Shade bowed his head once.
A warrior’s vow.
Gerick looked back at Myanin.
Every version of her seemed to exist at once inside his mind.
The warrior.
The survivor.
The furious female who sharpened grief into sarcasm because vulnerability offended her on a spiritual level.
The female who had trusted him enough to rest beside him in silence.
The female who had tried so desperately to love him correctly.
And Great Luna help him ...she had loved him.
Just not in the way fate eventually demanded.That truth no longer felt like betrayal.Only sadness.
Gerick stepped fully into the tear.Pain exploded through him instantly.
Magic tore across his skin, silver and gold and black colliding violently as the foundations reacted to his choice.
“Myanin,” he said.
She was sobbing openly now.
He hated it.
“I need you to hear me.”
“No.”
“Myanin.”
“No!”
The command cracked through the collapsing corridor hard enough that even the Nushtonia stilled briefly around them.
She froze.
Gerick smiled softly.“There you are.”
Her breath hitched.
“You were never a burden to love,” he told her.“Not once.”
The corruption slammed upward again.
The foundations shook violently.
And far away ...
a child cried for the first time.
Every realm stopped.
