blackened soul is unable to hold them, and they continue to emanate outward in waves, surrounding him with a smoking black aura.

It is time for Them to stop this, once and for all.

“Aleksander,” They say, “It is time for you to return to The Plain. We have heard enough. Seen enough.”

They are filled with more sorrow than They have ever felt before—almost as much as when They let Their Sun God mate abandon Their children and Their home.

“We regret Our decision to allow you to continue to tip the balance of Life in this life, as you have done, every time over.”

They have always believed in second—even third—chances, but never before has there been such a corrupted soul in the fabric of time.

Time flows through Their fingers; flashes of the worst moments—not even all of them—stream from Their memories. While Humans are not usually within Their jurisdiction, those who access Their Plain most certainly are.

The fountain of life that They have given is of Their creation.

It is of Them.

Their purest essence.

A gift.

It is only now that They have finally gathered all They need to purge this soul from time. After so many lifetimes and planes of existence, now They have these men, in this configuration, in this time, with Their Chosen to lead them.

“It is time,” They murmur, moving Their Chosen’s small fingers to Aleksander’s ruined forehead.

The black churning mass stings Their Chosen as it is the antithesis of all he is, but Their Chosen is brave, used to pain and suffering.

They feel another sliver of regret for those times when They had lost Their Chosen to a simple pendant forged, not to thwart Them in a master plan, but out of simple, insidious greed.