Um... Actually...

Once defined by its cold austerity, the throne room had become an anomaly in this washed-out world. Colour seeped through its surfaces—slowly, stubbornly—spreading in erratic streaks and blooming blotches like something alive.

The ether lingered still. Just outside the room, in open windows, it flicked in and out, testing to see if it was safe to return. It curled like smoke, impatient and hungry, waiting for its chance to strike again.

Vaelith stood in the middle of it all.

Or at least what was left of him.

Wisps of beige light pulsed beneath his skin, parasitic lightning threading his veins. His eyes were wide and fever-bright, his smile cracked too far across his face. He looked both young and ancient, as though the ether had stolen his sense of time along with his mind.

"You think you've won," Vaelith rasped. His voice was a ruin—half whisper, half growl. "You think love fixes things? You think sentiment can heal a world that's rotted to the bone?"

He spread his arms wide, and the fog seemed to answer, flaring brighter around him. "This world exists because of me. Because doubt is the only true belief."

Joey took a step toward him.

Then another.

The marble floor beneath him was cracked with light, fragments of the world's former glory bleeding back through like veins of gold. The women stood behind him—Donna, Eliza, Juniper, Bianca, Serena, Indira, Madison, Aynsley—and Elorae. Their presence was a warmth he could feel on his back, a pressure steadying him with each footfall.

The air hissed. Vaelith's laughter curdled into something high and wild. As if taking a cue from the madman, the ether lashed out, striking from outside, but also from within. Streaks of ether shot out of Vaelith straight for Joey.

It wasn't like wind—it was like thought turned violent. Shards of beige energy whipped across the room, clawing at Joey's chest, trying to pull him apart, to dissolve him back into the nothing he had been moments ago. It was the raw voice of doubt itself, whispering his deepest fears in every gust: You can't fix this. You're a fraud. You’re just a scared boy who got lucky.

Joey staggered. His vision splintered. The fog pressed against his skin, cold as mercury.

Then—hands.

Warm ones.

Donna's first, steady and sure on his shoulder. "You're all right, baby," she said, her voice a low hum, like a mother trying to soothe a storm.

Then Eliza's, firm and deliberate, against his back. "You brought us here, Master. You did that. That's real."

Juniper, trembling, slipped her fingers into his. "I'm sorry for ignoring you for so many years. You don't have to do this alone."

Serena's palm touched his neck, grounding him. Indira leaned in beside her, whispering something he couldn't even hear but somehow understood.

Madison and Aynsley came together, arms looping around him, twin anchors of wild, reckless belief.

And Elorae… she stepped forward last.

The touch of her hand on his chest sent something through him that felt like the inverse of fear. It was clarity—pure and sudden. The ether hissed, trying to reach through them, but their joined warmth scattered it like sunlight through mist. Each woman's belief in him—tender, fierce, human—burned through the fog. The more they believed, the weaker the whispers became.

Vaelith flinched as if their faith physically hurt him.

He laughed again, a jagged, broken sound. "Do you really think you can repair what's been undone? Look around you, boy! This world has eaten itself alive on doubt and contradiction. Even now, it feeds on you!" His gaze flicked toward Elorae. "And you—little fool. You gave me the seed that made all this possible. The only thing you ever built was failure."

Elorae's hand faltered for a fraction of a second. Her face twisted with pain. Vaelith could still find the cracks in her armor and press. He wasn't just attacking Joey, but he was attacking a woman Joey cared about. A woman he loved.

Joey turned to Vaelith. The tendrils of fog between them pulsed like a heartbeat. His own heartbeat, strong and steady, pounded in his eyes as his anger grew with each passing second. Vaelith, this would-be ruler of a ruined world, would never stop until everything was lost. His world. Joey's world. Everything.

Elorae had been right to bring him. Joey could see the truth in it. His power was the way through this. Elorae had created the problem, but in her also was the solution, and only Joey could unlock it.

He took another step forward, the women keeping pace beside him, their hands never leaving his skin. Every movement pushed the fog back a little further. Colour followed in their wake like paint spilling from invisible jars—blue across the columns, red across the tapestries, green threading through the cracked floor.

Vaelith screamed. "You can't—!"

Joey stopped in front of him. The distance between them was only a few feet now. The ether writhed and screamed around the throne like something alive, but it could no longer touch him. Vaelith's body shuddered with fury, his eyes rolling white. "You think you can rebuild an entire world? It's already gone! You hopeless worm, you are nothing in a sea of nothing. Look at you—all these girls clinging to you like faithless disciples. What are you even going to tell them when you fade away?"

The ether coiled, ready to strike one last time.

Joey tilted his head.

He smiled.

"Um," he said softly, rubbing the back of his neck, "actually…"

And the world held its breath.