The moment the crystal went dark, the silence of the throne room didn’t just return; it suffocated her.

Celestina remained motionless for three heartbeats, her spine rigid against the throne, her fingers still curled around the armrest. But beneath the practiced veneer of the unshakable commander, something was hemorrhaging.

The calculation she had performed wasn’t just workable; it was terrifying. It was a tightrope walk over an abyss that had no bottom.

A muscle in her jaw twitched. Then another.

When she stood, she didn’t walk; she stormed. The heavy silk of her robes hissed against the marble floor like a disturbed viper as she retreated from the throne room, her boots striking the stone with each step like hammer blows.

Her breathing was shallow, each inhalation feeling like she was swallowing broken glass.

The moment her private sanctum’s heavy obsidian doors slammed shut behind her, the dam broke.

"Fuck!" The scream tore from her throat, raw and uncharacteristic, echoing off the vaulted ceilings. "FUCK EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS!"

She didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop.

The frustration was a physical thing now, a molten pressure building behind her eyes, screaming to be released. Her first strike was aimed at the mahogany desk, a relic of ancient craftsmanship that had survived centuries of war.

Her fist connected with the wood with a wet, bone-jarring crack. Splinters flew like shrapnel, slicing into her skin, but she didn’t feel it.

The pain was distant, drowned out by the roaring in her ears.

"We’re gambling everything!" she shrieked at the empty air, her voice cracking with venom. "Everything I’ve built, everything I’ve sacrificed, thrown into the hands of a boy who doesn’t even know he’s holding a detonator!"

She spun around, her boot connecting with a priceless crystal vase. It didn’t just break; it exploded under the force of her rage, sending shards skittering across the floor like glittering teeth.

But it wasn’t enough. The anger needed more space, and it needed more destruction.

Her hands began to glow not with the controlled, elegant light she used in council meetings but with a volatile, sickly violet aura. Raw, unfiltered magical energy leaked from her fingertips.

"Is this what you want, Kaeleth!?" she roared at the ceiling, her eyes wild and bloodshot. "Is this the uncertainty you wanted to warn me about!?"

With a guttural snarl, she thrust her palms forward. A wave of concussive magical force erupted from her, striking the bookshelf opposite her.

The ancient leather-bound tomes didn’t just fall; they were pulverized, their pages shredded into confetti by the sheer pressure of her energy. The shelves themselves groaned and buckled, splintering as if struck by a siege engine.

CRACK BOOM.

A bolt of violet lightning arced from her fingertips, striking a marble bust of an ancient ancestor. The stone head disintegrated in a spray of white powder and fragments, the force of the spell sending a shockwave through the room that rattled the windows in their frames.

"Thirty years!" She punched the wall beside her, her knuckles splitting open, crimson blood smearing across the polished stone. "Thirty years of playing god, of stitching this world together with lies and blood, just to watch it all unravel because of one fucking anomaly!"

She began to pace like a caged predator, her movements erratic and violent. Every time her mind spiraled back to Rex Rexilion and the terrifying implications of that gap in his thread, she lashed out again.

She kicked a chair, sending it spinning across the room where it shattered against the wall. She swept her arm across a side table, sending silver goblets and enchanted artifacts crashing to the floor in a discordant symphony of breaking metal and glass.

Her breathing was ragged now, a series of harsh, desperate gasps. Sweat beaded on her forehead despite the chill of the room.

The sanctum, once a temple of order and absolute control, now looked like a battlefield. Smoke curled from the scorched patches on the floor where her magic had burned through the expensive rugs.

"Gods damn it all to hell," she whispered, the fury momentarily giving way to a hollow, aching exhaustion.

She slumped against a wall that was still smoking from her last outburst, her hands shaking uncontrollably. Blood dripped from her split knuckles, pooling on the floor.

She closed her eyes, but she couldn’t find darkness. All she saw was the void where Rex’s history should have been.

All she heard was Kaeleth’s warning, echoing in the ruins of her room like a curse.

"I will not fail," she hissed through clenched teeth, the words more a threat to herself than anyone else. "I will not let it end like this."

But as she stood there amidst the wreckage of her own making, surrounded by the broken bones of her sanctuary, the truth remained: she had never been more terrified in her entire life.

The destruction inside the sanctum was no longer a release; it had become a ritual of pure, unadulterated madness. Celestina wasn’t just breaking objects anymore; she was trying to break reality itself.

"WHY NOW?" she screamed, her voice reaching a register that sounded less human and more like a banshee’s wail. "WHY DOES THE UNIVERSE DECIDE TO BEND JUST WHEN I HAVE IT ALL UNDER CONTROL?"

A massive shockwave of violet energy exploded from her core, sending a ripple through the floorboards that made the entire wing of the palace shudder. The stone floor beneath her feet spiderwebbed with cracks as she slammed both palms downward.

"I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED BY A SHADOW! AND I WILL NOT BE HUMILIATED BY A GHOST IN THE TIMELINE!"

The air in the room began to ionize, smelling of burnt metal and ozone. Sparks of raw energy danced across her skin like angry insects.

She grabbed a heavy silver candelabra and hurled it at the wall with such supernatural force that it didn’t just dent the stone; it embedded itself six inches deep into the masonry before exploding into molten droplets.

"FUCK THE UNCERTAINTY! FUCK THE RISK! FUCK KAELETH AND HIS GODDAMN WARNINGS!" she shrieked, her eyes glowing with an unstable, terrifying light. "IF THE WORLD WANTS TO BURN, THEN I WILL BE THE ONE TO LIGHT THE MATCH!"

She spun in a circle, her energy flaring outward in a continuous, rotating vortex of destruction. Bookshelves were ripped from their moorings and shredded; tapestries were incinerated mid-air; the very air seemed to scream as her magic tore through it.

Meanwhile, three corridors away, two Legionnaires Kael and Jace were trudging down the hallway toward the armory. Kael was complaining about his boots, while Jace was halfway through a story about a tavern maid.

"I’m telling you, Jace, the girl had eyes like—" Kael stopped mid-sentence.

A low, subsonic rumble rolled through the floorboards. It wasn’t the kind of rumble that came from an earthquake; it was the kind of rumble that came from something fundamental being violated.

Then came the sound: a wet, bone-crushing CRUNCH followed immediately by a scream that sounded like it had been dragged through gravel.

"Was that... Lady Celestina’s wing?" Jace asked, his face draining of color.

"Shh," Kael hissed, holding up a hand. "Maybe it’s just training exercises."

BOOM.

A thunderclap erupted from somewhere ahead. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling twenty feet away rattled violently, its crystals chiming in panic.

A gout of violet flame licked out from under the massive obsidian doors of Celestina’s sanctum, seeping through the cracks like poisonous blood.

The two soldiers froze. The hallway suddenly felt very cold.

"That’s not training," Jace whispered, his voice cracking. "That sounds like she’s trying to murder the building."

Another crash followed the unmistakable sound of something heavy, like a marble statue, being pulverized into dust. Then came the voice.

It wasn’t the composed, terrifyingly calm Celestina they knew. It was a voice of pure, unhinged catastrophe.

"I’LL TEAR THE STARS FROM THE SKY BEFORE I LET THIS FAIL!" the voice roared from behind the doors. "EVERYTHING IS A LIE! EVERYTHING IS A FUCKING TRAP!"

Kael and Jace shared a look of pure, unadulterated terror. Kael slowly raised a hand and pointed toward the opposite exit.

"Jace," Kael said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"On three."

"One."

"Two."

"THREE!"

The two Legionnaires turned on their heels with such synchronized desperation that they nearly tripped over each other. They didn’t run; they scrambled, their armor clanking frantically as they bolted in the opposite direction, boots skidding on the marble.

"I DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING!" Jace yelled as they sprinted down the corridor. "I WAS NEVER IN THIS WING! I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT SHE IS!"

"KEEP RUNNING!" Kael bellowed back, his lungs burning. "IF SHE COMES OUT OF THAT ROOM, WE’RE DEAD BEFORE WE CAN EVEN PRAY TO THE GODS!"

Behind them, another explosion rocked the palace, followed by the sound of Celestina screaming something about the fundamental inadequacy of the mortal plane. The two men didn’t look back.

They ran as if the hounds of hell themselves were at their heels, because in that moment, they knew: whatever was happening behind those obsidian doors was far worse.