The room is still the same, albeit there are more broken woods and splatters of red on the walls now. Gina is still kneeling on the small pond under the big tree behind me. She looks pale and tired, but when I look back, she gives me a big smile with tears decorating her eyes. Her gaze tells me, 'I told you so. You can do it.'

I look back at the two men that are literally fighting over me. Never in a million years, I had thought I would be in a middle of a fight, especially between a hybrid werewolf-vampire and a lycan. And here I was, just moments ago, crouching on the floor, saying I was no one.

No, I even thought I was less than no one.

Taking a deep breath, I relax my shoulders.

It never really matters if I am someone, right? I am Mars. And no one can take that away from me.

I am the Mars that has fond memories of Ed as my ex-husband. I am the Mars that ran away from a pack to protect my daughter. I am the Mars that has a Lycan King as my second chance mate. The same Mars that has found great magic flowing in her veins. The same Mars that went to a magic academy and built a new life from scratch in unknown territory.

I am Mars.

Chin high, strong eyes. I have no fear. No doubts.

Because the greatest power I have, which I have come to realize, is that I am not alone. Gina is behind me. Lyall is in front of me. And when that big door opens up to a mass of werewolves, vampires, rogues, lycans, and even elves... electric sparks tingle my fingers.

When Ed stands stiffly at the sight of the door opening, those electric sparks travel through every corner of my veins.

It's power.

The balance in power has shifted.

Ed slowly turns back to me. His eyes are wide in shock as he drops Lyall to the ground. Poor Lyall can't even move now, my mate is bleeding too much and only has a few minutes to spare at this rate. But I have to be strong.

"Mars," Ed says my name in a low voice, "You're making the wrong choice."

"Enlighten me what choices do you think I have?" It takes quite an effort to keep my voice steady from all the adrenaline. At the same time, I am also keeping my doubts at bay as well. I know my mental state is not perfectly balanced yet, the softest graze can tear the thin wrapping and drowns me again. Even if I know that somehow I manage to destroy the crystal within me, the effect still haunts me though little.

However, one look at my Lyall struggling to breathe on the floor lit up a firestorm inside me.

"You all forget," Ed raises his voice so everyone in and outside the room can hear. Then he takes out a map from his breast pocket. He has a wound on his shoulder so the map is covered in blood too. Ed crumples the map with one hand and starts chanting in a language I never heard.

The moment his chants start, a large circle filled with the same symbols I saw he used on Gina appears covering the entire floor. The circle hovers just a few feet from the floor and it glows red, turning the whole room into a red chamber.

Then the symbols turn into random shapes on-air with red dots placed irregularly on them. When the map dissolves into dust on Ed's hand, I realize that those random shapes are the lands on this continent. Ed is creating a virtual, large map using his magic. I recognize the crescent shape in the middle is our Crescent Lake.

And the dots... when they move around on the magic map, I know then that they are souls. Living souls.

Ed looks at me straight to my eyes when he opens up his palm in the air. Thin threads connect those dots with Ed's fingers.

"I might not be able to destroy the world completely, but know this Mars," he says, still in a low voice, "I can kill every single soul residing in this forest. Which means everyone that is standing on that door, your Lycan, and you, yourself."

"Don't be absurd Ed–"

"You're the one being absurd," he asks me, "Would you sacrifice all these lives for your own selfish reason?"

"You should ask yourself the same question." I can tell that Ed is quite surprised that I can talk back to him. After all, he never really got to see this version of Mars until now.

He squints his eyes at me and says, "You've destroyed the crystal."

"That you put inside me without my consent, yes."

"But you don't even know how you did it," he continues, "I am the strongest person here. Even your Lycan is not a match for me. Do you think you can beat me before I flick my hand and kill everyone here? Your magic might be strong, Mars. But your doubts have prevented you from properly controlling your magic. You don't even know your own limits."

"So let me tell you, Mars," his voice gets lower, "Your magic won't be enough to beat me."

His words remind me of all the times people say to me I can't be something or someone. Those pack elders said I should never dream too high as a female. Those pack women who told me to just accept our fate as birthing machines. Even Athena told me I could not be a warrior–although I still like her as a person. Then Nari told me I will never be good enough for Lyall as Adina was.

Those are the things that filled the anchors that drowned me before.

I inhale another deep breath. My gaze is steady on Ed.

"It might not," I say to him calmly, even though my heart is beating fast. "But you also don't know the depth of Ed's love for me."

I take one step forward. Those red lines disappear and reappear as I take another step forward. Then another.

The room is silent save for the sound of ripples and water dropping from my steps. I stop only a few feet away from my ex-husband. My ex-chosen mate.

"What?"

"You took on Ed's soul to be your owner. Maybe at first, you confused Ed's love as obsession, and so you did all these things."

"What are you talking about?" Ed's voice trembles with agitation. "I am Ed! I am Edward Skyhunter!"

"No, you are not." My words are like a bomb to Ed. He freezes right in front of me, between the red threads of magic he created just moments ago. "You have Ed's memories. But you are not really him, are you? Because Ed knew what love is. And you don't. You confused love as obsession, you saw me as someone you must have because you thought that was the depth of Ed's love for me. But you are wrong."

The most powerful being in this room has gone speechless. He can only blink.

"You are not Ed," my voice breaks into a whisper. "You just borrowed his memories, his sense of being. Because he won against your previous Vampire King, and you, as a soulless vessel is programmed to copy whom you think is the strongest."

"That is not true–"

"I can see your soul, Ed." I hold his gaze while a falcon appears as golden dust just above the circle he made. The falcon dips into the circle and reemerges into the sky. It's the same falcon I used to see as Ed's soul before I even knew about my magic. But the beak is different. It's pointer now. The wings are different too, they are thicker and has feather as sharp as knives. Yet the most difference between the two falcons is the eyes. The current falcon has a streak of red on each eye.

"And it is not the Ed I knew."

Ed opens his mouth to say something but words have failed him for a moment. He looks back to those that have gathered at the door. Then turns back to me. "Then what makes you think I will spare everyone?" he asks. And for the first time, I see a glimpse of his real self, caught in action.

"If you think I am not the Ed you knew," he continues in a deep, threatening voice, "What makes you think I would act as Ed and just let go of everyone in here?"

I take another step forward without breaking our stares. Those red threads from all the dots on the map are still connected to Ed's fingers. With just one flick of a hand, he could have easily cut off all our lives effortlessly. But I know he won't.

Because when I cup his face with my hands, he leans slightly forward to enjoy my warmth. Though his eyes are fiercely bearing into mine, and he has the lives of many at risk, and though he is not my Ed...

"Because you want to be that Ed," I answer him, "Your deepest desire is to acquire whatever it is that made Ed the strongest one, what made Ed able to defeat your previous body owner. And you know that the answer to that is love."

This Ed that stands before me is never really my Ed. He is the depiction of the soulless vessel that has been programmed to take on the strongest soul it sees. And at the last moment of Ed, it saw Ed as the strongest soul. So it made a copy of Ed's soul and integrates the soul with the vessel. The soul has Ed's memories, but it is never the Ed I knew.

I wipe the speck of blood on his cheek gently. "You thought I would be the answer to your desire because you know Ed loved me from his memories. But... love is not something you can calculate and obtain through sheer force. It is a fragile affair."

Ed's heart beats calmer. His breathing is steady, though I see his eyes are hot with tears.

"Then what is it?" he whispers the question.

To answer him, I call on my power. My fingers glow gold in the dark room. The falcon that has been flying all over the room dives straight into Ed's chest. And as soon as the bird bursts into myriads of golden dust, the entire room glows white. It happens fast, perhaps only in a fraction of a second. We both close our eyes to avoid the shocking light. And we open our eyes again, I have brought Ed to the sea inside me.

Ed looks around the empty sea in confusion.

"What do you see, Ed?" I ask in a calm voice. "It's an empty sea, isn't it?"

Ed nods. "Whatever trick you are doing. It is futile–"

He stops his words with a gasp when out of the blue anchors upon anchors cuff themselves on his ankle and brings him down to the bottom of the sea at the speed of light. He lands on the bottom with a loud thud. But the anchors have made holes in the sand and are now dragging Ed slowly underground. I descend gracefully in front of him.

"This is what it feels like when you put that crystal and mentally gaslight me into accepting your offer. You were suffocating me with doubts, with fear, and you manipulated my emotion." I keep my chin high as I look down on this man. Most of his legs are already buried by the sand. He has to crawl with his hand to keep his upper body above ground.

"But love is suffocating," he says between his seethed teeth. "Love is painful. And it does manipulate emotion."

"I agree."

I wave my hand to cut off all the anchors weighing him down. With little effort, Ed can crawl out of the ground completely. He pants heavily because though he is free of anchors, it's hard for him to breathe properly deep under the sea.

"But that's only one side of love," I tell him. Then I wave my hand again to clear up the fog in the sea. It's absurd to have fog in the sea, but hey, this is the world of my making. "The other side is wonderful, full of colors, and most of all, full of life." I show Ed the colorful corals, the diverse sea beings, and the dynamic system of love.

"Love brings life, Ed. And I have a sea of love to give, yet you only saw it as an empty sea, which means you don't deserve my love. This sea is the embodiment of my soul, my love. And I won't waste time, or waste myself giving love to those that only seek to drain the love out of me and leave me to suffocate on my own."

"Lyall also left you!" Ed cries out, "He left you alone!"

"No," I answer him. "Lyall made me see myself the way he saw me. He loves me and he makes me love myself too. And because of that, he returned life to this otherwise empty sea. And because of that also, he deserves every drop of the water I can give."

A huge ripple starts from Ed's chest. It grows to fill the entire sea. Then I hear Ed gasps as if finally he is able to breathe.

"Love is suffocating. But it also liberates us," I say, "You only suffocated me. You can't liberate me the way Lyall does."

"So what is it?" Ed raises his voice as he punches the bottom of the sea hard. So hard that the sea trembles for a moment. But the sea is not afraid of him. Not anymore. "What is love? Why can't I have it as Ed had it? And why does it fuel someone to be so strong?"

His voice is a plea of desperation. All along, he only ever wants to understand love. And I pity him. I really do.

No more smug grins, no more manipulative words. Even the most powerful being can crumble because of love.

"Love is..."

I switch the surrounding sea into the starry night sky. There is a tent in the middle of the night storm. Inside the tent, a brown-skinned beautiful woman is making sure a completely paralyzed man stays warm with blankets. There is a moment where the two look at each other, and though each has hurt the other in the past, at this moment, they only feel warm. It's Luna Gina and Alpha Mason.

Then I change the scenery to the moment I saw a live birth right in front of me. And then when I helped Elisa with her baby blues. I also made Ed watch how Lyall comforted me after I got affected by Elisa's baby blues.

I made Ed watch the bond between Sky and me grew. And I made him understand how deep I had fallen in love with learning magic, something I could never do in my old pack.

Lastly, I made him see how I transformed Lyall's barren field into an oasis. The last scene I showed him is when I cradled Lyall's head in his lion form under the big oak tree in Lyall's mind.

After that, we arrive back at my sea. Ed looks at me, flabbergasted.

"I can't make any sense of it..."

"Because it's not meant to make any sense. You feel it, Ed. And you can't force it." I extend my hand to him to help him stand, which he takes. "And once you feel it, you'll know."

The sea transforms one final time into lava land. The ground is charcoal black and is hot. The cracks are filled with red lava. In the far corner of the land, a large mountain is erect, overflowing with magma. There is no life in this land, and even the sky is dull, colored in lifeless grey. This is the current Ed's state of the soul.

"I can't give you what you need, Ed," I tell him, "But killing all these people and continuing to do horrible things won't get you what you need either. You seek to be strong, but your soul is crumbling."

"I... I..." he stutters for the first time. "I have chosen the wrong soul..."

"No," I shake my head. "Ed was right. Love can fuel someone to be so strong. You just haven't found it yet. But you can."

He spreads his fingers on the black ground beneath him. "Who would love a twisted soul like mine?"

"Who knows?" I shrug. "Love is an undetermined abstract paradoxical thing that is unpredictable. The more you try to chain it, the more it wants to break free. The more you try to destroy it, the more it blooms inside you. Yet it has no visible pattern."

Ed stands slowly. He looks me in the eye. "You're right. Love can fuel someone to be so strong. It's not just Ed. But you also... have become strong because of love."

"I'm sorry," he whispers. For a second, I am a bit taken aback because the way he apologized is so like the Ed I knew. Ed was always a man who could own up to his mistakes, and he was not too prideful to apologize. That was one of the things that I loved about him.

"I'm sorry too," I whisper, "Even though you are not my Ed, you're still Ed. Things have changed. And we can't go back to the way we used to."

For the second time, I extend a hand to him. "We can figure things out slowly," I say, "You can find love too, Ed. A love that burns but heals at the same time. A love that leaves you gasping for air but fills you with warmth too. A love that makes you grow to be the best version of yourself and makes you able to defy the impossible. I hope you will get to experience that kind of love too."

Ed doesn't respond to me. But he takes my hand. At the same time, the same eagle appears in the dull sky and flies above us, before it dives into Ed straight in the chest once again. The eagle bursts into golden dust and then white light explodes in front of our eyes.

In a fraction of a second, we are back in the same room. The red glow from Ed's magic has diminished, returning the room to its natural lighting. In the middle of the room, I stand holding Ed's hand. We both look at each other for what seems like a long time.

Then Ed breaks the silence. "I understand now that while love can make us strong, it can also make us weak. And if I succumb to the darkness love can bring, I will be weak."

He lets go of my hand but keeps his gaze on me. His eyes glittered with tears. "I am so sorry, Mars, for all the pain I caused you. I wanted the love you had for Ed, not realizing that I am only making you suffer. I thought that was the only way to gain the love I had lost because of my death." He still talks as if he is the same Ed all along, though at least now he doesn't deny the fact that he is not the same Ed.

"You didn't know."

He shakes his head. "I didn't."

Ed looks back to the people staring at him from the door. Then again, he stares straight into my eyes. "I only sought love to be the strongest being. And because of that same reasoning, I prevent myself from achieving love."

"Start with earning people's trust, Ed," I tell him with a soft smile, "Open your heart and you might be surprised at what you'll find."

I am shocked to see one tear falling from his cheek. "You don't understand," he whispers in a trembling voice, "I used to want it to be the strongest version of myself. But now that you have shown me what love should be... I want it... I want it."

It doesn't take me too long to understand what he means. He no longer wants to seek love just to be stronger now. He will seek it to reward his soul.

"It's not too late–"

Ed cuts off my words by shaking his head. "But it's too late with you, isn't it?"

I don't answer.

Ed scoffs in defeat. "I didn't even flinch when you gave away our daughter to that lycan. Well, your daughter with the previous Ed. But since I have his memories, technically she is my daughter too."

"I thought I only needed you and it would be fine to send your daughter away if it's what it takes to keep you," he slaps his head hard. "Oh! I should have done things differently!" He slaps his head again. And again. And again. Like a madman trying to get the worm eating his brain out of his head.

"Ed!" I grab his hands and stop him from hurting himself anymore. When he stops, I can clearly see another tear coming down his cheek.

"I can feel his emotions too, you know. Because his soul is here, though you might say it's a different version, I feel what he is feeling," he says. I know he means Ed's emotions. My Ed's emotions. "And I feel awful now that I have made you go through such horrible things. I'm sorry, Mars."

I wipe the tears on his face. I am just about to tell him I will help him, that things will be better, when he pushes me away.

"I'm sorry," he says in a louder voice, "I'm sorry..." Then the shadows emerge from the ground and envelop him in darkness. In just a millisecond, he disappears into the thin air right in front of me.

I blink once.

He is gone.

"The other souls he used to copy must have been a Shadow Walker," Sky makes a comment.

Then I blink twice.

My feet move before my mind can catch up to the fact that Lyall is still dying. My hands reach Lyall's face and I cradle him in my lap. My eyes let down tears the moment I see how terrible his condition is.

At my movement, the people in the room move too. Jen, Athena, and Sky run to my side to look at Lyall. While Mason runs behind me to get to Gina who I believe has passed out.

I brush Lyall's hair gently with trembling lips. My throat hurts as I say, "Please... please let me be not late."

Putting my hand on Lyall's chest, I take a deep breath. My fingers glow white and I close my eyes, searching for that warm and calming rhythmic sound I love.

I pray to the Goddess that I can still hear Lyall's heartbeat.

'Please...'

–to be continued–