Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

As my fingers brushed Wrath’s cold stone face, the harp’s song reached a crescendo that shook the foundations of Rosslyn Chapel. For one heartbeat, time seemed to freeze. Justice falling below me, Rage’s darkness swirling around us, Maci’s massive form wheeling overhead.

Then, everything exploded into light.

The seven artifacts awakened at once, their power connecting like lightning strikes. Crown to mirror to feather to grass to scales to hourglass to harp—which remained in my hands, its activation completed with a touch—a perfect star of holy fire that turned night to day. Ancient stone seemed to drink in the light as centuries of dormant power surged to life.

That was when I saw it. The Apprentice Pillar began to glow, its carved dragons writhing as if coming to life. The spiraling vines that wrapped the column moved, their stone texture turning fluid like living plants.

“No!” Maci’s voice held real fear for the first time. “No, not the pillar! Not?—”

“Well, that’s definitely gonna mess with the chapel’s tour guide script,” Damon quipped, trying to mask his unease with humor, though I heard the slight shake in his voice. “‘And here, folks, is where we turned a psycho dragon into a lawn ornament.’ Man, I need a drink after this.”

The transformation started at her tail. Where the pillar’s light touched her, scales crystallized into stone, the change creeping up her body like frost claiming a window. My stomach lurched at the sight. This was justice, but watching any creature’s terror as they were turned to stone made me feel sick. Even after everything she’d done, everything she’d tried to do to Justice…

“Stand fast.” Brody’s voice cut through my wavering resolve. I drew from his presence the way I had through countless battles. His next words reminded me why I trusted him to lead us when I couldn’t. “What we’re witnessing isn’t merely an ending. It’s proof that evil, no matter how powerful, can be overcome when we stand together. This is why we fight.”

“Yeah, yeah. Skip the inspirational speech, Captain,” Damon muttered. “Just tell me we’re not gonna end up as stone decorations, too. Because I gotta say, eternal rest as a garden statue? Not really my style.”

Justice’s hand found mine in the chaos as Maci’s wings petrified mid-beat. I squeezed his fingers, grateful for the anchor, as I watched the stone crawl across her wing tissue. I’d just freed him from one kind of prison. Watching another being, even one as evil as Maci, become eternally trapped felt like a cruel echo.

Lisa and Zara clutched each other’s hands, paling as they watched their ancient enemy’s imprisonment. Magic crackled at their fingertips, responding to the pillar’s power.

“Focus, team,” Brody commanded. “We’ve won this battle, but the war isn’t over.”

The stone crawled across Maci’s membrane-thin wing tissue, creating intricate patterns that matched the pillar’s ancient design. Her struggles became jerky, desperate, as more of her body turned rigid and gray.

As the pillar’s power crawled higher up Maci’s form, I started shaking. Not from fear but from the sheer weight of what we were witnessing. What I had set in motion.

“Man, this is like some twisted museum installation,” Damon commented. “Hey, you okay there, sis?”

I wasn’t. Not really. The sound of stone claiming flesh made my teeth ache, and watching Maci’s desperate struggles become jerkier, more rigid—it was like watching someone drown in slow motion. Even after everything she’d done, trying to take Justice, trying to kill us all, this felt final. Permanent in a way that even death wasn’t.

“Remember why we’re here,” Brody insisted. “Remember what she would have done to the world, to all of us.”

“I remember,” I whispered as the stone reached Maci’s neck. Justice’s fingers intertwined with mine, and I drew strength from him, from all of them. My team. My family. The people I’d fought beside, bled beside, would die to protect.

The final moment approached, and Maci’s eyes found mine. Still alive, still terrified. In that last second, before the stone claimed her completely, I saw something I never expected. Understanding. As if she finally recognized what she’d brought upon herself.

“It’s done,” Lisa whispered. “She’s really…”

“Part of the chapel,” Zara finished, crossing herself despite not being religious.

Where Maci had been a creature of flame and fury, she was now another mystery for future visitors to wonder about, another secret carved into Rosslyn’s stones. The weight of what we’d done, what I’d done, wasn’t an easy pill to swallow. Maci had been evil, but sometimes killing evil leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Rage’s darkness swirled around us, then around the pillar. He howled in outrage as he brushed over Maci’s still form, the sound carrying all the fury of hell itself. His shadows writhed and twisted, becoming more solid, more threatening. We’d taken something from him. His dragon, his weapon. Now, we’d have to face his wrath.

The darkness took shape, pulling into something almost human but wrong. Where features should have been was only void, deeper than night. The temperature in the chapel plummeted, our breath coming out in clouds despite the lingering heat from Maci’s final flames.

“Well, that’s not terrifying at all,” Damon muttered, shifting his grip on his blade. “Anyone got a nightlight handy?”

“Stay together,” Brody ordered, his shield ready. “Whatever he’s become?—”

“ You think you’ve won? ” Rage’s voice shook the ancient stones, making dust rain down from the vaulted ceiling. “ You think trapping Maci ends this? ”

His darkness surged forward like a tidal wave. I clutched the harp tighter. Around us, the other artifacts blazed bright as if responding to the threat.

“Stay close,” Brody shouted, moving to form a defensive line. “The artifacts are connected now. Use them together!”

Justice tensed beside me, his golden healing marks flaring. I felt him flinch as Rage’s darkness brushed too close, the memory of possession still too fresh, too raw. My heart clenched. I wouldn’t let that monster touch him again.

“Hey, ugly!” Damon called, always drawing fire away from me. “You’re not looking so hot without your pet dragon. What’s wrong? Having a bad day?”

Rage’s form twisted toward my brother, and for a heartbeat, I saw what looked like a smile in that void. Something that made my blood run cold.

“ Bad day ?” The chapel trembled with his laughter. “ I’ll show you a bad day! ”

The darkness rushed at us from all sides.

“Circle up!” Brody shouted.

Lisa and Zara grabbed the crown and the hourglass, then began to chant, their voices weaving together as they had in countless battles. The crown pulsed in sync with the hourglass, creating a rhythm like a heartbeat.

“ Fools ,” Rage’s voice boomed through the chapel. “ You cannot banish me. I am darkness itself. ”

His shadows struck like serpents, but where they touched the light of our artifacts, they hissed and recoiled. The harp thrummed in my hands, its notes rising without being played. The artifacts glowed brighter, creating that seven-pointed star again.

“Sawyer, look!” Justice pointed to where the beams of light intersected. “The pattern—it’s the same as the pillar’s spirals!”

“Oh, hell no,” Damon growled, slicing through another shadow tendril. “You are not pulling that stone trick on us, you smoke-show reject.”

But I understood suddenly. The pillar hadn’t been meant only for Maci. The artifacts, the seven sins, the spiral pattern, it was all connected. All part of an ancient trap.

Rage must have realized it, too. His darkness surged back, trying to escape the web of light we’d created. “ No. I am not some weak dragon to be caged in stone! ”

“The pillar needs all seven artifacts,” Lisa called, understanding dawning in her eyes. “Like with the sins, they have to work together!”

The harp’s song grew stronger in my hands, almost pulling me toward the other blazing artifacts as everyone grabbed one. Justice’s mirror cut through shadows, Damon steadied the phoenix feather, Brody held the scales like a weapon. The crown and hourglass pulsed between Lisa and Zara while the phoenix grass in Justice’s other hand glowed with internal fire.

“ I will not be imprisoned! ” Rage’s form writhed between solid and shadow, his darkness trying to slip through the gaps in our circle. “ I will tear you all apart! ”

“Not this time,” I called, my voice stronger than my quivering insides. The memory of what he’d done to Justice, how he’d twisted him, made my grip tighten on the harp. “You’re done hurting people we love.”

“Everyone move toward the pillar,” Brody ordered, his calm authority cutting through the chaos. “Keep the circle tight!”

“Right, because getting closer to the creepy stone-making pillar is exactly what I wanted to do today,” Damon muttered, but he moved in perfect sync with us, years of fighting together making us one unit.

We approached the pillar where Maci’s stone form coiled. Each step made the artifacts’ light grow stronger, their power connecting like pieces of a puzzle we were supposed to solve all along.

Rage’s darkness boiled around us, desperate now. “ You cannot hold me. I am eternal. I am ? — ”

“You are really starting to piss me off,” I cut in, channeling some of Damon’s snark. The harp’s song reached a fever pitch as we closed in on the pillar.

The seven artifacts sang in harmony, their light creating a cage of pure power around Rage’s writhing darkness that grew tighter, brighter, until the chapel itself pulsed with ancient magic.

“ NO! ” Rage’s form thrashed wildly, his darkness trying to seep through any crack, any shadow. “ I possessed your mate. I know your fears, your weaknesses ? — ”

“Yeah, about that,” Justice’s voice rang with quiet fury. “Bad move.” He raised the mirror higher, its light cutting through Rage’s attempts to reform.

The pillar’s dragons moved again, their stone eyes tracking our progress. Maci’s frozen form seemed to watch us, her eternal prison waiting to claim another.

“Almost there,” Brody called. “Hold the line!”

“Hold the line?” Damon scoffed, but his hands were rock-steady on the phoenix feather. “How about ‘hurry the hell up before shadow-boy here loses his mind?’”

Rage’s darkness contracted suddenly, then exploded outward with devastating force. The blast knocked us all back a step, but our circle held. The artifacts’ light caught his darkness like a net, holding him fast.

“You want eternal?” I felt the words rise from somewhere deep inside, powered by fury at what he’d done to Justice, to all of us. “Then be eternal in stone.”

The harp’s song crescendoed, and the other artifacts responded in kind. Light erupted from all seven points, connecting in a perfect star pattern that centered on the pillar. Rage’s scream of denial shook the chapel foundations.