But I cannot not turn.
If I turn now,everythingwill unravel.
14
Cost Unseen
The Vargrún howls in my blood. Mournful. Keening. Savage. Madness rips through my spine, and the runes on my body scream back. I grit my teeth through the wave of heat then let out a roar—detonating the rending pressure in my chest. My hands clench around the jaws of the varkhound before me. I rip it apart, shredding it to pieces, flaying bone from black-slimed flesh. The scent of burned mana and rot fills my nostrils.
But the fever isn’t why I throw the monster’s corpse as far as it will go. The cry of the wolf at the nape of my neck isn’t why I stumble and stagger. It’s the break. The shattering.
Of the world.
Ofher.
A seizing in the center of my ribcage, not muscle or bone, but somethingdeeper—a bond pulled taut, then yanked like a noose. The moment it strikes, the air around me hisses. The world tilts sideways, and my vision swims red.
“Auryn,” I choke out, my eyes already seeking her, my heart lurching.
Steel clangs behind me. Shouts. Orders. None of them matter. My runes flare to life, igniting down my arms and across my back like molten fire.
“Raido,” I command, tasting the azure mist of mana as it condenses on my tongue. Morvane hisses in response, blazing at the rune along my thigh.
The world slows to a crawl. I take a breath, push my weight back on my heels, then move. Faster than a blade. Faster than breath. Faster thanthe thought of losing her. I soar through rows of tents and war wagons. Warriors call after me, and even their chant sounds slow.
“Re…sh…Re…sh…Re…sh…Re…sh…”
The ground shakes, the tremors rising into my skull. Or is it my body that is shaking now? My heart, which should know only one rhythm, now twists and writhes inside me. Again, I feel her breaking, and all sound vanishes. She is in my skin now, etched deep in my awareness. Burned into me like my runes. Where she goes, a silver trail follows, and I let it guide me now.
I clear the final barricade—
And the skytears open.
The rift looms above the tetheryard, split wide and weeping agony and shadow. Mana surges in every direction, wild and sharp, biting at my skin.
In the center of the storm—
Her.
Auryn, radiant as the sun breaking through smoke, arms lifted to the sky, silver hair whipping behind her like a banner of silk. She sits astride Astenos, who crouches low and furious beneath her, his hooves stained with gore.
And around her—
Chaos.
Screaming varkhounds and horses. Screaming men. The scent of blood, rotting flesh, and shattered magic. A Reskala warrior shrieks as his spine snaps beneath a writhing packmother with too many arms. A horse rears up, froth and blood streaming from its mouth as it is ripped to pieces.
And yet she stands.
Unmoving.
Singing withno sound.
Threads of mana and light glow in her palms—silver and gold,searing through the Rift like stitches pulled too tight. She isn’t fighting.
She issealing.
And something inside of me screams to stop her. She's killing herself. This is far beyond stopping a river or blooming some dead flowers back to life.
