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"Who would do this?" Xanthy hissed as the light scalded her wrists when she pulled against it. "There's no one who could take my soul away from the chalice!"
"Unless their time is borrowed," the being said without turning to her. "They realized that their time is due."
Xanthy's eyes widened. No. Anything but that. She wouldn't be able to live the guilt down. Was this another mistake she had made? No! "I refuse to go!" Xanthy yelled at the light. It hardened its pull. She wailed. No! She couldn't—
"Remember one thing, Xanthy," the being's voice slowly faded from Xanthy's ears. "All worlds will converge. All secrets will be revealed. There is a war on the shore that you do not see."
Questions formed in her mind but all that she did was tug at the light dug harder against her flesh. Could she chop off her wrists? The air surged with power, reminding her of the very thing she fought so hard to control over the past few months. A hushed quiet fell over the shadows as the pull strengthened, tearing her away from the grass-covered surface. No!
Her body went weightless, tearing through the darkness in a stream of brightness. The voices wailed, clawed for her, clung to her. They begged her to take them to the other side. One more time. One more time. She screamed.
The darkness ripped from her vision, ebbing in webbed cracks until they were nothing but a mere memory in her mind. She slammed into something heavy and full of substance. She squirmed with all her might until her soul gripped the form, until piece by piece, she was grounded.
Xanthy was being locked in a limited cage. She trashed but the phantom light sent an electrifying shock through her. She screamed again. No. She would not be tied down. Stay still or your soul will be scattered into oblivion.
Xanthy froze. That voice sounded familiar yet foreign. Oblivion? She had been there and it wasn't so bad...
She wanted it, even.
Her soul fluttered to a rest; her chest stopped feeling light. Pain knocked in her temples she could now feel. Her limbs softened and relaxed.
A body. She had a body again.
She's...
She opened her eyes and sat up. The air around her crackled with energy she had been afraid to let rage. A voice whizzed through her mind, explaining everything that went down. They needed her. She would do her job and be done with it. That way she could finish this faster and could finally rest.
Xanthy swung her arm in a wide arc and pulled herself up.
A reason to fight, huh? Well, it seems like she had just found it. A heavy price was paid by bringing her back. Xanthy wasn't about to waste it, not when a life had been traded for hers. She had gotten what she wanted but why has all she felt were guilt and shame?
There were other people around her judging from the wave of their own magic curling in the air. A scuffling noise shuffled from somewhere behind her. It's time. She would fight. She dug into her soul, for that raw power coiled around her heart. Instead of cowering in fear at its unfathomable nature, Xanthy gripped it with all of her senses, surrendering herself to its unfamiliar torrents.
