The doors of the Council hall slammed shut behind us, cutting off the hum of voices, Eliza’s screams, and the thud of Morozov’s staff. Silence hung in the corridor—thick, cottony, ringing in the ears after the tension of the last few hours.

  I pressed my shoulder against the wall, feeling the cold of the stone seep through the thin silk of my dress. My legs trembled. Not from fear—from the fact that the adrenaline and the healer's potion keeping me upright all this time had receded, leaving behind only emptiness and a leaden weight.

  Adrian was right beside me. He didn't try to support me, didn't touch me, but I physically felt his presence—like a dark storm cloud hanging overhead. He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, winced, and I saw a fresh bloodstain blooming on the white fabric over his ribs. The wound in his side, received in the fight with the assassin, had opened again.

  "You're bleeding," my voice broke into a hoarse whisper.

  "It's nothing," he didn't even glance down. His eyes, still burning with the violet fire of the Abyss, were locked on my face. "We did it, Anya. We broke their backs."

  "We only bought time," I shook my head. "Eliza won't forgive. Voronov won't forget. And Morozov... did you see his look? He wasn't looking at me like a defendant. Like a specimen in a test tube."

  Adrian chuckled—harsh, predatory.

  "Let them look. While they look, we act. Come on. The car is waiting."

  He offered me his hand. I hesitated for a second, looking at his long fingers, where traces of soot and blood were still visible. Then I placed my palm in his.

  His skin wasn't just hot—it burned. Blood didn't seem to flow beneath it, but molten lava.

  ***

  The limousine sped down the night avenue, cutting through the darkness with its headlights. The city outside the windows seemed foreign, unreal. The neon signs of the Lower City, the spires of the Upper towers—all of it blurred into smeared streaks of light that had no meaning.

  I sat in the corner of the leather sofa, tucking my legs under me. My body ached. Every muscle, every ligament throbbed, reminding me of the torture, the fight, the overexertion. But something else was more terrifying.

  What lived in my chest.

  The Spark.

  Before, I felt it as warmth. As light. As something familiar, protecting. Now... now it felt like a black hole. It pulsed to the rhythm of my heart, cold, hungry, demanding food. I felt it "grope" the space around, looking for energy to absorb.

  I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms, trying to drown out the sensation.

  "Are you in pain?" Adrian's voice pulled me out of my trance.

  He sat across from me, in the twilight of the cabin, watching me. In his hands was a glass with amber liquid, but he wasn't drinking. The bloodstain on his shirt had spread further, soaking the thin silk.

  "You're the one in pain," I leaned forward. "You're bleeding. Let me see."

  "Anya, don't..." he tried to pull away, but I had already reached out.

  The healer's reflex worked faster than reason. I wanted to close the wound, weave the tissues together, stop the blood, like I had done hundreds of times. I reached for the Spark, imagining the familiar golden light.

  But the Spark answered with cold.

  Instead of a warm glow, a gray, ashen fog burst from my fingers. It touched the blood-soaked fabric of the shirt.

  The silk didn't heal. It... decayed.

  I watched in horror as the expensive fabric crumbled into dust, exposing the wound. But what happened to the flesh was more terrifying. The edges of the cut didn't close. They turned gray, losing color and life. The blood didn't clot—it blackened, turning into dry sand.

  Adrian hissed through his teeth, his body arching in pain. He grabbed my wrist with an iron grip, tearing my hand away from him.

  "Enough!"

  "I... I wanted to help!" I looked at my fingers, coated in gray dust instead of blood. "What is this?!"

  Adrian breathed heavily. He pressed his palm to his side. Violet Darkness streamed through his fingers, washing away my "gray rot" and sealing the wound with its power.

  "You're not a healer anymore, Anya," he said hoarsely, raising his eyes to me. "Healing is creation. Acceleration of life. And you..."

  "No," I lied. "Just... strange."

  "What exactly?"

  "I feel it differently. The Spark. After... after I killed that assassin. It changed."

  Adrian slowly placed the glass on the table. Leaned forward, and the light of a streetlamp, sliding across his face, highlighted the sharp shadows under his eyes.

  "It didn't change, Anya. It woke up. What you used before—healing, light, shields—those were just echoes. Shadows on the wall. The true power slept, bound by darkness and my own ignorance. But when you wiped that bastard into dust... you broke the seal."

  I remembered the moment. The assassin flying at me with a dagger. Fear. Anger. And then—a flash. Not of light. Of Darkness. Absolute, devouring darkness that turned a man, flesh, bones, and metal into nothing.

  I shuddered.

  "What am I, Adrian?" I whispered. "Victor said I have an 'Inversion'. That my magic doesn't create, it destroys. Is it true? Am I... a monster?"

  Adrian was silent for a long time. Too long.

  "A monster is a relative term," he finally said quietly. "To a sheep, a wolf is a monster. To a wolf, a sheep is food. To a shepherd, a wolf is a threat, and a sheep is a resource. In this world, there is no 'good' or 'bad' power. There is only power, and those unable to control it."

  He moved to sit next to me on the sofa. Close. So close I could smell his perfume—tart, with notes of smoke and expensive tobacco, mixed with the metallic smell of blood.

  "Give me your hand."

  I held out my palm. He covered it with his.

  "Close your eyes. And look inside. Not with your eyes. With feeling."

  I obeyed. The darkness closed in. And in that darkness, I saw it.

  My Spark.

  It wasn't a crimson sphere, as I was used to thinking. It was a vortex. An endless, spinning abyss, in the center of which shone, shimmering with all the colors of the spectrum—from blinding white to absolute black—a tiny dot. A singularity.

  It was beautiful. And it was horrific.

  It pulled everything into itself. My emotions. My exhaustion. My pain. And... Adrian's energy.

  I jerked, trying to pull my hand back.

  "No! I'm draining you..."

  "Shh," he didn't let go. Conversely, he intertwined his fingers with mine. "Don't be afraid. Take as much as you need. I am your Anchor, remember? I was made for this."

  The current of his power rushed into me. Dark, thick, cool. It was like water pouring over a fire. My "vortex" eagerly threw itself at this energy, sucking it in, grinding it down... and calming.

  The pulsation slowed. The feeling of hunger dulled. Warmth spread through my veins, washing the pain from my muscles.

  I opened my eyes. Adrian looked at me, and there was no fear in his gaze. Only triumph and... something else. Something that made me catch my breath.

  "See?" he whispered. "You don't destroy me. We close the circuit. Your Void requires filling. My Darkness seeks somewhere to pour out. We don't just fit each other, Anya. We are two halves of the same weapon."

  The car braked smoothly. The estate gates opened.

  "We are home," he said, taking his hand away, but not breaking eye contact. "And tonight, I will show you what is actually written in the scrolls the Council hid for thousands of years. We are going to the Archive."

  ***

  The Chernov Archive was deep underground, lower even than the torture chambers and training halls. The elevator descended for an eternity. When the doors parted, I was hit by the smell of dry paper, dust, and ancient magic.

  It was a vast room, fading into darkness. Tall racks packed with books, scrolls, data crystals. In the center stood a massive black wood table, covered with maps and schematics.

  Adrian walked to one of the far sections. With a gesture, he lit magic lamps—spheres of cold fire, hanging in the air.

  "Over here," he called out.

  I approached. On the table lay an old, battered tome bound in some strange, scaly leather. Adrian opened it with a surgeon's caution.

  "These are the chronicles of the First War," he said. "What they don't teach in academies. What they excised from history textbooks. Read. Right here."

  He pointed his finger at a page covered with angular, sharp runes. I knew the ancient language—my father made me study it since I was five, even though I hated those lessons.

  I leaned over, reading the text.

  *"...And when the Seven divided the Aether, creating the Elements, only the Void remained. For the Void was not part of the Aether, but its absence. And those who carried the seed of the Void became the enemies of All Creation. For their gift was not to create, but to unmake creation..."*

  I looked up, but Adrian shook his head.

  "Read on. That is just philosophy. Now for the practice."

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  He turned the page. The parchment crunched like an old man's joint. On the next spread was not a schematic, but a drawing. Detailed, frighteningly realistic.

  A massive crater. Perfectly circular. Smooth, like a polished bowl. And at the bottom of this bowl—nothing. No water, no stones. Only blackness.

  "'Liquidation Squad Sigma Report'," I read the header, written in a later, bureaucratic handwriting. "'Subject: Patient Zero. Location: Fort Brass. Date: Year 05 from Founding.'"

  I read the dry lines of the report, and a chill ran down my skin with renewed force.

  *"At 04:00 subject lost control of emotional dampener during a nightmare. At 04:02 the fort's garrison (400 personnel units) ceased communication. At 04:15 dispatched reconnaissance unit reported lack of visual contact with the fortress. At the fort's location, a zone of absolute silence with a radius of three miles was found. Material objects are absent. Landscape is leveled to a mirrored surface state. Aether background level: absolute zero. Conclusion: complete annihilation."*

  I backed away from the book.

  "Fort Brass? I studied Empire geography. There is now... the Wasteland of Tears is there now."

  "A perfectly circular depression," Adrian nodded. "A huge crater. And at the bottom of it is nothing. Even rain falling over this place just disappears without reaching the ground. The very structure of space is still broken. One mage did this, Anya. One. And he was a child. Twelve years old."

  "He... killed everyone?"

  "He didn't kill them. He *unmade* them. Four hundred soldiers, stone walls, weapons caches... all of it simply ceased to exist in two minutes. Because a boy was scared of a dream."

  I looked up at Adrian.

  "To unmake creation?"

  "Annihilation," he nodded. "Your 'red beam' that you killed the assassin with... that isn't fire. That is a tear in reality. You erased its structure. The atoms of his body ceased to exist in this dimension."

  "But... that's impossible. The law of conservation of energy..."

  "Doesn't work for those who are *outside* the laws," Adrian sharply cut in. "You are the Zero Element, Anya. Anti-matter. Your power is the absolute zero the universe strives for. All our magic—Fire, Water, Air, even my Darkness—is just... ripples on the water. Energy with structure, color, taste. Your flame is the absence of everything. A vacuum."

  He walked to the rack, ran a finger along the spines of ancient tomes, leaving a wiped trail in the dust.

  "You aren't a stone thrown into the water. You are the vortex this water drains into. Or a black hole drinking the ocean. You saw how the Darkness 'eats' light, but your power 'eats' reality itself. The fabric of the world. That is exactly why the Council exterminated the Spark carriers before the Empire was founded. They didn't fear the power. They feared what stood behind it. That this power could *unmake* their existence. Not kill, but erase. Make it so they never existed."

  I listened, feeling the cold spread inside. Not fear—understanding.

  "So... I'm not just a 'strong mage'. I'm a bug in the code of the universe?"

  "You are a virus that crashes the old system," he smirked. "And I intend to use this virus to rewrite the rules of this rotten game."

  I recoiled sharply.

  "This is nonsense. I healed people! I saved you... well, back then, in your bedroom! I restored your lungs!"

  "You didn't restore them," Adrian said quietly. "You *deleted* the disease. You erased the necrosis. Do you understand the difference? A healer stimulates cellular regeneration. You simply *destroyed* the damaged tissue and forced reality to 'forget' that it was dead. This... is a divine level of intervention. And at the same time, demonic."

  My head spun. I leaned against the table so I wouldn't fall.

  "All these years..." I whispered.

  "You're a ticking time bomb. If you wake up from a mosquito bite, you will annihilate the Voronov Clan. Or all of Eridium."

  Tears, hot and angry, rose in my throat.

  "So, I'm a threat?"

  "No," Adrian walked around the table and stood before me. He took my face in his hands, forcing me to look in his eyes. "You are the solution."

  "The solution to what?"

  "To everything. The War. The Council. The system rotting for centuries. With your power, we won't just win. We can rewrite the rules of the game. But for this..." he paused, and his eyes darkened, "for this you must stop fearing your nature. You must accept the Hunger."

  "I don't want to be a monster, Adrian."

  "You won't be a monster while you have a leash," he smirked, but there was no amusement in that smirk. Only steel resolve. "And I am that leash. I will hold you. I won't let you fall apart. But you must try. Right now."

  "What?" I broke into a cold sweat. "Here?"

  "No. In the training hall. It's shielded with adamantium. If something goes wrong, we won't blow up the estate. Let's go."

  "Adrian, I'm tired. I can't..."

  "You can. Your Spark is active now as never before after a fight. There won't be a better moment. We must know the limits of your capabilities. Before Eliza sends the next killer. Or before Morozov decides to 'isolate' you for 'public safety'."

  He was right. As always, damn it, he was right. We had no time for rest, for reflection, for self-pity. We were at war.

  I wiped my tears with the back of my hand.

  "Alright. Let's go."

  ***

  The training hall looked like a strange bunker. Bare gray walls paneled with matte metal. No windows. In the center was a circle of black stone, carved with protective glyphs. The air here was sterile, devoid of smells.

  Adrian locked the heavy blast door, turned the locking wheel. The glyphs on the floor flashed dull blue.

  "Adamantium and fourth-tier runic weaving," he explained, catching my glance. He walked to the console and entered a code. With a quiet hum, additional protective screens lowered from the ceiling—transparent, but a palm thick.

  "This hall was built to contain Abyss demons," he continued, checking the monitors. "The walls can withstand a direct hit from a tactical missile. The floor is a giant 'sponge' capable of absorbing terawatts of energy. But everything has a limit."

  He turned to me through the glass. His face was serious. Hard. No trace of the softness from the limousine. Now dealing with me was not a lover, but an instructor.

  "If the indicators flash red—the 'Sarcophagus' protocol initiates."

  "What does that mean?" I swallowed nervously, feeling everything inside tighten.

  "It means the hall will be automatically isolated from the temporal flow. The walls will collapse, creating a stasis field. We will get stuck here. Inside. Forever. Or until the energy runs out—in about two hundred years. It's a last resort to keep you from destroying the mansion along with half of Eridium. Do you understand the stakes?"

  I looked at my hands. They were trembling.

  "Yes," I breathed. "I understand."

  "I hope you're wrong about your nature," he smirked, but his eyes stayed cold. "Because I don't plan to spend eternity in a tin can, even with such a beautiful girl. Hopefully, the adamantium holds."

  "Very funny," I muttered, stepping into the center of the circle.

  "I'm not joking."

  He stayed at the control console, behind the transparent armor glass partition. His voice sounded from the ceiling speakers:

  "The task is simple. Do not try to create 'light'. Do not try to heal. Remember the feeling when you killed the assassin. Remember the anger. Remember the fear for me. Remember Martha's death. And let it out. But not as a beam... as a sphere. Try to create an area of Entropy around yourself."

  I closed my eyes.

  Remember? When had I forgotten?

  The image of Martha's death haunted me. I just had to close my eyes—and I saw it again. Her body, broken, like a discarded doll. Blood on the carpet. The smell of dry dust and sweet rot.

  Anger rose in me instantly, like a tsunami. Hot, suffocating, vicious. It mixed with the cold of the Spark, turning into the exact icy fury that made me pull the trigger of magic in the Council hall.

  "Come on, Anya," Adrian's voice goaded. "Don't hold back. Let it eat."

  I slipped the leash.

  At first, nothing happened. On the surface.

  But inside...

  Inside me an abyss cracked open.

  It started with a vibration. A low, infrasonic hum not heard by the ears, but resonating in every cell of my body. My bones ached. My teeth ached. My blood seemed to slow its pace, turning thick and cold like mercury.

  *Hunger.*

  It rolled over in a wave, sweeping away my human thoughts. It wasn't my hunger. It was the hunger of a creature that had slept in darkness for thousands of years and now caught the scent of food. The scent of matter. The scent of life.

  A sound rang in the silence of the hall—a thin, high whistle, like the cry of a dying bird. It was the air groaning, twisting into a spiral around me.

  And then...

  The world shuddered.

  I didn't see it, but I felt it. The air around me became *dense*. Heavy. It stopped being a transparent gas and turned into a viscous substance.

  I opened my eyes.

  Around me, in a two-meter radius, everything lost its color. The gray walls became... nothing. The black stone floor faded, turning into a monochrome void. Dust motes dancing in the lamps' light froze for a moment, and then just disappeared. No flash, no sound. They just stopped being. Erased from existence.

  "The readings are rising," Adrian's voice was tense. "Threat level... Blue. Anya, keep control. Expand the sphere, but slowly."

  I pushed the power outward.

  The "sphere" obediently expanded. Three meters. Four.

  The edge of the "gray zone" touched a dummy placed by the wall—a wooden doll in steel armor.

  The effect was instantaneous and terrifying in its silence.

  The wood didn't catch fire. Didn't crack. It began to... *age*.

  I saw how in a fraction of a second the polished surface of the dummy darkened, lost its shine, was covered in a network of deep cracks like wrinkles. The wood dried out, turning into dust, gray and lifeless, and crumbled in a rain of ash.

  The steel armor suffered the same fate. The shiny metal clouded over. Rust—a red leprosy—devoured it instantly, eating holes. Rivets popped, turning to dust. The cuirass collapsed, crumbling into brown dirt mixed with wood ash.

  There was no fire, no smoke. Only cold, relentless decay. It seemed Time itself went mad at this point, fast-forwarding the life cycle of matter by millennia in a single heartbeat.

  "Entropy," I whispered. "Accelerated decay."

  "Excellent," Adrian's voice. "Now compress it. Return the energy into yourself."

  I tried.

  And realized I couldn't.

  The Spark didn't want to return. It tasted matter. It tasted destruction. And it wanted *more*.

  The "sphere" jerked and jumped sharply forward, expanding in a leap.

  "Anya, stop!" Adrian yelled.

  I gritted my teeth, trying to pull the power back in. It was like trying to hold a hurricane with bare hands. My magic rebelled. The vortex in my chest spun at a furious speed, pulling life from me, demanding fuel.

  "I... can't!" I exhaled.

  The gray dome touched the protective glyphs on the floor. They flashed bright blue, trying to hold back the decay... and went out. Just disappeared, erased from reality.

  The adamantium walls began to cover in a network of cracks. The metal groaned, twisting, aging before my eyes.

  "Anya! Look at me!"

  The armor glass shattered (or dissolved? I didn't see). Adrian burst into the hall.

  "No! Stay away!" I screamed, backing up. "I'll kill you!"

  A storm of gray dust and distorted space raged around me. I felt the floor giving way under my feet—the stone turned to sand. My own hands began to turn gray, the skin losing elasticity, covering in a network of wrinkles like an old woman.

  I was killing myself.

  Adrian didn't stop. He walked through the gray veil, tearing it with his presence. I saw his clothes begin to smolder, crumbling into threads, saw cuts thin as razors appear on his face, but he kept walking.

  Darkness wrapped his figure in a dense cocoon. Violet flame clashed with my grayness.

  He crossed the last meters with a jerk and grabbed me by the shoulders. Hard. Painfully.

  "Look at me!" he barked.

  His eyes were right in front of mine. Two violet suns.

  "YOU. CONTROL. IT. Not the other way around. You are the master. Command it!"

  "It's hungry..." I sobbed, feeling consciousness drift away.

  "Then feed it with me!" he yanked me to him and kissed my lips.

  It wasn't gentle. It was a strike. An explosion.

  He opened his shield, his aura, and poured a stream of pure, concentrated Darkness into me. Not a drop, like in the limo. A river. An ocean.

  My Spark howled in delight. It threw itself at this power, forgetting the walls, the floor, my flesh. It drank Adrian, sucking his power, his essence.

  I felt his pain. It was like his skin was being flayed alive. But he didn't pull away. His hands crushed me so tight my ribs cracked. He shoved his power into me, filling the void to the brim, until the "vortex" choked on it.

  And silence fell.

  The gray veil dropped like dust after an explosion.

  It settled on the floor, on the cracked walls, on my shoulders. It wasn't just ash—it was the remains of the reality I had just destroyed. Dry, dead dust smelling of storm and rot.

  I remained in the center of the circle, gasping for air. My heart pounded somewhere in my throat, echoing painfully in my temples. But there was no more fear. In its place throbbed a strange, dark, drawn-out satisfaction.

  The hunger was gone.

  The void inside me, satiated, curled into a ball and went quiet, like a fed beast. It tore me apart no longer. It... slept.

  Adrian slowly unclenched his hands. He took a step back, and I saw his face. Pale, with sharp shadows under his eyes, beads of sweat on his forehead, but... alive. His aura, usually like a storm, was now a quiet pool. He gave me too much.

  He looked at me. Not at a monster. Not at a weapon. At me.

  "You did it," he rasped. His voice broke—it seemed he was screaming with me too, though I didn't remember my scream.

  I looked at my hands. The skin was no longer gray and dry like parchment. Blood returned to the fingers, giving back their pink hue. But I knew—I would never be the same again.

  That Anya Belskaya who healed scratches, feared the dark and believed in a fair Council, was no more.

  I killed her. In this hall, in this flash of gray fire. Annihilated along with the dummy.

  Now only the Abyss remained. And him.

  We stood facing each other amidst the ruins, two shards of a broken world that found a way to become whole.

  For now.