"What is the bargain?"

"It's quite simple. One of her rings? It's the reason why you can't kindle the emotional spectrum inside her. It's constraining her emotional range in a very twisted way. If removed, the Glow would work normally, which would mean years if not decades of working to get a proper hold on the power she needs. While she is suddenly very, very aware of the billions of lives that she simply ignored. Despair is going to savor that regardless, but I want to give her something more sophisticated. It even works on magical principles so it's not gratuitously sadistic. She can get the power now and get to her destination faster. But she is going to need to make a sacrifice. In this case, she won't be able to return to any of the many worlds she visited before, even her native one. Metaphorically, she is going to lock all the doors and throw the keys away."

"What about my mates? Will they be able to go to those worlds?"

"Not by using your charming little key, no. And to clarify, the precise effect is that the key won't be able to access any worlds that it opened doors to between the moment you picked it up and the moment you leave this universe. And if you find yourself in one of those worlds the effect is going to be similar to wearing the ring of heart-shielding: nothing but your mates is going to matter. No one else is going to be affected, but once again you're going to walk through atrocities and each tortured soul is going to be a dust speck."

"I'll take it."

"Of course, now give me your hand. Killala, prepare the light show. Do it when I remove the ring from her finger."

Desire takes Sadde's hand, almost gently, and then removes the heart-shielding ring crushing it in her palm in a fluid motion.

Killala's is already intensifying her glow and if it felt intense before, it now feels overwhelming, even to a vampire brain.

It's light. It's emotion. It's power.

The light is permeating and echoing through Sadde's mind like a meteor hitting a planet.

Her self becomes a prism to that all-encompassing light. Fragmenting it. She feels from deep inside.

                                                                           The absolute fury and wrath at the unforgiving universe that did this to her-

                                             The understanding empathy that feels the pain and joy of others like part of oneself-

                       The paralyzing terror that she won't ever seen her mates again, nor her own world, to have it all for nothing-

                                                       The sheer optimism that better things are yet to come and that she can bring forth brighter days-

                 The powerful resolve to face the challenges anyway, whatever they are and however strong they may be she will try-

                                                       The overwhelming hunger that demands you to take what is rightfully yours-

                                                                                And the love, the hole in her heart that led her through a journey through thousands of doors.

                         The deepest pain she's ever felt, yet the one thing she would never give up-

Somehow the light kicks up a notch and gets stronger and it fragments further inside her.

                                                               MINE! MINE! MINE!

                                                                                                      BURN! BURN! BURN!

                          EVERY SOUL IS PRECIOUS!

                                                                                                                                           ALL WILL BE WELL!

                                                                                    NOOOO!!!

                               AS LONG YOU CAN!

                                                                            FOLLOW YOUR HEART!

And something latches on to the last one; Sadde has a sense that was Desire. The light starts to... not diminish but focus on more specific parts of its fragments.

                                                                      BURN!

                                                                                                                      MINE!

                                           NO!                  EVERY SOUL!

                                                                                AS LONG YOU CAN!

                                            ALL WILL BE WELL!

                                                                                               FOLLOW YOUR HEART!

And something else happens, a connection between the fragments until they become a single unified message:

                                             ALL WILL BE WELL AS LONG YOU CAN FOLLOW YOUR HEART!

Sadde's aura glows mostly violet, but with hints of blue and green and it's beautiful.

...it doesn't offer any help at the sudden realization of how many lives she failed to help. How many she condemned through sheer negligence.

She falls.

And she stands again and screams.

And she runs ten miles away, then twenty miles back, and she flies, and she writhes in the ground in agony, and digs a hole and stays in there and whimpers—

—and stops moving. She just stays there, nerveless, still.

She remembers everything—

She remembers how she passed by a million civilizations, a million peoples, a million million sufferings. With crystal clear quality she can recall-

That world dying of a gruesome plague, she crossed a boy carrying a young girl in his arms, she did nothing. That world could have handled newborns trivially with their technology, yet she did nothing. Plenty of other worlds could've handled vampirism and she didn't even consider-

The magically gifted people from "Torturotopia" begged her to evacuate them, at least take someone, at least one child-

She passed by a girl dying in a ditch, it was raining but Sadde was visible enough that the girl managed to ask for help before coughing up blood-

Thousands of hands reaching up for her, begging for help-

A family watching their home burn, all safe, but their belongings lost. They didn't even know Sadde passed by them-

A single lift to the right place, a minute or a second of Sadde's attention and lives could've been-

And not everything can be blamed on the ring. Even before that-

She simply left Sam without an explanation, for all she knows that place is barbaric enough to execute him for associating with witchcraft-

There was a homeless person in the market where she got her magical rings. It would've been trivial to give him a small fortune or even just an apple-

The very first world she came across could have benefited tremendously from just one hour of Sadde explaining advanced technologies to someone-

And that 1989 Earth, Sadde could've warned them of so many disasters to come-

So much and she did nothing-

So many and she didn't even try-

The world turns indigo and it takes her a moment to notice that it's her aura reacting.

Killala lands next to Sadde's hole and looks worried.

She doesn't notice. Not anything. No light, no nothing, only her own thoughts, her own memories, one after the other. She could've—could've—she starts making a million excuses, one for each world, and they crumble before her eyes as she realises the magnitude of her selfishness, of the horror she let by—

—but she couldn't. Couldn't. She wasn't strong enough, she isn't strong enough, and one day they'll fix those worlds, one day—

—but that day is not today.

Desire is long gone and Killala senses that Sadde should work through some of that on her own.

To pass the time she practices with the Glow, creating a multi-layered dome around them in different shades of green, telling a simplified story.

She'll be there for several hours.

Then when she emerges Sadde will find a very pretty dome.

Yeah she doesn't give a shit.

"Tell me this was worth the price. What do I do now?"

"You're supposed to focus on the feeling of love. Desire called it 'following your heart', which I think is appropriate, just let that part of the spectrum glow brightly and tug you towards the right direction until it pulls you. It shouldn't be too complicated, only intense."

...okay... she tries that.

The aura flares, the glow emanates even more strongly from the vampire's unbeating heart and from her chest a line of light extends to the horizon. It tugs at Sadde, and makes Sadde feel like one of her mates is tugging her by her hand, asking her to come.

It's surprisingly easy, in fact it's so easy that Sadde might do it by accident if she doesn't hold back and leave Killala without saying a goodbye.

...she barely cares.

But she still does, a bit. "Thank you. Thank you so much—I owe you everything, what can I ever—"

"Don't worry. I am more than glad to help. ...You now have the power of the emotional spectrum in you. I am not sure how much you can learn on your own, but if you learn anything please use it responsibly."

She looks in the direction the light is taking her, then at the dome, then at the light, then at Killala, then at the light again. "I—I—"

The dome is dismissed. Killala looks upwards in the same direction. "I am sure you will find them and I am sure they are eager to meet you again. Please go, and let yourself be happy again, at least someday."