Page 36 of Wild Ivy (Kings of Thornfield #3)

35

IVY

Everything implodes.

Life’s ritual unleashes a powerful force, dragging us both into a swirling abyss of pure energy. Her scream cuts off as her essence shatters completely, the fragments swallowed by the void she created.

Pain becomes my entire universe. Every cell in my body feels like it’s being torn apart and reassembled. Through the chaos, I feel the guys’ power anchoring me, keeping me from being ripped away into the void with her.

The temple crumbles around us. Bram’s magick lurches forward, wrapping around me like armour. Torin redirects the worst of the backlash, but it’s like trying to contain an explosion with tissue paper.

In the heart of the minefield, time slows. The chaos parts like a curtain, and I see her real image for the first time. Not the broken thing she became, but the essence of Life itself. She’s beautiful in a way that defies description, all light and possibility and the first breath of spring. Her form shifts between a young woman with flowers blooming in her hair to a mother heavy with child to an ancient tree spreading its branches toward the sun.

Our eyes meet across the void. In that moment, I understand her completely. I see her grief, ancient and bottomless as the ocean. I see her fear of loss, of change, of the endless cycle that brings both joy and pain. I see her desperation to preserve everything in amber, to stop the wheel from turning.

Then she fragments like light through a prism, her essence scattering into millions of glittering shards. Each piece carries a memory, a dream, a possibility. They spin away into the void, into me , as seeds of new life carried on a cosmic wind.

The implosion reaches its peak. Reality stretches, distorting everything it touches. Colours blur. Sound becomes light, becomes thought, becomes matter. My bones vibrate at frequencies that shouldn’t exist. The air feels like it’s being pulled inside out.

Then everything snaps back.

The silence hits like a punch to the head. One moment, the universe is screaming, the next, nothing. The contrast is so severe it makes my ears ring. I slam into the temple floor hard enough to drive the air from my lungs. Every nerve ending fires at once, sending conflicting signals of hot-cold-pain-pressure-nothing-everything to my overwhelmed brain.

Through vision that won’t quite focus, I see the others. Bram lies crumpled against a fallen column. Torin’s sprawled face-down, one arm bent at an angle it shouldn’t be. Tate’s the only one still somewhat upright, on his hands and knees, blood dripping from his nose and eyes.

Above us, the ceiling groans ominously.

“Move!” I try to shout, but it comes out as a hoarse whisper.

I try to move, and my body screams in protest. Every muscle feels shredded, every bone bruised to its core. My magick flutters weakly inside me, drained almost to nothing. But we can’t stay here.

“Get up,” I rasp, forcing myself to my knees. The world spins violently, and I taste copper in my mouth. “Get up!”

Bram stirs first. He stumbles toward Torin, who hasn’t moved. Above us, a massive chunk of ceiling crashes down barely ten feet away, sending shockwaves through the floor.

Tate crawls toward me, leaving smears of blood on the ancient stones. His eyes are unfocused, but his hand finds mine. What’s left of his power trickles through our bond, barely enough to help me stand.

“Torin,” I call out, my voice raw. Bram’s reached him now, carefully rolling him over. Torin groans, and with a sickening crunch, he snaps his broken arm back into place, which heals instantly.

Another section of the ceiling gives way. Bram’s magick flies upward, barely deflecting the debris away from them. The effort costs him; he staggers, nearly falling.

The temple shudders again. The floor beneath us starts to crack, and the corrupted ley lines still unwind far below. We have seconds before the whole place comes down.

I look at Tate and see the understanding in his eyes. We both know what needs to happen.

“Last bit of magick,” I say. “All of us. Together.”

We’ve never attempted anything like this in our depleted state, but there’s no choice. Death comes for everything eventually - but not today. Not like this.

Bram catches on immediately. His god-like magick, thin and tattered, stretches out to connect us all. I feel Tate gathering what’s left of his power, weaving it with mine. Torin shoves his magick into the mix with a loud grunt of effort.

The temple’s death throes intensify. Support columns crack and buckle. The floor starts to cave in at the edges, revealing the void-dark spaces beneath. It is pissed that the ritual was stopped, or maybe it’s just pissed that it was awoken from its slumber. Either way, it’s pissed, and we need to calm it down before it crushes us.

I close my eyes and reach for the power waiting. Death isn’t just an ending—it’s transformation, change, and a doorway to something new. I let that truth flow through me, through all of us.

“Hold on to each other,” I manage through gritted teeth. “No matter what happens, don’t let go.”

The ceiling gives way completely. Tons of ancient stone plummet toward us as the floor disintegrates beneath our feet. Time slows, caught between one heartbeat and the next.

I pull on every scrap of power we have left, weaving death and shadow and chaos into something new. Something that tastes like possibility.

The world goes white.

And we fold.

Reality bends around us like paper, creasing along impossible angles. For a fraction of a second, I see everything at once: the temple collapsing into itself, the corrupted ley lines snapping like overtightened strings, the countless layers of existence stacked like pages in a book. Our combined magick tears through them all, searching for a way out.

The sensation is indescribable - like being turned inside out while falling in every direction at once. If I thought being scattered across dimensions was painful, this is worse. I scream, my throat raw and bleeding. I feel Tate’s hand gripping mine so tightly the bones grind together. Bram’s magick screams as it’s stretched to its absolute limit. Torin’s magick dances wild and erratic through our impromptu spell.

We’re burning up what little power we have left. If this doesn’t work...

Then, something catches us. A current in the chaos, a thread of familiar power. It takes me a moment to recognise it.

Blackthorn.

I grab onto it with everything I have left. The others follow my lead, our combined magick wrapping around that glowing thread like drowning people clutching a lifeline.

The world twists one final time…

And spits us out.

We hit grass instead of stone. Clean night air fills my lungs, sweet and cold and blessedly real. Somewhere nearby, crickets are chirping as if nothing extraordinary has happened at all.

I force my eyes open and see the Professor standing over me, peering down with an inquisitive stare. “Well done, Miss Hammond,” he says cheerfully. “Well done, indeed.”