Chapter 281: Back

Electra’s POV

My eyes blinked open.

For a long, disoriented second, I thought maybe I hadn’t actually woken up. The room around me was pitch-black, the kind of darkness that made you doubt your own existence. My body felt heavy, and sluggish, and as if that wasn’t enough, I was lying on something stiff and lumpy that creaked every time I so much as breathed.

The throne room was definitely gone, and this place was the complete opposite of it.

I slowly sat up, and immediately winced at the loud cracking sound my back made. It felt like my spine had just aged a hundred years in the span of a breath.

I shifted my weight carefully, pushing off the brittle, paper-thin sheet beneath me, and ran my hand over what I now realized was a mattress, if you could even call it that.

It was lumpy, moldy, maybe damp, and definitely not worthy of a Phoenix or a deity, which could only mean that this place couldn’t be the same place I was just a while ago. And judging by the way it groaned under my weight, it probably hadn’t been used in decades, except maybe by rats.

Great.

I sighed, dragging my legs over the side of the bed, cringing at the terrible cold that greeted my bare feet as they met the floor. The air smelled like dust and mildew and something else I couldn’t quite place, something metallic and absolutely disgusting.

I pushed myself up as slowly as I could, with every joint in my body protesting the motion. I felt like I’d been dropped out of a cloud and into a basement that time forgot.

Where the hell was I?

The last thing I remembered was my grandfather wishing me good luck, his voice echoing like a warning, as he vanished from the throne room, leaving me alone with Seraphina, whose body had been barely clinging to life.

I remembered kneeling beside her, reaching for her, and now, it was this?

This room was dark, old, and quiet in that eerie, expectant way, like something was waiting just beyond the shadows.

I squinted into the dark, trying to make sense of anything—walls, corners, a window, or a door—but all I could make out were vague outlines, like the skeleton of a room. But there was no color, no light, and definitely no answers.

Was I in another part of the deities’ realm? Had I failed the binding process and been sent somewhere else for punishment?

“Hello?” I called out, my voice echoing against stone.

No response.

I took a tentative step forward, arms out slightly in front of me, afraid I might bump into something, or worse, someone.

The air felt… thick, and it wasn’t just with dust, but with something else, some kind of strange energy that crawled over my skin, brushing my shoulders, my neck, and even my fingertips. It made my stomach twist, not in fear, but in awareness, like I was more aware of myself in a way I’d never been.

And then, just as I took another step, I heard it.

A voice.

“It’s too dark in here. Use your powers.”

I froze immediately. I didn’t bother looking around because the voice wasn’t coming from the room. It was inside me, in my head.

My blood ran cold.

“What—who are you?” I asked, turning in a slow circle even though I knew I wouldn’t find anyone. “Where are you?”

“Inside you,” the voice replied, as if amused. “You’re not just yourself anymore, Electra. You and I are finally one, which means that you can now use your powers at will. So stop acting like you can’t. It’s very embarrassing.”

I backed up until I bumped into the edge of the bed again, and my hands gripped the rusted metal frame like it could anchor me, and stop my heart from racing.

It wasn’t until after a while of thinking that the realization of what could be the reason behind this voice I was hearing slowly settled in. The binding process, whatever it was, must have worked.

I could already feel that something had changed, and something was different about me now. It was almost like I wasn’t alone in my body anymore.

Because now… now I had a voice in my head and a strange energy growing, and humming under my skin, like I had been carrying an ember I never knew existed.

But if that was true… then where was Seraphina?

My chest tightened as the thought crossed my mind, and I instinctively spun around, trying to see through the complete darkness. “Seraphina?” I called out, my voice echoing off the walls, but there was no answer, and panic crept in.

Had she been left behind? Was she still in pain? Was she even alive?

Before the panic could completely take over, the voice returned, calm, and almost annoyed.

“Panicking won’t help her. Do something about the darkness, so we can at least know where we are.”

I froze.

“Do something?” I repeated, swallowing hard. “What am I supposed to do? I don’t even know how to use whatever powers you say I have.”

The voice sighed, like it was tired of explaining the obvious.

“It’s not about knowing, Electra. You think you need instructions, but you don’t. Stop trying to control everything, and just let it happen. Free yourself from the shackles of overthinking.”

Yeah, easier said than done, but I didn’t have a choice, did I? Seraphina could be dying, and here I was, arguing with the mysterious voice in my head.

Before I could talk myself out of trying, I felt something strange. My right hand moved, without me lifting it.

“What the—?”

I gasped as my arm extended forward, completely against my will. My fingers splayed open, and then—

Fire.

Not a raging, destructive fire, but instead, a warm glow bloomed in my palm, and it pulsed once, then lifted slightly from my skin, hovering like it had a life of its own. Then, the light started to spread through the room, revealing the space I was in.

The place ended up looking even worse than I imagined. It looked like an abandoned underground shelter, and the bunk I had woken up on was rusted and sagging, while the walls were cracked from years of neglect.

But then, while looking around and wondering how in the world I had ended up here, I saw it.

Across from me, slumped beside a different bunker.

“Seraphina!”

I rushed to her side, almost slipping on the uneven floor as I dropped to my knees beside her. Her body was limp, one arm stretched out, while the other was still holding a phone that had most likely died a long time ago.

“Hey, hey, no—no, no, no.” My hands shook as I reached out, brushing the hair off her pale face. Her skin was clammy, and her lips looked painfully dry, and I could tell that she hadn’t just passed out, but had been here like this for days.

“You can’t do this to me,” I whispered, my voice trembling.

The voice returned, softer now.

“The process must have drained her too.”

“So, what now?” I snapped. “I just… let her waste away while I glow in the dark?”

The voice in my head scoffed at me.

“Calm down,” it said, sounding far too casual for the situation we were in. “You’re being dramatic.”

I rolled my eyes instinctively, even though there was no one physically there to roll them at. “Dramatic?” I hissed under my breath. “I just woke up in a dark, crusty room with my girlfriend half-dead on the floor after undergoing some celestial binding ritual, and you think I’m being dramatic?”

“Yes, and loud, too.”

I almost slapped my own forehead.

Instead, I took a long, slow breath and looked down at Seraphina again.

“Okay, so what now?” I asked aloud, directing the question to the voice. “You keep talking like you know things, so tell me, what do we do?”

“We get out of here,” the voice replied smoothly. “Take the girl with you, obviously, since she needs real rest. A proper space where her body can recover without absorbing more of this decaying atmosphere.”

I blinked.

“Wait… so that’s it? She just needs rest, and she’ll wake up?”

There was a beat of silence before the voice answered, and when it did, I didn’t miss the nonchalant shrug in its tone.

“Probably.”

“Probably?” I echoed. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”

“Well, if there are any side effects from taking a piece of her life force,” the voice continued breezily, “we’ll find out after she wakes up. There’s not much we can do about it now.”

I stopped breathing.

“Wait. What side effects? What are you talking about?” My voice rose an octave as my stomach twisted with unease. “What does that even mean? Is she going to grow wings or spontaneously combust or—”

“Relax.” The voice cut me off, annoyed. “Don’t jump to conclusions. You’re thinking like a human again, and trying to predict the unpredictable. The truth is, she held a part of us in a body that wasn’t meant to hold it for that long. It wasn’t a clean transfer, so yeah, there could be consequences, but you won’t know until she wakes up.”

I clutched Seraphina a little tighter, my heart pounding. I didn’t like this—this not-knowing and this helplessness.

I was about to argue again, to demand a clearer answer, when something else caught my attention.

Sound, and even though it was faint at first, it was still undeniably real.

Voices.

I stilled completely, narrowing my eyes as I listened harder. My body was on high alert, senses sharper than they had ever been before, and the voice in my head went quiet, too.

There it was again, chatter from somewhere outside these walls, and one of them made my breath hitch.

That voice… it sounded familiar.

Roxana.

I swear it was her.

I leaned toward the door, adjusting Seraphina gently on the floor beside me, and strained my ears to catch more. There was another voice, Penelope maybe? And was that Irina’s? My heart began to beat faster with a different kind of urgency.

We weren’t in the Phoenix realm anymore, that much was now pretty clear, and we weren’t lost in some celestial labyrinth.

We were… back, back in Elysium.

“Oh my god,” I breathed out, dizzy with the realization. “We’re back. I’m really back.”

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