Scarlett’s head spun long after Jaxon left, his words scratching at her mind like invisible claws."Mason isn’t invincible. Power breeds resentment. Resentment breeds betrayal."She wanted to believe it. Needed to believe it. Because if Mason wasn’t invincible, then perhaps she could escape.But thinking such thoughts was dangerous. Reckless. Mason was not a man who forgave betrayal. He destroyed it. And yet … wasn’t she already in the wreckage of his control?Scarlett paced the room Mason had trapped her into, breathless with fear. Each step felt heavier than the one before.She wasn’t dumb — she knew Mason would never set her free of her own choice. But if there were fissures in his empire, if there were adversaries hovering, biding time for the moment to attack…Could she use that?Her fingers balled into fists.We’re not moving pieces around in this game, Scarlett. You’re the prize.Jaxon had tossed her those words like a sentence. But Scarlett would not accept it. She had been co

Mason wasn’t certain whether he was still breathing. He didn’t know if he had a body anymore. He had been devoured by it, the void, it had taken all of it, every sense, every thought, every feeling, and left him, suspended in the void, floating along, somewhere between things.But somewhere in the quiet, a voice had murmured.You were never supposed to be anywhere else.It was not the voice of the hooded man. It wasn’t the throne turning its insidious whisper. It was something older. Something vast. Something infinite.Mason gritted his teeth, though, forcing himself to move, to battle against the nothingness encroaching on him. But he had no ground beneath him, no air to push against — just infinite, stretching black.Then, a flicker of light.At first it is faint, like a dying ember. Then it propagagated, spreading through the emptiness like fractals in a fragile shell. Vague shapes started to emerge—figures from the past whose edges he couldn’t define. Echoes of people, places, tim

Mason froze in place, his heart hammering in his chest like a war drum. It had gone still around him, thick with silence, as if the entire vale of battle held its breath and waited.The Ascended gazed down at him, their faces inscrutable, their holy eyes blazing with an emotion he could not name. The Emperors were stripped of their power, but the arrogance remained, permeated by years of conditioning, their fear laid to rest. And Scarlett — her presence was steady, unmoving, but he could sense her uncertainty.He could sense his own.But this was it. There was no turning back.“You say I have broken the cycle,” Mason spoke at last, his voice steady but edged with something cut. “Then why do l feel still bound by it?”The lead Ascended looked at him for a moment, then spoke. “Because destroying something does not erase its power. And even a broken chain is a reminder of bondage. A broken throne still casts a shadow.”Mason clenched his fists. "Then what was the point? If what I do has