The garden did not return to normal when the sphere broke.
It only pretended.
Leaves hung in the air a second too long.
Dust fell in slow, reluctant spirals.
The leylines underfoot throbbed like a bruise being pressed—alive, resentful, and newly afraid.
And where the distortion had been—
Allium stood.
White.
Not bright like Solara.
Not cold like Virel.
Not quiet like Nexon.
White like correction. Like judgment. Like a rule enforced without mercy.
Across from him, the thing that had caused it clicked softly, almost delighted—Khelos' body damaged, split and leaking luminous blood where Allium's brutal slashes and tearing strikes had carved into him inside the cage. Its joints stuttered. Its wings trembled. It looked hurt.
And it looked… pleased.
Rose's hand lifted to her mouth without her noticing.
She stared at Allium like she was looking at someone she loved through a pane of thick glass.
"Allium…" Her voice came out too calm, like calm could be a rope. "Please be you."
Allium's gaze shifted toward her.
The white did not soften.
His mouth moved, and the word that fell out was clean—too clean—like it had been filed into shape.
"Seraphim."
It hit Rose harder than any blow.
Her sky-blue presence faltered, not extinguished—wounded. Her throat tightened. Her eyes flashed with something that looked like grief trying to stand upright.
"No," she breathed. "No, Allium— it's me. Rose. Please—please fight this."
Allium raised a hand.
No warning. No hesitation.
A blast formed instantly, white compressing with the calm certainty of something that did not believe it could be wrong.
Thane moved before thought could become prayer.
"Rose—DOWN!"
He threw himself in front of her, shield up.
The blast hit.
The shield screamed.
The impact launched them both—Thane and Rose—through trees like they were made of paper. Bark exploded. Branches snapped and spun. Frost shattered off Rose in a spray of desperate blue as she tumbled, breath ripped from her chest.
Weaver's voice cut through the clearing—raw, furious, terrified.
"Allium, STOP!"
Allium turned his head.
Not like a man recognizing a voice.
Like a force recognizing resistance.
He looked at Weaver the way a ledger looks at debt.
His gaze darkened, focused.
"You take," he said, voice deep as bedrock, "and steal my energy, thief."
Weaver flinched—not from the accusation, but from the sound of it. From the way it didn't feel like Allium speaking, and yet felt like something true had been sharpened into a weapon.
Weaver shook his head once, as if shaking could dislodge the nightmare.
"This isn't you," he demanded again, stepping forward on instinct like he could physically place himself between Allium and ruin. "Allium—stop."
Then the Dream Weaver's voice cracked open into something older than strategy.
"Release my son now."
The words weren't hidden. They weren't careful.
They were pure.
They struck the white the way a name strikes a person drowning.
For half a breath—half—
something in Allium's posture wavered.
And then the white answered with radiant force.
Allium did not rush.
He stepped.
And reality obeyed him.
No time passed. No distance mattered. The world simply updated.
Weaver gasped—because Allium was suddenly inches away.
Cassidy's scream tore free like a warning flare.
"ALLIUM! Remember the music! Remember who you are! You wouldn't kill him— you wouldn't hurt Rose— STOP!"
Allium did not hear her.
Or rather—he heard her, and the white measured her words, and found them irrelevant.
He was the Balance Keeper.
And balance, in this state, did not negotiate.
He backhanded Weaver.
It was simple. Almost casual.
The sound was not.
A brutal crack, like concrete splitting under a sledgehammer.
Weaver hit the ground hard enough to jolt the forest. His face turned instantly, swelling with ugly speed. Teeth skittered across the sand—white little pieces of proof. Blood spread beneath him in a dark, stunned bloom.
Allium stood over him.
No remorse.
Almost… satisfaction.
And deep, deep inside that white, where the real Allium was trapped like a man behind locked glass—
something screamed.
Horror without voice.
Terror without control.
Khelos watched with all its eyes, clicking and creaking in a sound that resembled a wet laugh.
It leaned, fascinated.
It had done it.
It had pushed the right pressure in the right place—
Until Allium turned and looked directly at it.
Khelos froze mid-click.
Allium did not speak.
There was no line. No vow. No threat.
Just certainty.
A death sentence written in motion.
Allium launched.
Khelos tried to slip sideways into shadow—into the spaces between—
And Allium simply reached into that wrongness and yanked him back out like dragging a thought into daylight.
Khelos struck—legs, blades, webbing, distortion—
Nothing mattered.
Every hit landed like raindrops on a furnace.
Allium grabbed a leg.
Ripped it off.
One.
Another.
Two.
Three.
Khelos thrashed, clicking in sudden panic as its escape routes refused to exist.
Allium seized him down the center and tore.
No strain.
No effort.
Just a body split like paper.
And then a blast—white, absolute—erased what remained.
The air whined in its wake.
The garden dimmed as if the world itself blinked.
Khelos was gone.
Dead.
Silence tried to return.
It failed.
Allium turned.
Not toward the battlefield.
Toward Cassidy.
Cassidy's heart stopped.
Her Mark burned hot—warning, warning, warning—like it wanted to crawl out of her skin and run.
She backed up.
Tripped on a root hidden under grass and sand.
Fell hard.
Her breath shattered.
"ALLIUM—PLEASE DON'T DO THIS!"
She didn't sound brave. She sounded human.
White eyes pinned her.
The vision from HQ flashed through her mind so vividly she could taste the ash again.
Death was coming.
Footsteps—fast, not slow.
Allium was already moving.
And then—
Rose stepped between them.
She was battered. Dusty. Frost-streaked. One side of her face already swelling. Blood at her lip.
She stood anyway.
"I'm not…" she said, voice breaking with pain and choice, "…giving up on you, Allium."
Allium didn't answer.
He struck.
A brutal hit to her gut that stole the air from her body. Rose folded forward—
—and Allium double-fisted, locked hands, and slammed her down.
The ground cracked.
A shockwave split the sand and rattled leaves off branches.
Rose choked, coughed, tried to drag air back into broken ribs.
Allium moved to continue—
Rose grabbed him from behind.
Bloodied arms around him like a vow.
He elbowed her side.
A loud, sick pop echoed.
Rose dropped—hard—staggered—
And stood back up anyway, shaking.
"Ugh… Allium— stop…" Her voice was a rasp. "I know you're in there…"
She grabbed his arm and pulled, trying to turn him, trying to redirect the storm.
For a half-second, he went with it.
Then his fist slammed down.
The impact split the sand like lightning.
Rose hit the ground again and the world blurred.
She lay there a heartbeat.
Then pushed up.
Tears fell—not dramatic—automatic, pain pulling water from her eyes the way fire pulls breath from lungs.
Allium looked at her.
"Would you die," he said, voice flat and merciless, "already?"
Rose shook her head.
Her right side was swelling fast. Bruising crawled across her cheekbone. One eye struggled to stay open.
Still—she moved forward.
"Allium…" she whispered, and the name sounded like a prayer spoken through broken teeth. "I… I know you're in there. This isn't you. You'd never hurt me."
Inside the white—
the real Allium slammed against the inside of himself.
Again. Again.
No one heard him.
Cassidy watched, frozen in terror and grief, her Mark screaming heat.
Jax forced himself upright, ears ringing from the blast that had broken the sphere. He saw Rose—
saw her taking it—
and something in him snapped into purpose.
He charged the weapon, aimed with shaking hands, fired an electric round.
It hit Allium.
Did nothing.
Allium's head turned.
The killing intent landed on Jax like a hand around his throat.
Jax didn't back up.
"Allium!" he shouted, voice hoarse but steady. "Don't be what they want you to be! Fight!"
Allium raised a hand.
A blast formed.
Rose moved without thought.
She threw her arms up and took it.
The white scorched her forearms into angry red, skin burning, nerves screaming. She hissed, nearly dropping—
but she held.
Allium's face tightened in irritation.
He formed a fist.
Charged.
One hit would finish it.
Before he could make contact—
a stake went off.
A pulse snapped through the air, vibrating the leyline pattern around Allium's body.
He grunted.
For a second—
orange flickered through the white like a drowning man surfacing.
Then it vanished again.
Cassidy.
Somehow on her feet, shaking, eyes wet, hands trembling as she adjusted one of the remaining stakes like her life depended on math and hope.
Because it did.
She armed another.
Fired.
Allium jerked—discomfort, not damage—orange flashing again, swallowed again.
Jax fired again—timing it with Cassidy—
and for one breath, Allium locked in place.
Weaver—bloodied, face swelling, words mangled—forced himself upright like bones were optional.
"Hit him," he gargled, voice broken but intent unbroken. "We need to help him… distract the tri-energies—so Allium can escape!"
Rose staggered forward.
Ignored the screaming in her ribs.
And struck—clean, precise—like she was hitting the white for Allium, not for herself.
Thane limped in, a branch stabbed through his leg, teeth clenched so hard his jaw trembled. He joined anyway, swinging his shield, trying to disrupt, trying to buy seconds.
Cassidy stepped in point-blank.
One more stake.
One more pulse.
The blast crippled her fingers.
Pain detonated up her hand and into her wrist. She screamed and fell back, clutching her hand as if holding it together could keep the future from happening.
And then—
the white began to lose ground.
Not because they won.
Because Allium, inside, finally found a crack.
The white drained away like a tide retreating from shore.
Orange rushed back in—terrified, shaking, horrified.
Allium stood there.
Breathing hard.
Looking at what he'd done.
Weaver barely upright, blood on his teeth, face ruined.
Thane splintered and bleeding, still standing out of stubbornness.
Rose broken, faint sky-blue glow flickering like a dying candle.
Cassidy on the ground, terrified, hand ruined.
Jax frozen in shock, weapon lowered without realizing it.
Allium's shoulders sagged.
His head fell forward.
Tears dropped—hot and real—into the sand.
A small voice slipped out of his lips.
"I'm sorry…"
And then he collapsed.
Exhaustion had taken him,
But shock, kept a commander up