We feel…

Everything.

Rayne’s excitement over her first loose tooth. Kyle’s disappointment when his mother said she was expecting another daughter. Andrew’s triumph over speaking his first word at five years old. Tameka’s joy when she made drill team captain. Sagan’s anguish when Justin threatened to out her and Rayne.

So many big and so many little things. And there were so many more.

Devis holding Celindria in her sleep. Sweet bliss. Andrius delivering his first daughter, stillborn. Sharp despair. T.a.o. meeting a Chihuahua for the first time. Absolute terror. All of their combined love and grief for Merit.

More came from across the Probabilities, and most left Celindria’s heart fulfilled.

Pax’s first successful experiment was a wondrous occasion, and Celindria’s congratulations had suffused him with pride and esteem.

Hope’s reaction when Celindria had first approached Hope had barely touched Celindria, but it had changed her daughter’s world.

A cornucopia of vibrant and desolating emotions washed through Celindria. She indulged in them all. The firsts. The lasts. Every sweet release.

Kombuchi, F8, X, Legir, 2Lip, Dolor, and Tempest—All their sorrow over losing their people to Imminent’s greed and Celindria’s volition. Their determination and vigor. Their love and honor. And how little of it had lived in Celindria.

Cypher, Colton, and Six—Three humans Celindria had cared little about, and yet, she lived their trauma over losing Xelan and their elation over his resurrection. Their hopes and fears which guide their every decision. What drove Celindria?

Twenty-One and Miy’s optimism. Iuo’s soft ambition. Puk and Yito’s loneliness. The love Bones, Lamassau, and Qas held for their respective races. Pablo and Lynn’s parental anxieties. The way Matt and Lucy hungered equally for each other as for the blood of their enemies.

The beauty brought pain, which brought more beauty. And Celindria appreciated every rush of it.

Until the shadow came. Until the blight.

Aria and Torch waited in their crates for their turn. They’d listened to their half-brother muttering to himself in his research and found comfort in Xelan’s voice. Even on the day they’d heard it as he’d tossed them into Torrentus, unknowingly, they still loved him. Loneliness and rejection turned Celindria’s stomach.

A flash of Jack’s Atramentous eyes when he’d pressed his face to Ross’ back through the bars of Celindria’s cell. This was when she’d forced Chris to pin Ross there as a threat. Karter and Para, proud warriors, watched on in impotent fury. Anxiety, turmoil, pity, and undiluted fear tasted bitter and dry in Celindria’s mouth.

The two years of torture Razor had inflicted on Bethany played like a snuff film. Skin-blistering sugar, muscle-splitting lashings, nerve-firing shocks—Resignation, lead and certain, weighed Celindria down.

Caedes punched the ice. Over and over… On the verge of madness, he repeated the action, expecting a different outcome. Expecting to break the ice and save his already dead friend. Grief smelled like a funeral pyre to Celindria’s senses.

“You’re leaving me now?! When we’re so close? What have I done wrong, Celindria?” Pehton had begged Celindria to stay. But the First Progeny had abandoned her Lyriki lover in the middle of their shared investigation of Inanis. Celindria had completed her dealings with Razor, and had convinced Pehton to pilot the port system for the Divine Booths. Without emotions, her ambitions led her to leave Pehton behind and move on. Used by Remorse, Celindria, and Razor—Pehton was a toy to them, and the threadbare remnants of her heart took Celindria’s breath away.

The rest came flooding in. People Imminent had used and maimed, left without loved ones, and burned in the collateral—Celindria felt them all, tasted their pain, smelled their tears, and experienced their torment.

“Please, no!” They begged and cried—all of them—and Celindria never once listened.

Thanks to Remorse and Razor, Korac had already endured the worst of childhoods. And the brief period of peace he’d experienced as an adult with Nox and Xelan was only a taste of what he was never meant to have. Korac knew from the beginning—perhaps through his half-Aegis genetics—that Celindria aimed to come between him and his brothers. She’d smiled in Korac’s face as he fought to keep them together. With every rip and tear, Celindria had shredded Korac’s stability and sense of home. Even his satisfaction at whipping her back could only draw from a well of hurt and fear.

Celindria had always sensed Xelan’s initial disappointment and rejection of her as his First Progeny experiment, but she’d never endured the concern with it. Xelan had loved Celindria from the beginning—His daughter, his creation. He’d mourned the mistake he’d made in stripping Celindria of emotion. Deep, rooting loss, which festered into guilt and self-hatred. Xelan took on every crime Celindria had ever committed as if it were his own, and the shame ate away at him. So Xelan had begged the Shadow to spare Celindria—to try—for her sake.

Every trauma Celindria had ever inflicted—directly or indirectly—flooded through her, while Andrew and Andrius forced her to experience overbearing remorse.

No.

Please, no. Not this one.

“You come to your master’s call better than a domesticated beast.”

Nox’s anxiety spiked when he spied Celindria perched in the window of the highest tower in Umbra’s Spire. Mistrust and puzzlement made him frown as he noted she supposedly bore no wings, yet had scaled to this height. He knew if he’d asked, she would lie to him, anyway.

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Even though he found her words venomous, Nox thought Celindria was beautiful in her pregnancy.

When his eyes fell to her swelling abdomen, Celindria smoothed her hands over it and said, “She is yours. I like to produce daughters. Do you want to feel?”

Celindria could feel Nox’s answering terror. He was desperate to reconcile with her in order to save the infant, terrified as he was to repeat his father’s mistakes.

Viscous tears of blood followed the trails down Celindria’s cheeks as the Progeny forced her to live this moment in Nox’s heart.

“Celindria, rule Earth and Cinder me. We can raise our daughter together. We could lead together.”

When Nox held out his hand, Celindria felt the hope in the gesture. The genuine promise of harmony.

Please, no.

Please, don’t let this go on!

“Conceived in rape. Cultivated by a monster. A history of violence so erratic that you almost killed your own brother. What kind of father would you make?”

Hurt and doubt lanced through Nox, but more powerful than the agony was the Icarus’ devoted determination. “Please—”

Unfeeling, Celindria ended the pregnancy.

Devastated, Nox screamed, “No! No, please!” and fell to his knees.

His tears from then formed Celindria’s tears now.

What kind of monster am I?

The call of a seagull made Celindria open her eyes. She stood on a beach suffused with the salty smell of the ocean as the waves kissed the white sand. Children ran along the boardwalk, begging for ice cream, or they built sandcastles under their parents’ tutelage. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.

“You’re not a monster, Celindria. You’re just broken.”

Rayne.

Celindria turned to find the girl with her bare feet in the tide. The surf had drenched the lower half of her dress, and her wavy hair was down, teased in the salty breeze. The dress matched the blood-soaked ribbon in Celindria’s hand. There was a natural aversion between the two women, despite the sweetness of Rayne’s smile and the openness of her eyes. It strung the tension into a taut rope, made of nacre and sown from the heart.

Rayne said, “We will never find common ground because it already exists, and it is a battlefield. We both want Nox.”

Celindria acknowledged, “That’s an eloquent and succinct explanation. How do we proceed? A fight to the death?”

Disappointment faltered the kindness in Rayne’s expression as she shook her head slowly. “No, Celindria. I will show you the Eternal Bind and let it open a path to your redemption. If it can’t sway you, then nothing will.”

Celindria cut her hands through the air. “I don’t want to see the two of you find happiness. I don’t want to experience your love—”

“It’s not us, alone.” Rayne’s smile returned. “You’ll see.”

In a breath—in the time it took the valves of Celindria’s heart to open and close—she witnessed the Eternal Bind and understood.

Probabilities and Verses, realities and lives, intertwined into a mass of benign and malignant cells. Where some healed, others bled. Where some shone like a beacon, others swallowed the light. The entanglement further knotted in the center where ancestors and descendants met in war and lovers danced in blood-soaked regalia.

One was at its core.

The Eternal Bind.

Breathless and blind, Celindria fell to her knees, but before she hit the wet sand, it transformed into hardened stone.

“Your Verse doesn’t have to end badly, Celindria.”

Sight returned to Celindria, blurry at first. She made out the structures of white stone surrounding her. A staircase with a massive balustrade led to a second story, which circled the room. Ahead of her, a placid pool of yellow liquid beckoned, and six figures stood sentinel over it.

With a long blink, Celindria’s vision returned. Vines were etched into the floor, and they climbed along the stairs, walls, and ceilings, all leading to the same place. Across the pool from her was a wall with yellow roses. Celindria blinked again and narrowed her eyes to better focus them on the flowers. The citrine engravings were actually liquid, and they poured into the pool.

Legends and Verses told of this place.

The Feast of Roses.

Celindria said to the figures, “The Seam?”

Lucas took the first step forward and held out his hand. “Welcome to my homeworld, Celindria.”

Korac—but not Korac—said, “It suits you.”

Before Celindria could take Lucas’ hand, she noticed why the Atheneum had complimented her. Celindria’s hair… It’d turned white.

Silence observed, “Not all of it. Your roots are still dark.” She peered over her shoulder at the massive Icarus who could only be Elden. Each strand of his hair was both black and white. Silence said, “It varies by race.” As if to answer Celindria’s next question, Silence touched the blue streak of her hair.

As Lucas helped Celindria stand, Tumu—paler than she’d last seen him—took the next step forward. “This may come as a shock, but we’ve kept a close eye on you.”

The ‘human,’ known as Smith, said, “And we think we finally understand.”

Celindria was grateful they understood, because she was becoming steadily more confused—

Wait.

Confusion.

Celindria was feeling it.

Lucas smiled at her as if he’d read her thoughts. “Yes, child. You have the Shadow to thank for it, but hold those thoughts. We have much to tell you. And a question to ask.”

From the physical description in accounts locked in the Pantheon, Celindria recognized Zero in Korac’s body by his pupils. The rings in his white eyes looked right through her as he said, “You endangered the fabric of existence to cure a turmoil you could only feel in spare glimpses. We have known this day would come.”

Tumu said, “All the races began with the Aegis and most at Zero.”

Lucas nodded at Silence and Elden. “I tried to unmake you by keeping them apart, and when that proved an insurmountable task, I employed help from my brothers.”

Silence said, “I gave birth to the Twelve Worlds.”

Elden took his mate’s hand. “And I fathered the Icarean race.”

Smith said, “And I built your temple.”

Gold.

The Oblivion Cathedral.

Zero in Korac’s body bowed with his head as if confirming Celindria’s thought. “We could not destroy you, but we could guide you to this moment.” He gestured to the pool of Aegis blood. “To your choice.”

Celindria could feel Eternity shaping around her, and she could feel herself rejoice in it. “What am I to decide?”

All six of them glanced amongst themselves, smiling with relief and elation. It was infecting Celindria, and she reveled in it.

Lucas spread his arms wide, gesturing to the pool of blood. Within it, images appeared. On the right was Xelan tending to Nox after Elden had vacated his body. Celindria’s lover was blistered and hollowed out, blind without his eyes.

On the left was Celindria, holding an infant with Nox at her side. It wasn’t their child. It was Raisin, Hope’s latest great granddaughter—

And there.

Celindria’s beautiful daughter appeared within the scene, with Pax at her side. They stood in Nox’s castle on a balcony, celebrating with all of Cinder the baby’s birth. The Celindria in the scene looked up as if she could see the Celindria in the Feast of Roses. Her blue eyes were imploring.

Silence’s voice was soft as she said, “Which one will you choose?”

Celindria looked at all the expectant faces and asked, “What about the Probability Matrix? I thought it reduces to one.”

Tumu shook his head. “The two most powerful will remain, and we will seal it. No shadow-walking between them.”

Smith added, “You will retain all your knowledge from all the Probabilities of which you’ve gained from the Source.”

Elden gestured at the scene on the right. “Face a hard journey of redemption where you can learn to love the Shadow as they have loved you.”

“Or enter a life where you never failed Nox, and the Shadow may never come to exist as you now know it. Here, you can begin anew.” Zero gestured to the left.

Two very different existences. The life Celindria had lived, or the life she’d feared to live. Either was better than she’d deserved.

Celindria held up her hand and gazed at the blue strip of cloth in it.

Emotion. Knowledge. Power. Love.

Lucas’ voice was gentle as he asked, “Which one will you choose?”