Page 90 of Incoronate
The darkness inside me surged upward, eager to be used. Maybe too eager. I could feel it trying to take over, to consume me the way it would consume anyone who wasn’t strong enough to contain it. This was Lucifer’s power. Raw and ancient and utterly merciless. It didn’t care about control or restraint. It only wanted to devour.
But I didn’t let up. Instead, I reached for my anchors, feeling Trace’s presence through our bond like a lifeline thrown across turbulent waters. His concern and protectiveness instantly morphed into strength. Into the unwavering certainty that I could do this and that I wouldn’t fall.
And Dominic, dark and immovable as bedrock, his power intertwining with mine without the slightest hesitation. His confidence in me fueled me from the inside, slipping beneath my thoughts with the wordless certainty that this darkness wasn’t something to fear. It was something to wield.
I pulled from them both, letting their strength pour into the fraying edges of my control until the darkness stopped feeling endless and started feeling like something more solid.Something I could hold. Their presence kept me moored and human even as I channeled magic that was anything but.
The barrier fought back harder. Its magic lashed out at me, trying to repel the foreign frequency I was forcing into it. Energy crackled along my arms, burning through my shirt sleeves as pain lanced along my shoulders, but I refused to let up. I dug deeper. Wielded harder. Poured every ounce of magic I had into it, never breaking my contact even as my wings erupted from my back.
The transformation was instantaneous and violent. Black satiny feathers tore through the back of my shirt as the massive wings unfurled behind me, easily spanning ten feet across. They were dark as midnight and edged in an ethereal glow that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
Power flooded through me with their arrival. Raw Nephilim magic that amplified everything I was already doing. The counter-frequency intensified into something sharper and more precise. I felt the barrier beginning to crack beneath the assault.
“That’s it,” said Caleb, his voice tight with excitement and something else. Something that sounded a little like fear. “Keep going, Blackburn. You’re doing it!”
The barrier tried one more desperate counterattack, its magic surging against mine in a wave that should have thrown me backward. A wave that should have broken my concentration and sent me sprawling.
But I had anchors.
I felt Trace double down, holding firm and feeding me his strength with a devotion that made my chest ache. Felt Dominic’s essence like a dark star at my back, his power bolstering mine without me even having to ask.
They held me together, just as they had always done.
And I shattered the barrier.
It didn’t happen all at once. First came hairline fractures in the magic, visible only as distortions in the blue-white light. Then larger cracks, spreading outward from where my hands pressed against it. The pulsating frequency I’d been matching began to wobble and destabilize.
And then, with a sound like breaking glass amplified a thousand times over, a massive section of the barrier disintegrated. The magic dissolved into the air like smoke, leaving a ten-foot breach where the wall had been. The remaining barrier strained at the edges, trying to close the wound.
“Hold it, Blackburn! Hold it!” Caleb’s voice cut through the ringing in my ears. “Whatever you do, don’t let go yet!”
I kept my hands pressed near the fractured edges of the opening, feeling the barrier’s remaining magic clawing at the gap, desperate to knit itself back together. My power buzzed through the breach as I maintained the counter-frequency, forcing the empty space to stay empty. Even when it felt like it was burning me from the inside out. Even when my wings trembled with the effort.
Caleb began to chant in Latin, words I didn’t recognize flowing from his lips in a rapid-fire cadence. His magic rose around us, distinct from the barrier’s magic and from my dark Nephilim power. This was pure Caster magic, built on structure, command, and careful restraint, every syllable locking into place like pieces of a spell only he could see.
His chanting grew louder, more insistent. Light began to form in the space where the barrier had been, a warm silver glow pulsing in time with his words instead of the blue-white shimmer from before. Caleb’s spell took hold, pinning the breach open until the barrier stopped fighting to close.
“Alright, I think I got it,” he said after a few tense moments, panting hard as though he’d expended every drop of his energy. “You can let go now.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I released my hold on the magic and stumbled backward. My wings folded against my back automatically, though I didn’t have the energy to make them disappear completely. Trace caught me before I could fall, his arms wrapping around my waist.
“Holy shit,” he breathed against my ear. “You actually did it.”
I leaned into him gratefully, watching as the silver light in the gap solidified for just a moment before melting seamlessly into the rest of the barrier and disappearing altogether, leaving nothing but invisible air once more.
“What did you do?” I asked Caleb, my voice strained.
He turned to look at me, a satisfied smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I overlaid a controlled lattice across the breach and threaded it into the original barrier’s ley-line feed,” he said before tweaking his eyebrows. “Then I keyed the whole thing to my signature.”
I frowned, trying to understand what the hell he was talking about. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning I basically just installed a backdoor into Hollow Hills’ security system. Except this one only responds to my commands,” he explained, preening like the cocky Caster I knew him to be. “I anchored it to the same ley lines the original barrier uses so it reads as part of the existing structure.”
My eyebrows shot up into my hairline as my eyes widened. “So you’re basically tricking the original barrier into thinking your section is just…part of it?”
“Exactly,” said Caleb. “As far as the magic is concerned, nothing’s broken. The barrier is still intact and doing exactlywhat it’s supposed to be doing. Only now there’s a secret door I can open on command.”
“And the Council won’t notice the giant hole in their barrier?” asked Trace, looking skeptical.
