The guilt is suffocating. It crawls up my throat like it wants to rip me apart from the inside.

This isn't how it was meant to be. This isn't how it was meant to end. Kaden wasn't supposed to win.

I wipe away the tears. No! I refuse to let her die.

I feel something crack open in my chest at my determination, something old, something divine, something that tastes like despair and love intertwined.

I close my eyes. I am life, and I'll be damned if I let my own sister die because of my foolish mistakes.

I place my hand over Lola's heart. I don't chant. I don't beg. I command and life

answers me.

"Come back to me."

A warmth ignites beneath my sternum. Gentle at first, like a spark, then a blaze. Golden threads of light weave between my fingers, sinking into Lola's skin. My magic pours into her like sunlight spilling into frozen earth.

Her body jerks and her back arches violently, coming off the ground.

"What are you doing?" I hear Kaden's angry voice, but I ignore him.

I push harder, my powers pulsing, hitting Lola's chest like a defibrillator.

Kaden tries to stop me, but Mother uses her power to push him back and then forms a protective shield around us.

Then finally, breath rushes back into her lungs with a shuddering gasp. Color returns to her cheeks and her wound knits together, smooth and whole, the blood

evaporating from her skin like it was never there at all. When her eyes open, they are not cold or corrupted... They are my sister's eyes.

Her voice cracks. "Nyx?"

I break.

I throw myself into her and she catches me, arms weak but present, trembling as she holds me like she used to. Like she was afraid I'd disappear.

"I thought I lost you," I sob into her shoulder.

"You almost did," she whispers, breaking too. "But you saved me. You saved me, Sadie."

"Calling me Sadie is so weird." I murmur while sobbing.

She chuckles, “Just like you calling me Lola feels weird... Maybe we should stick to our birth-given names?"

"Won't that just confuse everyone?" I ask. "Everyone here is used to calling us Sadie and Lola."

I feel her smile against my shoulders. “We'll figure it out.”

We cling to each other as if letting go would kill us all over again.

"I'm sorry," we say at the same time when we finally let each other go.

Before any of us could answer, a slow voice cuts in like a poisoned blade. "How touching."

We turn.

Kaden watches us with irritation creeping into his expression, like our unity is an inconvenience.

"You had one thing to do," he says, his eyes narrowing into slits. "And yet you did the complete opposite. I guess have to take both of you обуды. out myself

get

I stand, Lola rising beside me, shoulder pressed to mine, no longer apart fer hand finds mine, For the first time in years, our bond hums. It's faint and fragile, but real.

"I hoped you enjoyed the show," I say, voice raw but steady. "Because our faces are

the last thing you'll ever see."

He sneers. "It's adorable that you think you can defeat me. Even without Xena by

my side, taking you down will be easy."

His arrogance is gasoline on the fire burning inside me.

"Your arrogance will be your downfall." Lola says voice laced

With shaking fury. You fed on net

insecurities. You turned us against each other and for that you will pay."

“I did nothing but amplify the feelings that were already there. You chose the path for yourself."

"You used me." Lola continues

"I shaped you," he corrects. "You were destined to serve me."

"No, I was never meant to serve you," she breathes. "I was destined to stand beside her and her beside me."

He laughs, “Give up. I'm almost a thousand years old; you'll never win against me." Xena tightens her hand. “Sure, but you forget one thing. We are life and death.”

Light flares around me and darkness ripples around Lola like a storm. Two halves finally whole. Opposites no longer tearing each other apart but merging.