"Pathetic," the Collector says, dodging my next strike with ease. Where before my shadows had substance, now they pass through him like mist. "Three hundred years of hunting me, and this is how it ends? Dissolving for a human you've known for days?"
I launch myself at him again, but my form won't hold. The attack that should have been devastating disperses before impact. The Collector doesn't even move this time; my shadows part around him like water around stone.
"Master!" Mikaere roars, throwing himself between us despite the crystalline spear still lodged in his shoulder. His fourfists connect with the Collector's form, actually forcing him back a step. But the Collector's hand reshapes into a blade, slicing through one of Mikaere's arms. It falls, shattering on impact.
"Your loyalty is touching," the Collector tells him. "I'll preserve you next to your master's remains."
Through fragmenting consciousness, I feel Päivi abandon her attempts to hold the realm together. The library's entire collection of knowledge condenses into her form as she materializes beside us, no longer paper but something harder, sharper, weaponized information.
"You were weak even when we worked together," she hisses at the Collector, and that stops me cold. Worked together?
The Collector laughs. "Together? Is that what you tell yourself, librarian? You catalogued my research. Nothing more."
Päivi attacks, reality itself bending around her strikes. For a moment, the Collector actually struggles, his crystal form cracking under the assault of pure, concentrated knowledge. But I'm falling apart too fast to capitalize on the opening.
"Two hundred and forty-seven victims," the Collector says, catching Päivi's next attack and freezing her solid with a touch. She shatters into a thousand paper fragments that struggle to reform. "Do you remember their names, Shadow Walker? I do. Each one. Marina, who begged for her children. Senna, who sang until her throat crystallized. Vera, who."
"Stop." My voice barely exists.
"And Melara, of course. The artist. She had such beautiful eyes when they finally went still." He steps over Mikaere, who's trying to rise with three arms. "Her sister has the same eyes. I wonder if they'll crystallize the same way."
Rage gives me a moment of solidity, enough to grab his throat. But my fingers pass through him, and he backhands me with casual force. I scatter across the chamber, consciousness spreading thin.
"You're dying," he observes. "How disappointing. I'd hoped to preserve you fighting, not fading." He turns toward the door, then pauses. "The girl will return for you. They always do, these humans with their attachments. When she does, I'll complete my collection."
The realm shudders. Cracks spread across the walls, the ceiling, reality itself fracturing without my will to maintain it. The Collector glances around with mild interest.
"Ah. The cascade begins. How long before your entire realm collapses, I wonder? Hours? Minutes?" He steps toward the breach he created. "I'll wait in the gallery where her sister stands. Tell the girl, if you still can when she returns, that Melara is conscious. Still aware. Still hoping for rescue that will never come."
He leaves through the tear in reality, ice sealing it behind him.
Mikaere drags himself to where my consciousness pools in shadow. His three remaining arms try to gather me, hold me together, but I slip through his fingers like smoke.
"Master, please. Hold on. She'll return."
Päivi reforms partially, pages scattered but voice intact. "I'm... trying to stabilize... the framework. But without his core consciousness..."
I feel myself spreading thinner, thoughts becoming harder to hold. The realm groans, architecture twisting as physics fails. Somewhere, through the fading bond, I sense Yorika's fury, her desperation.
She's coming back.
But there might be nothing left to save.
YORIKA
The teleportation drops me in the courtyard.
I hit stone hard enough to crack my knees, bile rising as my stomach tries to remember which way is up. The forced transport wasn't gentle. Nezavek threw me across dimensions to save me.
When my vision clears, I wish it hadn't.
The realm is dying.
Not metaphorically. Actually dying. The wall to my left flickers between solid stone and empty void. Gravity pulls in three different directions at once. A staircase winds upward into nothing, its top half existing somewhere else entirely. Through tears in reality, I glimpse other worlds: a desert of glass, an ocean hanging in the sky, a city that burns without smoke.
I push to my feet, and the ground tilts forty-five degrees. Only my training keeps me from sliding into a crack that opens onto stars.
The bond pulses in my chest, weak and stuttering. Through it, I feel Nezavek fragmenting, his consciousness scattering like ash in wind. He's dissolving. Actually dissolving. And I'm here in the courtyard while he dies in his chambers.
