“What is that?”
Even Lis has gone utterly still. Her face is unreadable.
Moe pushes at the barrier with both hands, staring as though she has forgotten how to breathe.
Eragon sees it too. He underestimated me.
Hell, I underestimated myself.
The more the crowd bashes him, the more his composure seems to break.
Then all his restraint suddenly vanishes as he shouts, “Enough!”
That word shakes the cathedral. A gust of wind tears through the space, strong enough to be felt even outside the arena as the crowd is pushed back from the barrier.
Eragon summons his shadows once more, this time, pouring all his remaining energy into this attempt.
The walls blacken and columns disappear beneath writhing darkness. The floor itself seems to liquefy as his domain expands outward in a flood so vast it swallows nearly the entire battlefield, converging above him into something enormous—a towering mass of shadow and screaming faces and bladed limbs, a construct so colossal it brushes the cathedral rafters and turns the whole arena black beneath its presence.
I drop to one knee from the overwhelming pressure he exudes.
By the Seven…
In a way, this reminds me of the individual from the Lake.
My senses begin to falter: my breathing slows down, each inhale raking on the inside of my throat. Even my vision starts to swim.
What is this…
Within that darkness, Eragon’s shape is distinguished by a dull glow within muted shadows.
“You should have died quietly,” he snarls at me.
The he unleashes hell upon me. The entire monstrosity crashes toward me in a wave of annihilation large enough to erase half the cathedral.
My eyes widen. My body is in too poor of a condition to be able to avoid that incoming cloud of pure power.
But once more, that strange new ability within me manifests. Something swirls in my vision, and I see it.
Buried deep within that monstrosity’s core, something glints beckoningly. It’s a small fault line, almost imperceptible even to my new sight. But somehow, Iknow. It’s a convergence point where too much energy has been gathered too quickly, too recklessly. It’s his weakness. And my chance to escape this madness.
I pull myself to my feet. My body protests. The wounds that had started to heal rupture again, bleeding profusely. Every drop of blood that falls to the ground is a drop of energy lost.
Still, my confidence never falters.
I glance at Moe and give her a small nod. She smiles uncertainly. That’s all I need to see this through.
The monstrous darkness descends at incredible speed.
Stone explodes all around me, pillars crashing to the ground. One shadows catches my side and rips flesh from rib. Another opens the skin on my back. Then a third nearly severs my arm.
Still I run forward, towards the belly of the beast.
Eragon’s eyes narrow at my daring move, his brow quirking in a mocking gesture as if he’s thinking I’m running straight towards my death.
Wrong.
I gather shadows around my hand, shielding my knuckles as I dive forward, aiming for the center. This strange new ability guides my motions in minute details as I strike at the base of the energetic fracture.
