“I’m going to pull the Umbral from you,” I explained.
“Where is he?” she asked in a voice that rattled like broken glass.
“Cirian?” I guessed, pulling the cord taut once more and flexing the tension. It showed no sign of giving. “He’s here, we came as?—”
“Listen carefully, the Umbral cannot take hold of him. Everything I’ve done has been to keep the darkness away from him. You must leave it here with me.”
“Leave it? But you’ll be consumed by it.”
She shook her head, tightening her grip on the tether to pull herself up on her knees. “This is the way it must be, Azrael. The Umbral cannot take hold of him, so it must stay with me.”
“He’ll never let that happen,” I argued.
“He must. And how kind of the Source that you are the one who it brought to me now. I’m glad it’s you, Azrael.”
“Why?”
A smile weighted with all the sorrow of a life led spread across her lips. “You know better than most that sacrifices must be made to protect those we love.”
“I don’t understand.”
A tremor shot through Sancha’s body, those tendrils of darkness latching onto her arm once more to pull it back to the ritual motions, but she fought to hold onto the cord with all of her might.
“What comes next is as it was always meant to be. Whatever happens, you must not let go of this tether. Hold it together, for if it unravels, then it will be the end of us all. Do you understand?”
How could I possibly? But I didn’t need to comprehend her warning to trust that it was the truth. This was the most powerful Magi alive, and she was entrusting me to keep the person she loved safe.
Grounding myself, I twisted my soles into the stone beneath me, bracing myself as best I could. The ripple of magic released into my muscles moved in a shimmering wave across my body, suffusing every part with the magic I’d held in reserve.
“I’m ready,” I told Sancha, wrapping whatever slack I could manage in the tether around my forearm.
She nodded, her uncovered eye glistening at the edges. “He won’t understand right away. But he will, one day.”
I didn’t get a chance to question her meaning as the blinding glow of the crystal structure filled my senses all at once, white-hot light washing the entire chamber in its brilliance. Turning away from the painful glow, I watched as the dark ichor dripped from Sancha’s body, spilling out at the base of the crystalline mass. It quickly latched onto it, the thick liquid somehow permeating the thick, rock-like material and spreading along the interior surfaces.
Sancha groaned in effort as she pulled her other arm free from the control of the Umbral’s grasp, latching onto the tether with both hands now.
At once, I could feel her presence there in my mind, just as the others had been able to when connected with the tether.
“What comes next was always meant to be,”she repeated, words echoing through my mind.
The brilliant light inside the structure began to dim, and for a moment, my heart sank at the thought that it had been eclipsed by the darkness, but then my attention was drawn back to the woman who knelt at the base of the structure, as her body began to glow with the same blinding light. Sancha was almost too brilliant to behold, and I had to glance down at the ground for fear that I might be blinded.
“The Source’s blessing will keep him safe. Hold strong, rebel.”
The cord in my hand burned white-hot all at once, and I had to grit my teeth to keep from crying out. That light from Sancha had burned its way up the tether, coiling around my arms, and entering my body where it pooled in my gut like molten metal, searing me from the inside.
The pain would have washed me away if I allowed it. It was worse than anything that had come before. Shattered bones and ignored heats were nothing compared to what coursed through my body at that moment.
But pain had been the one constant in my life. From the rod of correction when I was a child at Chateau Greene, to the hunger pangs of being an Urchin, to the instructive pain of Rudderkin’s training fields, and the constant bloodshed of fighting a rebellion—I had endured it all.
So, I did not allow this pain to wash me away. Instead, I embraced it as my oldest friend, allowing it inside as it tore through my veins, and I repeated Sancha’s words over and over.
What comes next was always meant to be.
The light that had burned so brightly inside the crystal spires had dimmed completely, Sancha’s body dimming as well, as allof that searing heat pressed from the inside of me, threatening to burst through at a moment’s notice.
It took every molecule of my being to hold it in place, to keep it from rupturing my entire existence. I was going to fracture at any moment, ceasing to be Azrael and becoming whatever this horrible, beautiful light was.
