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Vaerith smiles faintly. “You feel it, don’t you? The hierarchy. The call. The appetite above yours.”

“Careful,” I say. “You’re starting to sound jealous.”

His smile thins. “It will consume what you contaminated.”

“It’ll consume your district first.”

“Necessary fire clears rot.”

Isolde steps up beside me, rain streaking down her face. “Your own correspondence names the ritual as a containment failure risk. You knew it could breach beyond estate grounds.”

Vaerith’s eyes flash. “Still waving papers at the end of the world?”

“Yes,” she says. “They have been more effective than your wards.”

A laugh breaks from somewhere near the trade hall. Someone else curses. The crowd’s fear does not vanish, but it shifts again, bending toward anger. Vaerith feels it. I can see him decide to abandon persuasion for force.

The summoning circle flares.

The veil tears a little wider.

The forming devourer’s pressure rolls over us, and this time several people behind me scream. The hunger inside me rises with an answering snarl that vibrates through my bones. I plant my boots and force the energy down into the stone instead of forward into the thing’s throat.

Isolde touches my wrist.

The bond steadies with a sharp pulse.

“Anchor,” she says.

“Working on it.”

“Faster would be lovely.”

“You always this demanding during apocalyptic weather?”

“Only when the occasion calls for charm.”

I laugh once, rough and brief, and the sound keeps the hunger mine for one more breath.

Then I walk into the courtyard.

Not charging.

Not lunging.

Walking.

Vaerith’s guards lift weapons, but none of them advance. Maybe they remember the burned circle. Maybe they see the thing tearing upward behind their master and finally understand there are worse things than disobedience. Maybe they are just cowards with excellent timing.

I pass them without looking away from the forming devourer.

The summoning pressure batters my chest with every step. Heat crawls over my skin, and the rain striking my shoulders turns to steam. The hunger stretches toward the breach, eager to meet the threat, eager to bite into something large enough to matter.

I stop between the forming demon and the estate entrance.

Behind me, Vaerith’s house rises with all its polished windows, sealed archives, terrified servants, stolen ledgers, and generations of beautiful cruelty. In front of me, the devourer pushes against the veil, vast and hungry enough to make the ground bow.

This is the line.