This one's not for the faint-hearted. Or the faint-spirited. Or the faint in general.
Max is out cold.
Alec's on trial like it's Tuesday.
And Jamey? He's one mattress-punch away from calling it quits and taking up interpretive screaming.
This chapter isn't just about fallout, it's about consequence.
The Living Scripture has watched enough.
Now it moves.
You've seen Max fight.
Now you'll see her rise.
And trust me... she doesn't rise quietly.
Bring tissues. Bring snacks. Maybe even holy water.
Also, if your ceiling cracks mid-read, that's your own fault.
(A firm believer in judgment... with style)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Warmth reaches me first, followed by the pressure of fingers wrapped firmly around my hand. A faint tremor travels through them while someone whispers my name somewhere beyond the fog filling my head.
"Max, stay with me."
Eric's voice drifts toward me from impossibly far away, rough enough to make something inside my chest tighten.
I try to answer him, yet my lips refuse the command. The rest of my body offers equally poor cooperation as weight drags through every limb and something deeper continues sinking, carrying my awareness farther from the hand holding mine.
Sound stretches around me until voices begin losing their shape. Light fades with them, leaving darkness to gather slowly across everything I can still perceive.
Figures. I lose consciousness more often than my keys these days.
"Stay with us, Max."
His voice reaches me again, carrying a strain I rarely hear from him. I've seen Eric angry, exhausted and irritated enough to make innocent furniture reconsider its purpose in life, yet this sounds different.
Fear lives beneath his words.
That scares me more than the darkness.
I push toward him and concentrate everything I have on the fingers holding mine. My body remains frustratingly distant, suspended somewhere I can feel without controlling.
Another warmth reaches me moments later.
Healing energy spreads gradually through my chest before travelling along my arms and deeper into places I cannot name. I know Samantha's energy well enough to recognize her touch, and for one hopeful moment, I expect the darkness to release me.
The warmth suddenly stops.
Silence gathers around the voices above me before Samantha speaks.
"Eric, something's wrong."
His grip tightens immediately. "What's happening?"
"Her body is responding, and the damage is healing."
Several seconds pass before his answer reaches me.
"Then why isn't she waking up?"
Samantha remains quiet long enough for fear to begin tightening through me again.
"I don't think her body is the reason."
Eric says my name.
I fight harder.
The darkness carries me deeper.
His voice fades with every passing second until even the hand holding mine becomes little more than a distant warmth I can barely feel.
Panic finally takes hold.
I reach instinctively for the Living Scripture.
Gold answers beneath me.
A vast glyph ignites inside the darkness, stopping my descent so abruptly that my awareness seems to hang above it. Golden lines extend farther than anything I've ever carried across my skin, each stroke flowing with a slow internal current that makes the symbol feel strangely alive.
Another glyph awakens beyond it.
More begin appearing across the darkness, one after another, until golden Scripture stretches farther than my sight can follow. Some symbols resemble Decrees I have already carried while others twist into patterns I have never seen.
I stare at them in silence.
I've carried pieces of this language across my body. I've spoken its commands and watched them tear through darkness, expose lies and force creatures far older than humanity to obey.
I've never seen the Scripture like this.
The markings I've carried suddenly seem impossibly small beside what surrounds me.
I reach toward the nearest glyph.
The instant my fingertips touch its surface, fire rushes through the darkness.
Gold pours around my hand before racing along my arm and spreading into every symbol surrounding me. Thousands of glyphs ignite together, their combined light revealing an expanse so vast that my mind struggles to understand where it begins or ends.
Heat fills the space around me.
Something moves inside the fire.
My heart begins pounding as the flames gather several meters ahead, folding through themselves while their shape continually changes. Every survival instinct urges me to retreat, yet something deeper holds me where I stand.
I know this warmth.
I've felt it when rage threatened to consume me and when someone I loved stood in danger. I've watched gold answer through my body before thought could become command, always believing the power belonged entirely to the Scripture.
The fire moves closer.
Understanding reaches me slowly.
"You've been here the whole time."
The Flame answers through warmth rather than words.
Its presence presses gently against my chest, carrying an emotion so immense that my breath catches. Age moves through the connection alongside something strangely familiar, creating the impossible sensation of remembering someone I have never consciously met.
My hand rises toward it.
The Flame closes the remaining distance.
Gold curls around my fingers when we touch, and the connection tears through every boundary inside me.
Images flood my awareness faster than thought can hold them. Fire burns inside a darkness untouched by stars while golden Scripture moves across an emptiness older than anything I understand. Something vast speaks beyond the edge of comprehension, and the Flame answers with a brilliance powerful enough to swallow everything I can see.
The images disappear.
I stagger backward as the inner world returns around me.
My gaze remains fixed upon the fire. "What exactly are you?"
Gold surges through the surrounding Scripture.
The question travels with it, awakening glyphs farther into the darkness until the entire expanse resembles an endless ocean written in living light.
One symbol draws me closer.
Its outer shape resembles something I've already carried, yet smaller characters move within every golden stroke. More exist inside those, repeating deeper and deeper until my eyes lose the ability to follow them.
I touch the glyph.
Power rushes through my arm with enough force to drive me backward.
The Decrees I've used suddenly feel like doors I've barely begun opening. Something immense exists beyond each one, layer upon layer of meaning and authority waiting behind the fragments I've somehow learned to wield.
I pull my hand away and stare at it.
"Well, that's terrifying."
The Flame brightens beside me.
A strange sensation brushes through our connection, light enough to make my eyes narrow.
"Did you just laugh at me?"
Gold rolls through the surrounding Scripture with suspicious enthusiasm.
A smile pulls at my mouth. "Fantastic. My supernatural fire has opinions."
Warmth gathers around me again, carrying that same faint amusement.
For the first time since falling into this place, the darkness feels less frightening.
Then Alec's voice reaches through it.
"She's strong."
The inner world trembles around me as his words travel through the golden symbols. Samantha answers somewhere beyond him, although distance swallows most of what she says.
Jamey's voice follows.
"What if she doesn't wake up?"
Every glyph around me becomes still.
Eric answers after a silence long enough to hurt.
"She will wake up."
The distant pressure around my hand strengthens.
"She has to."
I lift my face toward the endless darkness above me even though there is nothing there to see.
"They're waiting for me."
The Flame moves closer.
I expect the inner world to release me, yet gold gathers around my wrist instead, warm and strangely insistent.
My stomach tightens.
"You're keeping me here."
The Flame pulses through our connection.
Understanding arrives slowly as memories of the battle return. Anarxis escaped while the fourth Decree gathered inside me, leaving all that divine authority with nowhere to go. I remember the power collapsing inward, gold tearing beneath my skin and the world disappearing before Eric caught me.
My attention travels across the enormous Scripture surrounding us.
This place feels different now.
The Living Scripture never abandoned me when my consciousness disappeared. Something within it drew me deeper while Samantha healed the damage left behind.
I look toward the Flame. "You brought me here."
Warmth answers through my chest.
Golden lines begin moving across my palms. Their patterns shift whenever I try to follow them, flowing beneath my skin with a complexity unlike any Decree I've used before.
Something is happening inside me.
The thought sends unease through my stomach, although curiosity follows close behind it.
I study the Flame again. "How much of you is actually inside me?"
Its answer arrives immediately.
Fire expands across the entire inner world, swallowing the distant glyphs beneath a wave of brilliant gold.
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. "Okay, that was a stupid question."
The flames gradually ease, revealing the endless Scripture once more.
Another voice reaches me before I can touch anything else.
"Max, when are you going to wake up?"
Alec sounds closer this time.
The strength I usually hear in his voice has worn thin, leaving exhaustion exposed beneath every word.
"I need you."
His hand closes around mine somewhere in the world beyond this place.
"I might not be able to see you for a while."
The words tear through the peace surrounding me.
Alec isn't supposed to sound like this. He isn't supposed to sit beside my unconscious body and make a few ordinary words feel like goodbye.
I turn toward the Flame.
"I have to go."
Warmth gathers around me while the endless Scripture continues glowing in every direction. For the first time since arriving here, I understand enough of the connection to feel the choice being placed before me.
Nothing holds me by force.
Nothing demands that I remain.
Answers surround me in every direction. Decrees I've barely begun to understand stretch into depths I cannot follow, while the Flame itself stands close enough to touch and carries mysteries that could change everything I believe about the power living inside me.
Alec waits beyond them.
So do Eric, Samantha, Samuel, Jamey and everyone else who has refused to leave me alone in the darkness.
The choice becomes remarkably easy.
"I choose them."
The Flame erupts around me.
Gold races through every glyph at once as the entire inner world responds, thousands of symbols turning toward the distant place where Alec's voice reached me.
I reach toward him.
The Flame moves with me.
Together, we tear through the darkness until light pours through the opening and warmth rushes back into the hand someone still holds.
Somewhere beyond the Living Scripture, my finger finally moves.
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I wake to an argument.
Voices reach me before the room does, cutting through the last layers of unconsciousness while my body remains strangely distant.
"She has to wake up, Samuel." Samantha's voice carries enough panic to sharpen every word. "If she doesn't, we might be too late to save Alec."
Alec.
His name tears through the remaining fog.
"Sammy, keep your voice down," Samuel warns. "If Eric hears us turning this into chaos before the trial even starts, he'll throw all three of us out."
"I don't care what Eric thinks right now."
Something strikes the floor hard enough to send the sound through the room.
"Do you honestly think Max will forgive us if Alec gets hurt because we stood around whispering?" Samantha's voice catches before the next word. "What happens if they execute him?"
The darkness inside me fractures.
Execute him?
My awareness surges toward the room as panic tears through whatever still holds me beneath the surface.
Another voice reaches them before either can continue.
"Both of you need to stop."
Jamey sounds frighteningly calm.
The argument dies immediately.
"If Max wakes up hearing the two of you discussing Alec's execution beside her bed, she'll probably destroy the room before she remembers how doors work."
Under different circumstances, I might appreciate his confidence.
Right now, I want someone to explain what the hell happened while I was unconscious.
Samuel releases a frustrated breath. "His trial starts within the hour."
"I know."
"We need to leave."
"I know that too."
Footsteps move toward the door before Samantha pauses somewhere close to me.
"Please wake up, Max."
The door closes behind them.
Silence returns.
Three words remain.
Trial. Execution. Alec.
My mind keeps throwing them together while I fight for control of a body that still refuses to acknowledge my existence.
The mattress dips beside me.
Jamey's hand rests briefly against my forehead before moving away.
"Max, we really need you to wake up."
Something in his voice tells me I'm about to hate the explanation.
"Alec was charged with attempted murder."
My stomach drops.
"He put a guy from another team in hospital after the idiot started running his mouth about you." Jamey shifts beside me. "Apparently, your powers are dark, you're possessed and the rest of us are too stupid to realize we're following something evil."
Anger begins moving through me.
Jamey releases a humorless breath.
"Alec disagreed."
Of course he did.
"Unfortunately, Alec expressed that disagreement with several parts of the man's body."
Despite everything, a laugh tries to find me.
It gets nowhere.
"He'd been drinking, Max. By the time anyone reached them, the damage was already done."
Jamey's fist drives into the mattress beside my hip.
The impact sends a dull vibration beneath me.
Well, the mattress didn't insult anyone, but apparently we're spreading the blame around.
He drags in a breath.
"Eric's tearing himself apart over it. He keeps saying Alec took the fight that should've belonged to him."
That sounds painfully like Eric.
Jamey shifts away from the bed, and his footsteps begin crossing the room.
"Alec broke three ribs, one arm and somehow the man's foot."
His pacing stops.
"I've been thinking about that foot for hours."
Seriously?
"How do you even break someone's foot during a fight? Did Alec pause halfway through and decide the ribs weren't making his point clearly enough?"
The ridiculous image almost reaches my mouth as a smile.
Almost.
Jamey starts pacing again.
"I would've handled it differently."
Of course you would.
"I'd have spread the damage more evenly."
There he is.
The humor disappears from his voice almost immediately.
"What I can't get past is that people believe him."
His footsteps return to the bed.
"They actually believe your power comes from something evil."
Anger tightens through my chest.
Jamey lowers himself beside me again, and when he speaks, the fury has given way to something far harder to hear.
"You saved Luke."
His breath catches.
"You came after me when that thing buried me somewhere nobody should've been able to find."
The mattress shifts beneath another strike from his fist.
"You nearly destroyed yourself bringing us home, and they're standing out there calling you evil because they're too frightened to understand what they saw."
Warmth touches my cheek.
For a second, I think Samantha's healing has returned.
Then another drop follows.
Jamey is crying.
Something inside me answers.
Heat blooms along my ribs.
The sensation begins beneath the skin before spreading outward in one powerful pulse, and the Living Scripture awakens with it.
Jamey jerks away from the bed.
"What the hell?"
Gold floods through every glyph across my body.
The markings tremble as though something beneath them has taken a breath, their familiar shapes expanding while new lines begin forming inside them. Fine fractures of white-gold light race through each character before the outer layers peel apart and reveal denser Scripture underneath.
I feel every change.
The glyphs I touched inside my consciousness return to me in flashes, vast symbols containing smaller symbols, meaning hidden within meaning and power extending far beyond anything I had understood before.
This is what the Flame showed me.
The Scripture is opening.
Golden characters lift from my skin.
Jamey's breath catches as they rise into the room, flowing around the bed in broad currents before arranging themselves through the air. Each symbol carries smaller lines within it now, intricate layers of living language unfolding as though the Decrees I once knew were only their outermost form.
The atmosphere changes around them.
Pressure gathers without crushing anything, carrying an authority that seems to reach into every corner of the room and demand attention.
Jamey takes another step backward.
His voice drops. "Max?"
The Flame stirs inside me.
Warmth spreads through my chest as the memory of that endless inner world rises with it. For one impossible second, I feel both places at once.
The bedroom surrounds my body.
The Living Scripture stretches somewhere deeper.
And the Flame stands between them.
Jamey stares at the glyphs moving above me.
"I've seen you angry before."
A golden character turns slowly through the air between us.
His eyes follow it.
"This feels different."
He's right.
Anger burns through me, yet something far greater moves beneath it.
Judgment.
My eyes open.
Jamey's next breath catches in his throat.
Gold fills my vision while intricate markings turn within my irises, the same layered Scripture I touched inside myself now moving through the physical world.
His face changes before me.
I see exhaustion first, followed by dried tears, fury and the lingering traces of whatever happened to him beyond the veil. Deeper still, something new burns inside him, the unfamiliar power I noticed before unconsciousness claimed me.
Jamey has changed.
Apparently, I'm having a busy week too.
I sit upright.
My body answers immediately.
There is no heaviness waiting to drag me back beneath the surface. Strength moves through every limb as though the days spent unconscious belonged to someone else, while the Living Scripture continues circling through the room.
Jamey stares at me.
"You've been unconscious for days, and you're just going to sit up?"
I swing my legs over the side of the bed.
"Would you prefer interpretive dance?"
His mouth opens.
"Actually, don't answer that."
My feet touch the floor.
Gold spreads beneath them.
The Scripture moves with me as I stand, flowing through the air before gathering closer to my body. Jamey's attention follows every symbol while I test my balance and discover something almost more unsettling than weakness.
I feel perfectly fine.
Better than fine.
Alec's voice returns to me from the darkness inside my consciousness.
I might not be able to see you for a while.
Whatever curiosity I have about my sudden recovery can wait.
I look at Jamey.
"Take me to Alec."
His eyes flick toward the door before returning to mine. "Max, there are things you need to know before you walk into that trial."
"Then talk while we walk."
Something about my expression ends the argument before he starts it.
He reaches for the door.
I follow him into the hallway as the last golden glyphs draw closer, sinking gradually beneath my skin while several remain visible along my arms.
Jamey glances sideways at me.
"You realize everyone downstairs is going to lose their minds."
"Then today sounds promising."
For the first time since I opened my eyes, his familiar grin appears.
We keep moving.
Behind us, the bedroom falls quiet.
Deep beneath my skin, the Flame remains awake.
And somewhere ahead of us, Alec's trial has already begun.
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The courtroom reaches us before we reach its doors.
Voices crash over one another inside, anger and disbelief spilling through the heavy wood while the repeated strike of a gavel struggles to restore order.
Jamey slows beside me.
I stop with him.
"Fifteen years?" Eric's voice tears through the courtroom. "After everything Alec has done for this sect, you're giving him fifteen years?"
The gavel strikes again.
"Our decision is final."
Eric answers immediately. "Your decision is insane."
Jamey glances at me.
I almost smile.
Apparently, Eric has reached the diplomatic portion of today's proceedings.
The judge raises his voice above the renewed argument. "If Ryan fails to recover from his injuries, this tribunal will reconvene."
The noise inside gradually fades.
His next words reach us clearly.
"Alec could face execution."
Heat moves through me.
Jamey takes one step toward the doors.
My hand catches his arm.
He looks down at it before slowly turning toward me.
"Wait."
Something in my voice keeps him there.
Inside, Eric has considerably less interest in waiting.
"Execution for defending one of his own?" His fury carries through the doors with enough force to make several voices rise around him. "Ryan stood there calling Max possessed and her power evil. He deliberately provoked Alec, and now you're pretending none of that matters?"
The courtroom erupts again.
Another gavel strike cuts through it.
"Ryan's injuries may prove permanent."
Eric's response comes instantly.
"His injuries will heal."
Silence gathers inside the courtroom.
"Max's might not."
The judge answers with a composure that makes his words somehow worse.
"Max may never wake up. Considering what we have heard about the power she carries, perhaps that outcome deserves careful consideration."
Eric's voice drops dangerously low.
"Choose your next words very carefully."
The warning carries enough fury to silence the room.
The judge continues anyway.
"If Max is carrying evil inside her, then perhaps it is better for everyone if she never wakes."
Jamey stiffens beside me.
His weight shifts toward the doors, ready to charge through them before common sense has any chance of getting involved.
My grip firms against his arm before he can take another step.
"He's mine."
He turns toward me, and whatever he finds on my face keeps him there.
The insult reaches somewhere anger cannot.
I remember the endless Living Scripture surrounding me within my consciousness. I remember touching glyphs vast enough to contain worlds of meaning within them, and I remember the Flame meeting my hand with a warmth older than anything I could understand.
I remember being given the choice to remain.
I chose to come back.
This man has just decided everyone might be safer if I hadn't.
Everything inside me becomes still.
The Flame responds first.
Heat gathers beneath my ribs while the Living Scripture rises across my skin, each glyph unfolding with the same deeper complexity I saw inside my consciousness. Gold travels along my arms and reaches my fingertips as the air around Jamey and me begins to tighten.
His attention moves from the Scripture to my face.
"Oh, this should go well."
I lift one hand toward the courtroom doors.
The Living Scripture gathers around my palm.
"Open."
Gold strikes the wood.
Both doors tear from their locks and fly inward beneath a burst of splintered timber, crashing against the walls as the courtroom recoils beneath the impact. Shouts die beneath the groan of damaged hinges while dust rolls across the entrance.
I walk through it barefoot.
Jamey follows at my side.
Hundreds of faces turn toward us.
The Living Scripture moves through the air around me in broad golden currents, layered glyphs rotating slowly within larger Decrees while white-gold light burns through their centers. The Mark of Judgment turns within my irises, and the authority gathering behind it presses across the courtroom until even the remaining whispers disappear.
Every person in the room sees me.
Several look relieved.
Others look terrified.
Eric simply stares.
Jamey raises a hand toward him.
"She's awake."
Eric's eyes flick briefly toward him.
"Yes, Jamey. I gathered that."
"Just helping."
Under different circumstances, I would laugh.
My attention has already reached the judges.
All three have risen behind the bench. The man seated in the center still holds his gavel, although his fingers have tightened around it enough to whiten his knuckles.
Max may never wake up.
Then the rest returns with far greater clarity.
If Max is carrying evil inside her, then perhaps it is better for everyone if she never wakes.
My head tilts slightly.
"You were saying?"
The judge's mouth opens before good sense apparently recommends silence.
Eric takes one step toward me.
I feel his uncertainty before I look at him.
His gaze moves across the Scripture surrounding my body, the unfamiliar markings burning within my eyes and the power filling a room that has known me for years.
For one brief moment, he seems unsure what woke up in that bedroom.
Then I look at him.
"Hi."
His shoulders drop.
Relief hits his face so quickly that my chest tightens.
"Hi?"
"We'll discuss my dramatic entrance later."
His eyes close briefly. "Of course we will."
My attention moves beyond him.
Then I see Alec.
Everything else disappears.
He stands before the tribunal with restraints locked around his wrists and heavier chains running between his arms and waist. Angry marks surround the metal where he has either fought against it or been dragged hard enough for the restraints to bite into his skin.
His head remains lowered.
Alec, who once stood beside me bloodied and grinning after saving my life with a kitchen knife and enough reckless loyalty to shorten several people's life expectancy, cannot bring himself to look at me.
Memory reaches me with painful clarity.
Got your back.
His ridiculous smile had followed.
Even if I die dumb.
My throat tightens.
The man standing before me carries none of that humor now.
Shame has folded his shoulders inward while his hands remain motionless inside the restraints.
He thinks I know what he did.
Of course I know.
He thinks I'm disappointed.
That hurts far more.
The Living Scripture gathers around my raised hand.
Several people retreat from Alec.
Smart people.
Gold threads through the restraints, slipping between links and curling around every lock before the Decree forms against my tongue.
"Release him."
The command crosses the courtroom.
Every restraint opens at once.
Cuffs spring from Alec's wrists while chains fall from his body and strike the floor in a deafening cascade of metal. Gasps travel through the courtroom as he stares at his freed hands.
Slowly, Alec lifts his head.
Our eyes meet.
His expression nearly breaks me.
I hold his gaze.
"We'll talk."
His throat moves.
"Max, I..."
"We'll talk," I repeat more gently.
Alec nods.
The Scripture surrounding me surges.
One golden strand snaps through the air with enough force to send sparks scattering across the floor. Alec's attention follows it before returning immediately to my face.
He understands.
So does Eric.
This power has changed.
The room feels it too.
I turn toward the tribunal.
Three judges stand behind the bench where they decided Alec's future while I lay unconscious. Around them sit the people who listened as my power was called corrupt, my friend was condemned for defending me and my chances of waking became another argument to be weighed.
The Flame rises within me.
Its heat carries none of the wild fury I expect.
Instead, the connection brings back an endless inner world filled with Living Scripture, a power vast enough to make everything I once understood seem painfully small.
I chose my people inside that place.
Now one of them stands before me in bruised wrists and broken chains.
The Mark of Judgment brightens.
Gold spreads across the courtroom floor in branching lines, passing beneath benches and boots before climbing the walls in immense glyphs. Conversations disappear as every person watches Living Scripture surround the tribunal.
The central judge grips his gavel.
"What are you doing?"
I meet his eyes.
"Exactly what you called me here to do."
Confusion crosses his face.
I take another step toward the bench as the Scripture gathers behind me.
"You judged Alec while I couldn't speak for myself."
The Flame burns brighter.
"You questioned the source of what I carry while deciding whether the man who defended me deserves to live."
Gold fills the room.
The gavel trembles inside the judge's hand.
My voice remains perfectly calm.
"Now I'm awake."
Jamey shifts somewhere behind me.
I can almost hear the grin in his voice.
"Well, this escalated quickly."
My gaze stays on the tribunal.
The Mark of Judgment turns once within my eyes.
"Judgment is called."
And every glyph in the courtroom answers.
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Max woke up, shattered a few spiritual laws, blew the doors off a courtroom, and pretty much announced:
"Surprise. I lived. Let's talk about those chains on my best friend."
Alec's trial? Interrupted.
Jamey's pride? Validated.
The judges? Possibly considering early retirement.
And Max? She is only warming up.
What comes next will stretch the very idea of divine justice.
If you're enjoying this journey, please consider:
* Following the story
* Adding it to your reading list
* Leaving a comment (yes, I read them all)
Thank you for walking this fiery, slightly unhinged path with me.
See you in Chapter 7.
Amanda Hannibal