The second Siphon hit me like another punch to the gut. This channel was like a thick, throbbing vein of stolen Cerulean, heavy with deep sorrow and the frantic energy of a cornered heart. Forcing my will into it, trying to create a perfect, isolated void, felt like trying to hold back a tsunami with my bare hands. The mental backlash knocked me hard, and I stumbled on the slick cave floor, my knees almost giving way.
Finn's arm shot out, catching me. "Breathe," he said, his own face pale. Even with his senses dulled, the Chroma violence in the water felt like a storm raging around us. "Five left. Don't worry about all of them. Just the next one. Only the next one."
I nodded, gulping down a ragged breath that tasted like salt and sweat. The sounds of fighting from the cliffs above were like distant thunder, a reminder that Lyra and the others were risking everything to buy us this chance. I couldn't let them down.
I zeroed in on the third Siphon. This one felt different. The Chroma flow felt… slippery, too smooth in a bad way. As I reached for the link, I felt a cold, sharp resistance. It wasn't just the Siphon's natural hunger; there was something else there. A guard.
"Finn," I choked out, pulling back. "This one… it's guarded. Not outside. Inside the channel itself."
His eyes went wide. "A psychic sentry. An Ash-Singer's got part of their mind in the flow. If you cut it, they'll know right away, and they'll know exactly where it's coming from."
Panic, cold and knifelike, sliced through my exhaustion. We'd hoped the distraction would pull them all away. But the Prime Chroma was smart. He'd left alarms in place.
"What do I do?"
"You have to be faster than they can react," Finn said, thinking fast, drawing on his old training. "Cut the link and the sentry's tether at the same time. One void. You have to wipe them both out."
It was like trying to do brain surgery while sprinting full out. The accuracy this needed was terrifying. I shut my eyes again, pushing my senses back into the chaos. I found the Siphon's channel, and there, woven into it like poison, was the cold, focused awareness of the Ash-Singer sentry. It was like a spider in the middle of a web, feeling for the slightest movement.
I couldn't wait. I pulled my will together, the pressure in my head building. I didn't focus on one spot but two spots at the same time—the link itself, and the sentry's thread inside it. I imagined one expanding ball of nothingness that would swallow them both.
I pushed.
The silence that came was deafening. The Siphon's pull was gone. So was the sentry's cold touch. But the backlash was terrible. A silent scream of cut-off energy and destroyed awareness whipped back along my own psychic link. I yelled, a raw, broken sound, and dropped to my hands and knees, throwing up nothing but bile onto the wet rock. Black spots danced in my vision.
"Kaelen!" Finn was right there, his hand on my back. "Hey, what's up?"
"I'm… okay," I lied, my whole body shaking. The world was tilting. "Three down."
I could feel it now, a change in the song beneath the waves. The Nexus's pulse was stronger, not quite as strained. But it had cost a lot. I wasn't sure I could do that four more times.
The fourth Siphon was just a blur of pain. I snapped the channel, crushing it with my will, which made me see double. I was running on empty, digging up reserves I didn't even know were there. The bright world of Chroma was turning into a grey, hurting blur.
As I turned to the fifth Siphon, a sound sliced through the roar of the sea and the fight above—the steady, strong beat of wings. Something dropped down from behind the cliffs. It was a huge, awful creature made of shadow and dead energy. It looked like a dragon, but it had no color, no life in it. It was a void in the shape of a beast, and on its back sat an Ash-Singer, his armor fancy looking, his feel crushing the one we'd faced earlier.
"A Null-Gorge," Finn whispered, sounding really scared. "They've thrown in a Captain. That diversion won't hold him. He's here looking for the source of this trouble."
The Null-Gorge swooped over the water, sucking the sound out of the air. Its rider turned his head, not to the cliffs, but down, searching the coast. Searching for us.
"The fifth one, Kaelen! Now!" Finn said, sounding desperate.
I threw my mind at the fifth Siphon. I could barely focus, my brain screaming in protest. The void I made was sloppy, rough. It cut the link, but it felt like ripping off a bandage on a raw wound. The Siphon broke apart, its black shape cracking up and dissolving into the churning water. The backlash hit my temples hard. I slumped against the cave wall, my vision going dark. I was done. I had nothing left to give.
The Null-Gorge turned fast. It had felt the snap of the breaking Siphon. Its blank, empty eyes locked onto our sea cave.
"He sees us," I mumbled.
Finn looked from me, wrecked and barely there, to the monster coming our way. He saw the two Siphons still there, still draining the Nexus. He saw that our mission was about to fail, and we were about to die.
Then, it was strange, a calm came over his face. The doubt, the guilt, everything burned off, leaving this one purpose.
"Get to the sixth Siphon," he said, his voice flat. He grabbed the plain sword from his belt.
"What are you doing?" I gasped.
"Buying you time," he said, a small, hard smile on his lips. "A straight line, Kaelen. It either bends or it breaks."
Before I could say anything, he was gone, running not away from the cave, but out of it, onto the narrow, wave-beaten shelf of rock that was the entrance. He stood in the open, just one person against the grey sea and the shadow dropping down from above.
The Ash-Singer Captain steered his ride downward. He didn't even bother to draw his sword. He just raised a hand, and a wave of pure silence shot out towards Finn.
But Finn didn't try to block it. He didn't have the Chroma to stop it. Instead, he did the one thing the Ash-Singer wouldn't expect. He dropped his sword.
He planted his feet, raised his hands, and poured everything he had, every last bit of his will, and he didn't push back against the wave. He pulled.
It was a trick from the Crimson forges, the skill of the will to enforce form. He couldn't stop the energy, so he redirected it. He turned his own body into a lightning rod.
The wave hit him. It should have erased him, turned him into nothing. But for a second, Finn held it. He bent the wave, pulling it into himself, trapping that destructive power inside his body. His back arched, his face a silent scream. His eyes met mine for a second—and I didn't see pain, but triumph instead, his courage was on full display.
Then, he broke.
The energy had nowhere to go. It exploded outward from him in a silent, expanding ring of grey. It wasn't an explosion of force, but a wave of complete stillness. The sound of the waves cut out. The water spraying in the air turned into fine, grey dust. The Null-Gorge jerked back, the psychic shockwave knocked its rider back in his seat.
Finn was gone. Completely erased. There was no body, no ash left. Just a perfect, grey circle on the rock where he had stood, marking his final act.
A sob tore out of my throat, a mix of grief and anger. He had given me a shot. He had drawn the line, and he hadn't bent.
The Ash-Singer Captain was rocked, his lost his with his beast. I had maybe half a minute.
I pushed myself up, my body moving on instinct, driven by rage. I turned to the sixth Siphon. I didn't finesse it. I didn't try to be clever. I just took all my pain, all my grief, all my hate for the injustice of this war, and I screamed into the channel.
The Siphon didn't just shut down. It all but disappeared. The water around it boiled for a moment with the raw energy.
I didn't wait. I spun around to the seventh and last Siphon. The Ash-Singer Captain was already coming back to his senses, snapping towards me.
The big seven, its channel, the place where the cage was anchored. I was just an empty person.
I thought of Queen Aella, and Finn...
I tried to reach. I gave it an effort.
The connection worked ! I gave color into it.
It was done.
I fell down, the world was still.