Dalkhan stood like a towering monument of devastation, the air around him shimmering with heat.Power crackled off his skin in visible waves, and shadows pooled at his feet like spilled ink.
His eyes were voids—not empty but consuming everything they touched.
My heart stopped beating.The stone in my hand burned, its pulse erratic and wild.
The raw, unchecked power rolling off Dalkhan should’ve had me scrambling through the Veil without a backward glance.
But I couldn’t move.
Because for all his wrath—for all the devastation that radiated from his skin, his eyes went soft the moment they found me.
He lifted a hand, reaching out for me across the distance.
I couldn’t breathe.
Theo and Tavrik were screaming—their mouths moving, gesturing frantically toward the Veil—but I couldn’t hear them over the roaring in my ears.
Dalkhan took a step forward, the ground cracking beneath his feet.Shadows twisted around his legs like dark serpents, and fire pulsed from his skin in rhythmic waves.Embers drifted into the night like dying stars.
When he spoke, his voice was neither a roar nor a demand, but a broken whisper.
“Don’t leave me, Elira.”He took another step.“Ineedyou.”
I had thought his rage would be the worst of it.That the firestorm and fury would be what shattered me.
But it wasn’t.It was this—the way he reached for me with shaking fingers, like I was already slipping away.
My hand hovered above the Veil, brushing against the barrier.The magic was cold like ice, and beyond it the pull of the mortal world was calling me home.
But I couldn’t look away from him.Couldn’t do anything but stand as my heart tore itself apart.
His voice deepened.“Nothing will take you from me.You have always been mine.”
The wind rose to a howl, tearing past the trees and ripping leaves from their branches.The ground split, fissures glowing with molten heat.The very fabric of the realm straining and buckling under the pressure of his power.
His advance was relentless.“Neither the Heavens nor the earth will stand in my way.”
A violent tremor rumbled in the air.
“I will shatter the Veil itself before I let you go.I will break everything, destroy everything, until there is nothing left but you and me.”
Flames roared to life around him, casting his features in a flickering, golden glow.The heat reached me even from this distance.
Then his rage began to fade.
The grief in his eyes gutted me, so deep it could’ve hollowed out mountains and dried up oceans.
“Stay.”His voice broke, becoming unrecognisable.“Stay with me.”
I wanted to step forward, to let his arms wrap around me and pull me back into the storm.My heart reached for him, straining against my ribs.
But it was too late.
His expression crumbled, giving way to naked panic.He lunged forward, hand outstretched, an anguished scream tearing from his chest.His power lashed out, shadows stretching toward me like grasping fingers.
But I had already stepped back.
The Veil swallowed me whole.
